Abstract
M.A.
As medical technology and procedures continue to improve, traumatically
brain injured persons who previously would not have lived through their injuries
are managing to survive. The traumatically brain-injured person must learn to
cope with the profound physical, cognitive, emotional, and personality changes
that are produced from brain trauma.
Within the family system, the members reciprocally influence one another.
Major events that occur within the family system have an immense effect on the
family relationships, dynamics, roles, and expectations. A traumatic brain injury,
with its sudden onset and the inherent uncertainty regarding recovery and
rehabilitation, can have a devastating effect on the family as a whole, and upon
its individual members.
Research on the familial effects of a member’s traumatic brain injury
portrays a bleak image of the family in the aftermath of TBI, and for years
afterwards. Grief, anger, guilt, blame, loneliness, depression, and isolation are
often reported in the literature. The literature focuses mainly on the primary
caregiver, usually the spouse of the TBI person, or the parent of a TBI child.
Limited research has been conducted regarding the psychological effects
on the offspring of parents who sustain traumatic brain injuries. Surely, children
and adolescents will feel the effects of a parent’s brain injury differently than a
spouse would. However the actual experience as perceived by the offspring has
been neglected in research thus far.
Adolescents were the focus of the current study. Being in a time of
transition between childhood and adulthood, it was thought that they would
experience the effects of a parental brain injury differently than younger children
or adults within the family would. The existential-phenomenological approach
employed as the research methodology allowed for a rich, in depth
understanding of the adolescents as beings-in-the-world interpreting their own
experiences of having a traumatically brain-injured parent.
Six adolescent offspring of traumatically brain-injured parents were
sourced from Headway Gauteng, and interviewed for the study. The four
interviews that were used for the intense phenomenological analysis were
transcribed verbatim. Themes were derived from the experience of each
participant, and then integrated and related to the relevant available literature
and within the wider context of existential phenomenology, in order to arrive at an
in-depth understanding of the adolescent experience of a parent’s traumatic brain
injury.
The phenomenon of parental traumatic brain injury in the lifeworlds of the
adolescents was characterized by numerous themes. Adolescents experienced
(to varying degrees) denial, anger, grief, guilt, and anxiety. There was a tendency
towards overprotectiveness of the injured parent, resulting in the parentification
of the adolescents. Loneliness and a sense that nobody could understand their
feelings were particularly strong themes, perhaps exacerbated by the importance
of conformity during the adolescent period. Furthermore, the adolescents
experienced drastic changes in their lives following their parents’ traumatic brain
injuries. Not only were family roles and dynamics affected, but also the
adolescents reported extensive changes in themselves. There were sudden
increases in their responsibilities alongside a sense that they were forced to
mature sooner than their peers. The adolescents coped using both approach and
avoidance styles of coping. Religion was a theme in the lives of all four
adolescents. Despite the professed negative impact of the experience of having
a traumatically brain-injured parent, the adolescents in the current study
managed to find some degree of positive meaning in having to cope with such a
traumatic event and its consequences.
Professionals working with brain-injured clients and their families will find
value in the present study. The in-depth description of the experience of
adolescents with brain-injured parents will be helpful in planning support
programmes and interventions following familial brain injuries. The findings of this
study have also been the basis for recommendations for future empirical
investigations.