"Det som inte syns finns inte" (Anders) - en studie om barn till psykiskt sjuka föräldrar

The purpose of our essay, was to examine how it's like for a child growing up with a psychiatric disordered parent. We have chosen to see this from two perspectives, the professionals who meet children with a psychiatric disordered parent in their work, and now grown-up children who have own experience of this. Our questions were: - How did the childhood with a psychiatric disordered parent look like? - How did the psychiatric disordered parent manage their parenting, which possibilities and difficulties did they have? - How did the support look like for the children with a psychiatric disordered parent, inside the welfare society? - In which way could the other parent and other people in the children's social surroundings be supporting? The essay was based on qualitative interviews with people, who meet children with a psychiatric disordered parent in their work and with now grown-up children who have their own experience of this. We also used literature and research reports. We have chosen parts of three theories to compare our interviews with; Attachment Theory, Network Theory and Developmental Psychology. It has been showed that the society was not so good to discover and support the children with a psychiatric disordered parent. It also showed that other people around the children have a very important part. We also discovered that the care from the psychiatric disordered parent, depended on the diagnoses and the grade of the disturbance