Adolescents' Experience of a Parental Traumatic Brain Injury

ABSTRACT

This study explores the experiences of four adolescents; each living with a parent who has sustained a traumatic brain injury; against the theoretical backdrop of existential-phenomenological psychology. In-depth interviews were conducted and analysed within the context of the existential phenomenology; in an attempt to gain a deep understanding of the psychologically complex themes and patterns embedded in the experience. The phenomenon of parental traumatic brain injury was characterised by denial; anger; grief; guilt; anxiety; over-protectiveness; social isolation; and change in many areas of the participants' lives. The adolescents coped using both approaches and avoidance styles of coping. Religion was a theme in the lives of all four adolescents. Despite the professed negative impact of the experience of having a traumatically brain-injured parent; the adolescents in the current study managed to find some degree of positive meaning in having to cope with such a traumatic event and its consequences. The results are interpreted within an existential-phenomenological psychology framework