Psychosemiotic Analysis of Parental Attitude Towards Children of Mothers Suffering from Schizophrenia

Abstract

Parental attitudes towards children are one of the key categories of parenting. With the aim to investigate the attitude of mothers who have schizophrenia towards their children we used psychosemiotic approach and the procedure of biclustering. We hypothesized that there are statistically significant differences in semantic operational parameters between mothers suffering from schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder, and a control group. 30 participants of the clinical group ― mothers of children 0–18 y.o (Age (years): M=39.3, SD=7.54; Duration of psychiatric observation (years): M=10.45, SD=7.84) suffering from schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder were recruited from patients of the women’s ward of Moscow psychiatric hospital. 30 mothers of the control group were recruited according to the age of their children, similar to the age of the children’s age in the clinical group (Age: M=35.06, SD=4.97). Psychosemiotic analysis was applied to the texts of the semi-structured parental essay in the incomplete-sentence form (test “Рarental composition”). Statistical analysis confirmed the relevance of psychosemiotic parameters. The psychosemiotic analysis of the text with the procedure of biclustering showed that three of the lists of binary parameters: Opposition, Quality/Situation, Present/Future show regular combinations that differ in healthy and ill mothers, and the probability of accidental coincidences can be excluded. Combination “the absence of opposition, situatedness, the future time” was detected only in the texts of mothers of the clinical group. To our mind, it describes a weak parent who cannot withstand ambivalence and sees his child in the perspective of an abstract future.