The Influence of Discourses and Power Relations on Parents of Young People identified as having Mental Health Difficulties

Background: The children and young people’s mental health (CYPMH) crisis represented in media and research is highly contingent on social constructions of CYPMH. Existing research explores the experiences and feelings of parents; exhaustion, shame and parental mental health difficulties are explored in extant thematic and phenomenological qualitative studies. Looking beyond experience to discourse is a key missing factor in the social construction of parenting and CYPMH difficulties (CYPMHD). Discourse defines, structures and limits what can be known about CYPMH and power mediates how this happens. Systematic literature review (SLR): 19 discourse analysis (DA) papers were reviewed and highlighted the primarily discursive and conversational literature base around CYPMH. Research has so far not conceptually connected historical and macro-discourses around parenting and CYPMHD. Aims: This research aimed to extend existing DA research by interrogating macro-discourses and applying a Foucauldian conceptualisation of power to parental talk around CYPMH. Methods: Four sessions were recorded from a parental peer support group facilitated by a local charity. Transcriptions were analysed using Foucauldian discourse analysis using Willig’s six stages (Willig, 2021). Findings: Discourses were grouped into six headings: Evidencing good parenting, blaming the parents, responsibility for removal of CYPMH symptoms, subject positions in relation to bureaucracy, authoritative discourses and education as oppressive and exclusionary. Discussion: This research extended DA concepts of blame of parents illustrating that psychology, education and local authority exert more authority over the social construction of CYPMHD. Practices such as diagnosis, psychoeducation, parents demonstrating good parenting and administrating distress contributed to the development of contemporary conceptualisations of CYPMH. Parents resisted authority where possible but discourses around neoliberalism and deficit parenting persisted in tasking parents with the removal of CYPMHD symptoms and judging parents where this was not possible to evidence. Findings are explored with reference to systemic theories, broader literature and clinical/research implications.