THE PARENTING EXPERIENCES OF MOTHERS WITH DISSOCIATIVE DISORDERS

This article presents a qualitative analysis of the experience of pare nting of mothers with dissociative disorders. This analysis was perfor med to complement the quantitative analysis of problems of mothers wit h dissociative disorders that Benjamin, Benjamin, and Rind (1996) pres ented previously. They found that the functioning of these mothers, as well as their subjective experience of mothering, was poorer that tha t of either clinical or nonclinical control mothers. Our goal was to p rovide a clearer, richer picture of their problems in parenting. Using the mothers' own words, we describe how the five symptom areas of dis sociation (amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, identity confusi on and identity alteration) impeded their parenting efforts. We conclu de with a discussion of the necessity of addressing parenting in the t reatment of client-mothers with dissociative disorders.