Suffering in Silence: A Foucauldian discourse analysis to explore the parental experiences of having a child who has sexually harmed another child in an Irish context

This study explores the experiences of parents who have had a child who has sexually harmed another child within an Irish context. The study involved recruiting participants through a public service based in Ireland that provides assessment and treatment to children and parents in cases where their child has sexually harmed another. The study was designed within a social constructivist and critical realist paradigm. The recruitment to the study involved advertising at the service for parents to take part in both ethnographic observations and interviews. I completed five observations and six interviews. A further part of the study included an analysis of sections of the Irish print media in seeking to understand how the phenomenon of harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) is constructed through this medium. Through this analysis I reviewed six articles. The data was analysed using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA) paying particular attention to Parker’s (1992) and Willig’s (2013) phases of analysis. I first used Max Weber’s model of developing an Ideal Type in helping to manage data for further analysis using FDA. The study highlighted that the phenomenon of HSB is embedded in social processes that maintain the issue as taboo. The secrecy present at every level of the systems that interact with this phenomenon can be understood as mimesis. This includes how the services are provided, the community attitudes toward HSB, the dynamics of families, the experience of professionals working with HSB, the young persons who have harmed and their families. The parents who participated in the research described their pain and shame at having a child who has sexually harmed another child. They also described their single greatest fear at this information becoming known publicly. One of the key recommendations of the study concerns the necessity for professionals to lead the way in bringing this phenomenon into the public view in a way that promotes a fuller, and nuanced understanding.