The changing role of mother of the mentally ill: from schizophrenogenic mother to multigenerational caregiver.

Psychiatry's understanding of the contribution of mothers to mental illness has markedly changed over the last 60 years, evolving from a view that mothers were to blame for everything, passing through a subsequent period when mothers were seen less as instigators of illness and more as provocateurs, inducing relapse through the expression of criticism and hostility. Currently, mothers are mainly viewed as "burdened caregivers." Because psychiatric patients no longer live in asylums and no longer are prescribed first generation antipsychotics that used to render them effectively sterile, more and more women with schizophrenia are bearing children-children that their mothers, more often than not, raise. This paper is about caregiving by grandmothers, especially as this pertains to daughters with schizophrenia and especially as it impacts on the grandmother's health and well-being. The role of the grandmother is characterized by divided loyalties, by the toll of caregiving, but also, unquestionably, by the rewards that come with raising children. The experience of grandmothers makes them potent allies in the battle against mental illness in their children and the children of their children. Expanding on their existing role as caregivers, mothers of the mentally ill are evolving into auxiliary therapists.