When Mom has a Mental Illness: Role Reversal and Psychosocial Adjustment Among Emerging Adults
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OBJECTIVE: Guided by a life course perspective, the present study examined whether aspects of the emerging adult-mother relationship, specifically affection, felt obligation, role reversal, and reciprocity, mediated the association between having a mother with mental illness and poorer psychological adjustment. METHOD: Emerging adults with mothers with mental illness (n = 52) and emerging adults without mothers with mental illness (n = 64) were recruited from institutes of higher education and responded to an online self-report questionnaire. Most participants (81%) were female. RESULTS: Results from multiple mediation analyses indicated a history of parent-child role reversal mediated the association between having a mother with mental illness and emerging adults' psychological symptoms. None of the assessed aspects of the emerging adult-mother relationship mediated the association between maternal mental illness and emerging adults' psychological well-being, but having divorced parents and being older was associated with lower levels of psychological well-being. CONCLUSIONS: Findings indicate role reversal contributes to emerging adults' psychological symptoms. Assessment of a history of role reversal may be relevant to clinical practice with emerging adults, particularly those with mothers with mental illness. Life course perspectives can inform future studies of emerging adults with mothers with mental illness.
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Seven studies examined parentification as a mediator for associations between other family environments and health/behavior outcomes.
“Seven studies examined parentification as a mediator for other associations, typically associations between other family environments and health/behavior outcomes [39,48,58,59,60,64,88].”
From Parentification Vulnerability, Reactivity, Resilience, and Thriving: A Mixed Methods Systematic Literature Review (2023) · cites this paper as [39]
Four studies found parentification as a significant mediator connecting family risks with negative outcomes, even though the exact family risk factors ranged from domestic violence to parental alcohol misuse, and the outcome ranged from internalizing problems to aging.
“Four studies found parentification as a significant mediator connecting family risks with negative outcomes [39,48,59,88], even though the exact family risk factors ranged from domestic violence to parental alcohol misuse, and the outcome also ranged from internalizing problems to aging.”
From Parentification Vulnerability, Reactivity, Resilience, and Thriving: A Mixed Methods Systematic Literature Review (2023) · cites this paper as [39]
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- Authors
- Abraham, K. M., & Stein, C. H.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- Bowling Green State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Abraham, Kristen M.
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2013-02-04
- Volume
- 69
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 600-615
- ISSN
- 0021-9762 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1906602310
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 78
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 6.17
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Journal of Clinical Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- Bowling Green State University
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Family Support in Illness
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Family Caregiving in Mental Illness
- Keywords
- maternal mental illness, emerging adults, psychosocial adjustment, psychological symptoms, psychological well-being, life course perspective, divorce, reciprocity, obligation, affection
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Adolescent, Mental Disorders, Female, Humans, Male, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Surveys and Questionnaires, Role, Child of Impaired Parents, Caregivers, Young Adult
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