NO MORE MOTHER BLAMING - A FEMINIST NURSING PERSPECTIVE ON THE MOTHERS ROLE IN FATHER-DAUGHTER INCEST

Historically, nursing literature has been heavily laden with ''mother blaming'' messages, particularly for mothers of incest victims, The au thor was interested to discover the origin of this ''mother blaming'' ideology. Because nursing has frequently adopted the beliefs and pract ices of medicine, a review of selected literature on incest from psych iatry and psychiatric nursing was conducted in an effort to identify t he epistemics and ontology of nursing knowledge pertaining to an under lying ''mother blaming'' philosophy, The potential negative implicatio ns these allegations of maternal culpability have on female clients wi ll be explored, Finally, nurses will be encouraged to adopt a feminist nursing perspective in formulating and providing care to mothers of i ncest survivors. Copyright (C) 1996 by W.B. Saunders Company