Surplus suffering: the search for help when a child has mental‐health issues

Abstract

Social theorists have demonstrated the growth in dominance of two central discourses for understanding the ways that children's mental‐health issues are understood today –medicalization and intensive mothering. In this context, this paper reports on a qualitative interview‐based study of 16 mothers whose children had received a diagnosis with one or more mental‐health or developmental issues such as Tourette's, bipolar, anxiety, depression, autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is based on the retrospective accounts of mothers given during interviews, from the time when they noticed what they thought to be unusual behaviours and decided to try to normalize and accommodate to their children's behaviours and then to the various steps they took to seek help. The paper begins with a description of the sorts of problems that mothers noticed. It then moves to the strategies mothers then took to cope, manage and socialize their children. When these failed, mothers sought professional assistance with understanding, remediation and/or a diagnosis for the child(ren). Mothers described uncertainty, confusion and contradictions as they unremittingly sought help. This process may be called surplus suffering. The relevance of the theoretical issues is then reconsidered along with the substantive and practical consequences of the findings.

Examining ideology and agency within intensive motherhood literature

“…Some studies reflect newer interpretations of IM that focus on the notion of “risk society” and medicalization. For example, Afflerback et al (2013) assert that IM “requires the ‘good mother’ to take measures to minimize potential risks posed to her children” (p. 388), and Clarke (2013), who studies mothers of children with mental health issues, expresses concern that mothers are “expected to work ceaselessly, even at great costs to their own well-being (Furedi, 2008; Hays, 1997)” (Clarke, 2013, p. 217). To sum, IM scholars consistently cite and echo Hays (1997) on how women adhere to IM while applying tenets of the ideology toward new areas of study.…”

“…Maternal adherence to IM has been explored based on women's employment status (Johnston & Swanson, 2007; Liss et al, 2013; Loyal et al, 2017; Walls et al, 2016), economic status (Elliott & Bowen, 2018; Lavee & Benjamin, 2015), and other social conditions such as migrant (Peng & Wong, 2013) and incarcerated mothers (Granja et al, 2015). Scholars have also examined IM adherence across life stages, from first-time mothers (Sevon, 2012) to middle-aged mothers (Gunderson & Barrett, 2017), and in different circumstances, such as single mothers (Layne, 2015), mothers suffering from postpartum depression (Cesar et al, 2018; Scharp & Thomas, 2017), and mothers of special-needs children (Clarke, 2013, 2015). Other special interests include mothers’ attitudes toward food purchases and feeding (Afflerback et al, 2013; Mackendrick, 2014), vaccines (Reich, 2014), religious devotion (Gallagher et al, 2013), and leisure time (O’Brien et al, 2017) in the IM context.…”

“Taming the Beast”: Exploring the Lived Experience of Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis Using a Life History Approach

“…Although these phases are sequential, and each builds on the previous, Braun and Clarke (2006Clarke ( , 2013 emphasise that thematic analysis is typically a recursive process, with movement back and forth between different phases. In fact, some of the phases can often blur together, rather than having clear lines of separation, as the researcher moves around the data and explores different labels and themes.…”

“…In this work, the authors conceptualised Surplus Suffering as the extra, unnecessary suffering that can result from the HCPs and the health care system, in addition to the inherent physical suffering already resulting from cancer and its treatment (Clarke & Fletcher, 2005). Clarke went on to explore further themes of "Surplus Suffering" as a key component in studies of people living with Asperger's syndrome (Clarke & van Amerom, 2007), parenting a child with mental health issues (Clarke, 2012) and childhood mental health issues (Clarke, 2013).…”

“…From the study participants' interviews and stories, and from the literature on the phenomena of suffering, I have adapted a definition of Surplus Suffering from the work of James and Clarke (2001), Clarke and Fletcher (2005), Clarke & Amerom (2007) and Clarke (2012Clarke ( , 2013 to fit a conceptual model of living with RRMS:…”