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

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