A Knock on the Door
Elisabeth Lowenstein
Journal of Loss and Trauma January 2, 2018 DOI: 10.1080/15325024.2017.1421413 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Personal narrative or essay Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Argues through a first-person narrative that witnessing a family member's psychotic break is an embodied, traumatic experience for caregivers, and proposes that literature on posttraumatic stress among family caregivers of people with chronic illness can help make sense of it, with implications for caregivers, practitioners, and scholars of mental illness, trauma, and loss. |
Abstract
In this paper, the author, who is a single mother of a young man with mental illness, describes her son’s first psychotic break. By melding poetry, prose, dream journal entries, and medical case notes, she explores the embodied experience of witnessing her son’s decompensation. In sharing her story, she reminds other caregivers of people with mental illness that they are not alone. She makes sense of her experience with findings from the literature about posttraumatic stress among family caregivers of people with chronic illness and explores the implications for caregivers, practitioners, and scholars of mental illness, trauma, and loss.