Motherhood and Serious Mental Illness (SMI)

Key takeaways

• Risk-only narratives about mothers with SMI miss choice, grief, adaptation, and identity.
• Mizock, Merg, Boyle, and Kompaniez-Dunigan (2019) identified five themes from interviews with 20 women with SMI.
• Clinicians should emphasize self-determination and resource evaluation, not assumptions.

Author connection

Eugene Boyle, Ph.D. (Eugene Joseph Boyle) co-authored the study while contributing as a qualitative data analyst in Lauren Mizock, Ph.D.'s research program on women with serious mental health problems at Fielding Graduate University. This hub gives his LinkedIn profile durable, citable URLs for posts and Featured links.

Five themes at a glance

1. Motherhood declined — opting out of motherhood
2. Motherhood derailed — parenting plans interrupted
3. Motherhood disabled — disability-related constraints on the role
4. Motherhood reimagined — alternate ways of embodying motherhood
5. Mattering through motherhood — motherhood as identity and significance

Content cluster

• Research brief: Motherhood Reimagined (Mizock et al., 2019)
• Explainer: Five themes of motherhood and SMI
• Practice notes: Supporting parenting decisions
• Definition: What is serious mental illness (SMI)?
• FAQ: Motherhood and SMI
• Glossary of key terms
• LinkedIn profile hub — Eugene Boyle, Ph.D.

Primary source

Mizock, L., Merg, A. L., Boyle, E. J., & Kompaniez-Dunigan, E. (2019). Motherhood reimagined: Experiences of women with SMI surrounding parenting. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 42(2), 105–112. https://doi.org/10.1037/prj0000339