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

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.

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the RusPsyDATA repository:

Shvedovskaya, Anna; Rusakovskaya, Olga; Novikova-Grund, Marina; Andrianova, Svetlana (2021): Research database: Psychosemiotic Analysis of Non-Complete Sentences of Mothers Suffering from Schizophrenia. Psychological Research Data & Tools Repository. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.25449/ruspsydata.16669276.v2

1.  Anshakov O.M. DSM-metod: teoretiko-mnozhestvennoe ob"yasnenie [JSM method: set-theoretical explanation]. Nauchno-tekhnicheskaya informatsiya. Seriya 2: Informatsionnye protsessy i sistemy=Scientific and Technical Information. Series 2: Information Processes and Systems, 2012, no. 9, pp. 1–19.  
2. Galasyuk I.N., Mitina O.V. Modifikatsiya Oprosnika roditel'skogo otnosheniya (A.Ya. Vargi, V.V. Stolina) dlya sem'i, vospityvayushchei osobogo rebenka [Modification of the Parental Attitude Questionnaire (A.Ya. Vargi, V.V. Stolin) for a family raising a special child]. Klinicheskaya i spetsial'naya psikhologiya=Clinical Psychology and Special Education, 2017, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 109–129. DOI: 10.17759/cpse.2017060209
3. Ignatov D.I. Modeli, algoritmy i programmnye sredstva biklasterizatsii na osnove zamknutykh mnozhestv: diss. ... kand. tekhn. Nauk [Models, algorithms and software for biclustering based on closed sets: PhD Diss. ... in tech. sciences.]. Мoscow, 2010. 151 p.
4.  Liders A.G. Psikhologicheskoe obsledovanie sem'i. Uchebnoe posobie – praktikum. [Psychological examination of the family. Study guide – workshop]. 2nd ed. Moscow, Voronezh: publ. of MPSU, 2015. 552 p.
5.  Novikova-Grund M.V. Lingvistika mezhdu psikhologiei i psikhoterapiei: most nad propast'yu [Linguistics between psychology and psychotherapy: a bridge over the chasm]. Мoscow: Tekhnosfera, 2021. 318 p.
6.  Novikova-Grund M.V. Unikal'naya kartina mira individa i ee otobrazhenie na teksty: na primere tekstov lyudei, sovershivshikh ryad suitsidal'nykh popytok [A unique picture of the individual's world and its reflection on texts: on the example of the texts of people who have committed a number of suicidal attempts]. Мoscow: Lev', 2014. 188 p.
7.  Rusakovskaya O.A. Problemy sudebno-psikhiatricheskoi ekspertizy po iskam ob ogranichenii roditel'skikh prav lits s psikhicheskimi rasstroistvami [Problems of forensic psychiatric examination in claims for restricting the parental rights of persons with mental disorders]. Rossiiskii psikhiatricheskii zhurnal=Russian Psychiatric Journal, 2018, no. 6,
   pp. 27–34.
8.  Rusakovskaya O.A., Novikova-Grund M.V., Andrianova S.B. Psikhosemanticheskii podkhod k otsenke roditel'skogo otnosheniya [Psychosemantic approach to assessing parental attitudes]. Rossiiskii psikhiatricheskii zhurnal=Russian Psychiatric Journal, 2019, no. 4, pp. 27–35. DOI: 10.24411/1560-957X-2019-11933
9.  Khar'kova O.A., Kholmatova K.K., Kuznetsov V.N. et al. Vvedenie v metodologiyu kachestvennykh issledovanii [Introduction to the methodology of qualitative research]. Psikhicheskoe zdorov'e=Mental Health, 2017, vol. 15, no. 4 (131), pp. 3–9.
10.  Shvedovskaya A.A. Ispol'zovanie metodiki «roditel'skoe sochinenie» v diagnostike detsko-roditel'skikh otnoshenii v doshkol'nom vozraste [The use of the methodology "parental composition" in the diagnosis of parent-child relationships in preschool age]. Psikholog v detskom sadu=Psychologist in Kindergarten, 2005, no. 4, pp. 70–103.
11.  Abel K.M., Webb R.T., Salmon M.P. et al. Prevalence and predictors of parenting outcomes in a cohort of mothers with schizophrenia admitted for joint mother and baby psychiatric care in England. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2005, vol. 66 (6),
    pp. 781–789.
12.  Anshakov O.M. The JSM method: A set-theoretical explanation. Automatic Documentation and Mathematical Linguistics, 2012, vol. 46, no. 5, pp. 202–220. DOI: 10.3103/S0005105512050020
13.  Campbell L., Hanlon M.C., Poon A.W. et al. The experiences of Australian parents with psychosis: the second Australian National Survey of Psychosis. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 2012, vol. 46 (9), pp. 890–900. DOI: 10.1177/0004867412455108
14.  Chierchia G., Mcconnell-Ginet S. Meaning and grammar ― an introduction to semantics: Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press. 476 p.
15.  Cognard M., Wendland J. Psychotic mothers and parenthood: a review of risk and protection factors. Psychiatrie De L Enfant, 2019, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 207–223.
    DOI: 10.3917/psye.621.0207
16.  Glynn S.M. The chronically mentally ill. In L.K.G. Hsu, M. Hersen (eds.), Research in Psychiatry: Issues, Strategies, and Methods ― Critical Issues in Psychiatry. Boston, MA: Springer, 1992. 502 p.
17.  Goodman S. Emory university project on children of disturbed parents. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 1987, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 411–423. DOI: 10.1093/schbul/13.3.411
18.  Madeira S.C., Oliveira A.L. Biclustering algorithms for biological data analysis:
    a survey. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, 2004, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 24–45. DOI: 10.1109/tcbb.2004.2 
19.  Nevriana A., Pierce M., Dalman C. et al. Association between maternal and paternal mental illness and risk of injuries in children and adolescents: nationwide register based cohort study in Sweden. BMJ, 2020, 369:m853. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.m853
20.  Peräkylä A. Analyzing talk and text. In N.K. Denzin, Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research. Sage Publications Ltd., 2005. Pp. 869–886.
21.  Rusakovskaya O.A., Kostyuk G.P., Golubev S.A. "Good-enough" and "not good enough" parenting of persons under long-term follow-up psychiatrical observation. European Psychiatry, 2020, vol. 63, no. S1, pp. 190–191. DOI: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2020.5
22.  Rutter M., Quinton D. Parental psychiatric-disorder ― effects on children. Psychological Medicine, 1984, vol. 14(4), pp. 853–880. DOI: 10.1017/s0033291700019838
23.  Shenoy, S., Desai, G., Venkatasubramanian G. et al. Parenting in mothers with schizophrenia and its relation to Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits ― A case control study. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 2019, vol. 40, pp. 55–59. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2019.01.022
24.  Smith M. Parental mental health: disruptions to parenting and outcomes for children. Child & Family Social Work, 2004, vol. 9 (1), pp. 3–11. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2004.00312.x
25.  Wan M.W., Moulton S., Abel K.M. A review of mother-child relational interventions and their usefulness for mothers with schizophrenia. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 2008, vol. 11(3), pp. 171–179. DOI: 10.1007/s00737-008-0010-0