the absent mother

THE ABSENT MOTHER1

The Absent Mother

Marjorie L. Perry

University of Southern Mississippi

THE ABSENT MOTHER 2

Abstract

The noncustodial mother who has suffered forced estrangement from her children is

ostracized from the world she lives in and viewed as emotionally deficient, socially deviant, and

a personal failure (Elliot, 2011). According to Kruk (2010), women-serving organizations and

child protection services are identified as unhelpful and not tuned into the unique challenges of

these mothers. These women suffer from Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder, Depression and

Suicidality (Kruk, 2010). It is very difficult for these women to be productive members of

society because they go through so many periods when they feel like a failure. However, their

life can be made much easier through PTSD treatment, treatment for Depression and Suicidality,

Pharmacotherapy, Psychoeducation, Anger management and “Phase of Life Problems” work.

THE ABSENT MOTHER 3

The population impacted in my paper is the “Absent Mother”. Until twenty years ago,

maternal absence was only viewed in regards to child development (Elliot, 2011). According to

Elliot (2011), the nonresidential mother was emotionally deficient, socially deviant and a

personal failure. According to Gustafson (2005a), the reasons that women felt pressured to

choose this living arrangement was linked to women’s social, economic or legal disadvantages.

According to Babcock (1997), mothers who were absent from the everyday lives of their

children are stigmatized by family, friends, the courts and other social institutions.

Controlling Behaviors of Ex-Partners

According to Coleman (2012), controlling behaviors of ex-partners did not end when

they were divorced, and this type of relationship continued on through and affected how they

shared custody for their children. According to Coleman (2012), instructors of divorced parent

education programs should emphasize the extreme importance of transitioning from spouse to

coparent, in order to help parents set aside negative feelings toward their ex-partners and focus

on their children.

A Mothers Forced Estrangement from Her Children

According to Grief (1993), involuntary relinquishing mothers expressed greater

dissatisfaction and were seeing their children less often than voluntary relinquishing mothers,

especially when their children were younger. According to Kruk (2010), no evidence was found

that noncustodial mothers were more unfit than custodial mothers in terms of mother-child

attachment, living arrangements, substance abuse or problem areas. A quote from Constantatos

(1984), “My family physician wanted to medicate me knowing that I was being abused…he said

THE ABSENT MOTHER 4

I was situationally depressed but he did not get the difference between depressed and oppressed”

(p.1).

SPECIAL ISSUES RELATED TO THE ENGAGEMENT AND ESTABLISHMENT OF

THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP:

According to Elliot (2011), Narrative therapy with the adult child and the establishment

of boundaries as to how much he or she is willing to share about the other parent works well. The

adult child in therapy may feel as if the mother is asking her to reinvent memories based on his

or her own experience and he or she may feel that the positive memories of his or her father may

be altered in a negative way. According to Gustafson (2000), “Narrative research has evolved

and become part of the repertoire of qualitative approaches used by feminists when explaining a

crisis or significant life event” (p.190). According to Elliot (2011), the narrative should both

reflect and disrupt the commonplace and taken for granted discourses of maternal obligation.

This practice allows for an alternative way of representing divorce, family configuration and

maternal absence.

According to Chung (2006), shared physical custody often puts women at risk for

continued control or abuse and they could benefit from “Safety Focused Guidance”. According

to Chung(2006), “the optimism that they can put aside negative relationship issues and work

cooperatively with their former partners seems to be misguided and techniques for changing the

topic from marital relationship problems to child related discussions are needed”(p.597). Anger

management (CBT) may be necessary and boundary work focusing on the benefits of shared

physical custody may be beneficial.

THE ABSENT MOTHER 5

According to Depner (1993), a mother experiences intensely painful feelings and a very

difficult adaptation to the noncustodial arrangement. According to Kruk (2010), suicidality is an

issue; women stated, “What is my purpose in life now? It’s almost like being in a limbo state”.

They feel depressed and think about suicide .It makes it very difficult to be a productive member

of society because they go through many periods when they feel like a failure. They start to have

panic attacks and shake and cry uncontrollably.

Legal Abuse

According to Kruk (2010), many women are the subject of allegations of parental

unfitness, substance abuse and mental illness by their former partners. Child welfare authorities

substantiated none of the allegations; nevertheless, they were judged harshly by the family court.

According to Kruk (2010), “the legal abuse suffered by these mothers was seen as equally or

more harmful as physical violence or emotional abuse” (p.535). With fathers armed with legally

sanctioned control of children, mothers reported incidents of access denial and active denigration

of mothers in front of their children. This was part of a campaign to sever contact between

mothers and their children.

According to Kruk (2010), mothers said that children in such situations, caught in loyalty

conflicts and fearful that fathers love might be withdrawn if they sought out their mothers

reacted by disengaging emotionally not only from their mothers but also from the mothers

extended families and cultural traditions .Society and the court system kind of leave the

noncustodial mother out there, as this horrible person whether she is unfit or not. Everyone

prejudges them and they carry all that around and there are no resources for these women.

THE ABSENT MOTHER 6

Women serving organizations and child protection services are identified as unhelpful and not

tuned into the unique challenges of these mothers.

OTHER ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

According To Elliot (2011), how we refer to these women matters “just say non-

residential mother” when discussing the living arrangement. “The positioning of women as

producing ill health in their children has long been a central element of public health initiatives

and biomedical research” (p.192). According to Kaplan (1992), stories about non-residential

mothers and their emotionally damaged children appear in fairytales, film, theatre, magazines

and books.

According to Constantatos(1984), the controlling behavior does not stop when the

marriage ends: “He knew that it would kill me if I couldn’t have her….that is how he got to

me…”(P.3) According to Ganong(2006), Courts need to recognize that “women may be at risk if

forced to share custody with their former abusive husbands”(P.544). According to Kruk (2010)

“women want recognition as equal parents in the eyes of the law” (p.527). Also, shock, denial,

anger, incredulity and profound sadness characterize these mothers’ accounts of loss.

According to Kruk (2010), it is an issue when someone asks these mothers to remember

how her child was at age 6, 7 or 8. Or when the child’s first tooth came out or when he or she

learned to read. All that they can do is try to have as much contact and visits with their child as

they can. But they are like an aunt or friend to them. According to Constantatos(1984),“You’re

embarrassed to tell anybody, you are quiet about what the arrangements are because you don’t

want people to look at you like you are a monster”(P.10).

THE ABSENT MOTHER 7

METHODS OF ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION

Narrative Therapy

Narrative therapy with the mother and adult child. According to Lehmann (2008),

externalizing is a countercultural practice that protests the practice of putting the pathology

“inside” clients and is a way to invite clients to deconstruct and re-author problem-saturated

stories into stories of competence and courage. According to Elliot (2011), the narrative should

both reflect and disrupt the commonplace and taken for granted discourses’ of maternal

obligation. This practice allows for an alternative way of representing divorce, family

configuration and maternal absence.

PTSD Screening and Treatment

According to the Department of Veterans Affairs, the PCL-S (specific) screening tool

asks about symptoms in relation to the identified “stressful experience” (Weathers, 2012). This is

useful because the symptoms endorsed are clearly linked to a specified event. Respondents’ may

also be instructed to complete the PCL-S in reference to a specific type of event (Weathers,

2012), such as losing a child.

According to Jongsma (2006), the clinician should get a clear description of the traumatic

event in as much detail as possible. The clinician should also explore the depth of depression and

suicidal ideation and take necessary safety precautions to protect the “Absent Mother”. Assess

the clients need for psychotropic medication and arrange for a prescription if appropriate and

then monitor compliance. The clinician should teach calming and coping strategies to manage

THE ABSENT MOTHER 8

challenging situations related to trauma. The clinician should help the client to identify,

challenge and replace biased, fearful self-talk with reality based positive self-talk. Teach the

client guided self-dialogue in which she learns to recognize maladaptive self-talk. The clinician

should assess for and teach anger management techniques. The clinician should develop and

encourage a physical exercise routine for the client.

The clinician should give “What is Safety Planning” and the number to the National

Domestic Violence Hotline (Hotline, 2012). The clinician should give the client the “Types of

Emotional Abuse” handout so that she can start to identify the abuse and set boundaries with her

ex-husband (Cope", 2013).For boundary work, explore long-term –goals in the “Phase of Life

Problems” portion of the complete adult psychotherapy treatment planner. The long term goals to

be explored with the client are to resolve conflicted feelings and adapt to new life circumstances.

The clinician should try to reorient the clients’ life view to recognize the advantages of the

current situation. The client should explore serving, nurturing, and supporting significant others

who are dependent and needy. Client should also learn to balance life activities between the

consideration of others and the development of her own interests. The client should make copies

of her safety plan and give her children as well as other important family members a copy. The

client should try to learn the different types of emotional abuse do that she can effectively deal

with them by setting boundaries. The clinician may need to explore CBT for “Anger

Management” with the client.

Depression Screening and Treatment

THE ABSENT MOTHER 9

According to the Macarthur Initiative on Depression and Primary Care (2009), the

PHQ-9 is a nine item depression scale to assess the symptoms and functional impairment to

make a tentative Depression diagnosis. This scale is also used to derive a severity score that is

used to select and monitor depression treatment. “The PHQ-9 is based directly on the diagnostic

criteria for major depressive disorder in the Diagnostic and statistical Manual Fourth Edition

(DSM-IV)” (Care, 2013).

Initially for the client’s depression treatment, the clinician should encourage the

client to take prescribed psychotropic medications responsibly and at the times prescribed by the

physician (Jongsma, 2006). The clinician should then help the client identify and replace

cognitive self-talk that is supporting the clients depression. The clinician should help the client to

utilize behavioral strategies to overcome depression. The clinician should assess the clients

“interpersonal inventory” of important past and present relationships and evidence of potentially

depressive themes

.

Suicide Risk Assessment

According to Johnson (2004), the clinician should inquire about thoughts of

killing self or persistent death wish. Inquire if the patient has a plan and the means to carry out

the plan. The clinician should assess for feelings of hopelessness. The clinician should assess for

a past history of suicide attempts, or if there was someone close to them who has attempted or

committed suicide. The clinician should assess for recent losses and substance abuse. The

clinician should also assess for poor impulse control and judgment. According to Johnson

THE ABSENT MOTHER 10

(2004), if the client cannot assure the she will not harm herself, then hospitalization is necessary.

If the client will not voluntarily go to the hospital, then the involuntary hospitalization process

must ensue.

According to Stewart (1999), nonresidential mothers are more likely than nonresidential

fathers to remain actively involved in the everyday lives of their children and to maintain

emotional closeness with their children. According to Kruk (2010), in some cases, mothers

access to their children was suspended because they fled a threatening situation taking their

children, in other cases, access was suspended because they stayed and according to the courts,

did not protect their children. In some cases, the mothers were seen as being too career-minded

and in others the mothers were seen as being irresponsible because they did not work outside the

home to provide for their children. It was really difficult for these women to manage work and to

see their children because they were confined to a specific access time from the custodial parent

and were not given much leeway. One parent said “it is almost like they are still controlling your

quality of living and lifestyle and it is very difficult to move forward. According to Kruk (2010),

the child internalizes the negative comments that the parents make of the other in front of the

child. They child reasons that she is half of each of them and “if mom is calling dad bad and dad

is calling mom bad, am I bad too?”.

Narrative therapy is a way for the adult daughter and absent mother to reconstruct bad

memories of they choose to do so. The estranged mother from the abusive relationship is at risk

for PTSD and should be assessed for suicide. This mother should also set up a safety plan and

learn about the different types of emotional abuse. The absent mother should explore “Phase of

Life” problems in order to put into perspective her new role as the absent parent and to set


healthy boundaries for her new role. A mother’s forced estrangement from her children will

cause PTSD, Depression and Suicidality. This mother is ostracized from society, women serving

organizations as well as family and friends as having done something bad to lose the custody of

her child. She deeply feels the loss of her child everyday as well as the judgments both verbal

and nonverbal from people in her everyday circle. The only peace that she ever feels is when she

is with her child or alone in her home and away from opinions and judgments. This woman

needs ongoing PTSD treatment, Initial Suicide Assessment and treatment if needed, medication

for anxiety, CBT for Anger Management and Depression. This women will also benefit from

ongoing “Phase of Life Problems” work. I would like to someday start support groups for these

women to help them to have a better quality of life.


References

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the absent mother

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