‘A home to dream love into’ – An autoethnographic analysis of mothering with mental illness

Abstract

This paper examines the links between mothers, mental illness, estrangement from children, and systemic power and control, through a critically creative autoethnographic methodology. A historical and contemporary discursive analysis of two kinds of documentation is made. Firstly, my great-grandmother’s psychiatric hospital records from almost one hundred years ago are analysed, incorporating parts of my own story, as well as the personal account of a family member. These are then contrasted against four Family Court Judgement, where mothers have been found to be incapable of caring for their children. ‘Found poetry’ is then created from the documents presented, to elucidate the argument that a century since my great-grandmother’s forced separation from her children, women with mental illness still face stigma, marginalisation, and hopelessness in the face of outdated, narrow constructions of mothering. Implications for those who work in forensic social work fields are noted in terms of addressing systemic abuses of power against mothers.