Confronting the ghosts : an interpretive phenomenological analysis of parents' experience of making links between their childhood and current parenting style

• Main Author: Cooper, Rebecca
• Published: University of Edinburgh 2006
• Subjects: 155
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.643413

Research on the intergenerational transmission of attachment (Trevarthen, 1977; Main, Kaplan & Cassidy, 1985; Main and Hesse, 1990; and Cassidy, Woodhouse, Cooper, Hoffman, Powell & Rodenberg, 2005) has indicated that, to improve her child’s attachment security, a mother may need to initially address her own attachment representations. Various interventions have therefore been designed to facilitate parents making links between their own experiences of being parented, and the way in which they currently parent their children. Research has shown these interventions to have favourable outcomes, yet the process of change is inadequately understood. During the current study, participants from the Making Links Service (an intervention recently established in Fife) were given semi-structured interviews. The methodology was qualitative and Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 1996) was used to analyse these interviews. The aim was to explore parents’ experiences of the making links process and the intervention they had received. Eight super-ordinate themes emerged from the analysis. The first described parents’ experiences prior to engaging with the service, from difficult childhood events to episodes of struggling in the more recent past. The second, third and fourth super-ordinate themes encompassed the emotional, cognitive and behavioural changes brought about by the making links process. The fifth described the parents’ tendency to use comparison throughout their narratives, and the various functions this may have served. The sixth concerned the impact of the parents’ relationship with the therapist on the work, and the seventh how the work had affected their relationships with others in their lives. Finally the eighth super-ordinate theme represented how the parents perceived public services and the current service in which they were engaged.