Modes of experience and understanding: Parenting assessment for mothers with serious mental illness and child protective service involvement

This chapter described and illustrated four modes of experience and understanding that comprise a parenting assessment for mothers with serious mental illness and child protective service involvement. The first mode introduces assessors to the immediate problems that led the child protective service to become involved with the family. The second mode seeks to understand how mothers' past experiences, their support networks, and mental illness have influenced their parenting and their ability to form and maintain relationships with others. The third mode provides information on children's attachment and developmental needs and on their experiences in being parented by their mothers. The fourth mode provides information from others who have known or treated the mother in different capacities. The assessment process involves a dialectical interplay of all four modes, each held in generative tension, each augmenting, confirming, and negating the others. Clinical illustrations are presented addressing different experiences and understanding gained from each individual mode. To formulate understandings in a new way, assessors must let go of preconceived ideas gained from one mode alone.