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      ‘Let’s talk, but not about that’: How parents who self-report as having had depression respond discursively to reading children’s picture books on parental depression

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      BABINEAU-DISSERTATION-2020.pdf (1.336Mb)
      Date
      2020-09-25
      Author
      Babineau, Christine
      ORCID
      0000-0003-1393-8092
      Type
      Thesis
      Degree Level
      Doctoral
      Metadata
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      Abstract
      Whether and how people talk about mental distress has been a focus of prominent public-health efforts designed to decrease stigmatizing of mental illness (e.g., Bell’s “Let’s Talk” campaign). In the context of parental depression, researchers have oriented to exploring the risks that such depression can pose for offspring. However, this discursive preoccupation with children’s vulnerability could work against public-health efforts to promote open discussion of parental depression. Given the public focus on increasing discussion about mental distress, I investigated the following question: How do individuals who have had depression while parents (regardless of whether formally or self-diagnosed) interact with, respond to, and evaluate their readings of parental depression in children’s books on the topic? To do so, I conducted interviews (two per participant) with 12 parents (4 fathers and 8 mothers; age range: 25¬¬¬¬¬¬-67 years; average age: 41.5 years) who experienced depression during parenthood. In each interview, parents read and responded to 1-2 children’s books with explicit themes of parental depression (3 books in total across interviews). I employed discourse analysis, focusing on how parents used language to structure their responses. Parents constructed sharing related to mental illness as valuable, to varying degrees, but also risky and requiring caution. Participants creatively mobilized discursive devices to re-frame silences in ways that resisted positioning the parent as “person who silences mental illness” and “parent who might place their offspring at risk through exposure to mental illness.” I contend that parents’ demonstrations of careful navigation of sharing and identity indicates how anti-stigma talk might be differentially accessible to certain populations, and I discuss the relevance of my analyses for public-health efforts, such as anti-stigma campaigns.
      Degree
      Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
      Department
      Psychology
      Program
      Psychology
      Supervisor
      McMullen, Linda
      Committee
      Brenna, Beverley; Lovrod, Marie; Cummings, Jorden
      Copyright Date
      September 2020
      URI
      http://hdl.handle.net/10388/13056
      Subject
      parental depression
      reader-response
      narrative transportation
      intersectionality
      discourse analysis
      stigma
      sharing about mental distress
      identity
      parenthood
      culture
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