"There’s literally nothing else I can do apart from cope": a Foucauldian discourse analysis of shame, coping, and the operation of power in parents' narrative accounts of adolescent substance use

This qualitative study applied a Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore the discourses which characterised and constructed parents' narrative accounts of their experiences of parenting an adolescent who misused substances. The analysis identified three dominant discourses; risk management, moral crisis, expert/science, and a counter discourse of 'hierarchy', with which parents were able to negotiate the limitations and possibilities of the subject positions offered by each, enabling them to remain within established regimes of truth whilst narrating a story of deviance which often tested boundaries of inclusion. Expressions of stigma and shame most often accompanied constructions of thoughts or actions which were inconsistent with internalised norms of an 'ideal' parent. Substance using adolescents were constructed as someone unknown to parents making possible the expression of intolerable or unwelcome feelings towards them without demonstrating rejection of their child. Parents actively used and resisted these discourses, performing confessions, self-surveillance, and selfresponsibilisation, within their narratives. Evidence from this analysis is interpreted as demonstrating sovereign, bio, and disciplinary powering both upon and through families as an institution of governmentality, through mechanisms of subjectification, self-surveillance, normalisation, and confession. Attempts to subvert and resist were found in the use of a hierarchy discourse which crucially offered subject position shifts for the narrator, but its use overwhelmingly reinforced the binary subject positions of 'coping', as opposed to ‘not coping’ produced by dominant discourses, and in doing so, sustained subjective experiences of shame, normalised significant emotional distress, and prevented parents from seeking support. Future research might consider further exploration of parents' accounts alongside the accounts of their adolescent children, siblings, and/or treatment practitioner, to further explore the impact and operation of power through use of different discourses within this field.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

other

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

London Metropolitan University

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Walker, Sharon (Counselling Psychologist)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Cucchi, Angie

• 610 Medicine & health

Dc Identifier Grantnumber

N/A

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.londonmet.ac.uk:11673