Recovering from Silence. Composing Self in Time, Spaces, and Friendships: A Narrative Inquiry with Four Mothers Supporting Adolescent Children through Long-Term Addictions Treatment

Addiction is a complex and growing phenomenon that affects many people in many different contexts. Mothering a child through long-term addiction treatment is an under-researched context. This study is a narrative inquiry into the experiences of four mothers parenting children through long-term addiction treatment. Narrative inquirers explore experience by attending to features of temporality, sociality, and place as they feature in stories that are both lived and told. During 12 months of narrative inquiry fieldwork, four participants and myself inquired into their experiences as mothers of children with addictions. Four narrative accounts of these experiences are presented. These co-composed accounts speak powerfully to participants’ experiences on complex personal, familial, social, and addiction landscapes. The narrative accounts provide a basis for theorizing four narrative threads: navigating complexities; loud silences; living within one another’s stories, and; places, spaces, and the in-between. This dissertation concludes in the midst of participants’ lives. Recommendations for practice, research, and narrative inquiry fieldwork are made.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Nursing

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Graduate Studies

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Smith, Jacqueline

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Estefan, Dr. Andrew
• Caine, Dr. Vera
• Ewashen, Dr. Carol
• St. George, Dr. Sally

• Nursing

Statement dc:rights

• University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/27562

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ucalgary.scholaris.ca:11023/2406