Mental health articles

Empowerment is the process of enhancing mothers’ feelings of self-efficacy—the belief that they can solve problems and meet the demands of daily life. Self-efficacy is at the heart of conceptualizations of recovery .
Parental self-efficacy refers to a parent’s feelings of competence or effectiveness in the parenting role. Sometimes mothers living with
mental illnesses feel powerless or hopeless in the face of their own symptoms or life circumstances and, consequently, may feel their children’s behavior is more than they can handle. One disheartened mother explained, “When they [her children] all start acting like they’re 4 [years old] it drives me crazy; that’ll get me, you know,
going crazy. I mean I’ll start yelling and screaming just like them to tell them to be quiet.” They may fear that their illnesses will be conveyed to their children through inheritance or genetics and attribute their children’s misbehavior to emerging mental illnesses rather than as something they could manage or control.
The key to empowerment is success. Mothers may define success differently than providers. While providers tend to judge treatment outcomes in terms of the reduction of symptoms, mothers may have as their goal getting through the day without yelling at their children. While “reducing symptoms” and “getting through the day without yelling” are most likely related, a mother’s goal and the way she frames that goal must be respected. A provider’s task may be to help a mother
understand the relationship between her symptoms and behavior and to identify ways of coping that allow her to achieve her goal (i.e., “getting through the day without yelling”) by taking better care of herself (“reducing her symptoms”).
Successes are most readily achieved by taking small steps. That is, mothers’ goals must be personally relevant, realistic, and reasonably set, with steps outlined and obstacles anticipated. The necessary resources must be put into place for taking the next steps and overcoming obstacles. Providers can provide the “right” level of support to encourage self-efficacy. One mother described, “I schedule the appointments, whether it’s a doctor’s appointment, a regular appointment to
follow-up, and she [Family Coach] makes sure that I get there, and she’ll come in if I want or wait if I want.” This is not to suggest that all providers have the capacity to transport clients to and attend meetings with them. Rather, a provider can help a mother decide on an objective and assist the mother, to the extent necessary, in mobilizing her resources to achieve her objective. This makes success more likely. According to a mother, “It’s like once you accomplish those goals, you establish and you create more, so it’s like, it doesn’t ever end, but it feels good to
complete something I started, you know.”
An additional aspect to powerlessness is the feeling of having no choices.
Providers have the opportunity to help mothers identify and assess options and make good choices by encouraging them to think about the consequences of choosing one alternative over another. Providers also have opportunities to acknowledge mothers’ successes, as reported by one mother, “My DSS [child welfare] worker said I’m doing an excellent job. . .” And from another mother, “. . .I wasn’t expecting that they gave us a certificate of completion. . .just basically saying on the certificate that, um, I’m a good role model for my daughter and, um, I am successful in completing my goals. . .” Even low-key acknowledgement of
what might be construed by some as minor successes contributes to feelings of empowerment.

Tags: empowerment