A study on the process of children's adjustment following a parent's alcoholism - a grounded theory based approach -

알코올 중독자 가정 자녀의 적응과정에 관한 근거이론 접근

The purpose of this study was to improve the understanding of essential experiences of children of Alcoholism and explore their adjustment process from the children's perspectives. The specific research questions explored in this study were: 1. What was the central phenomenon that children of Alcoholism have experienced? 2. What was the adjustment process of the children of Alcoholism. The grounded theory was adopted in this study to address the research questions. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with eight young adult aged from 18-30 years olds who experienced their parent's Alcoholism. Grounded theory based data analyses resulted in 85 concepts, 30 sub-categories, and 16 categories. The 'causal conditions' influencing the central phenomenon was 'self denial' and 'being suppressed' is the central phenomenon for the children of Alcoholism. The core issue in the process of an adjustment of children from a Alcoholism family was 'accepting the parental Alcoholic problem and re-defining the self', The results of this study suggest that counseling interventions are suggested to improve children's well-being and facilitate their adjustment. Therefore this study has implication on building theory of intervention on the offsprings who have parents of Alcoholism.

본 연구는 '알코올 중독자 가정 자녀의 적응과정은 어떠한가?' 라는 연구문제를 가지고 알코올 중독자 가정에서 성장한 만 18세 이상 성인자녀의 적응과정을 심층적으로 탐색한 것이다. 이를 위해 알코올 중독자 가정자녀 8명을 대상으로 심층면접을 한 후 Strauss와 Corbin(1998)의 근거이론방법을 활용하여 분석하였다. 연구참여자들의 근거자료를 분석 한 결과, 알코올 중독자 가정 자녀가 경험하는 중심현상은 존재부정, 억눌림으로 분석되었다. 이에 대한 인과적조건, 맥락적조건, 중재적조건, 작용/상호작용전략과 결과를 통합한 핵심범주는 '부모의 알코올 문제로부터 자신을 분리하여 자아를 재정립함'으로 구체화되었다. 또한 자녀들의 적응과정은 혼란과 억압단계, 갈등단계, 인식과 분리단계, 수용단계의 과정으로 이루어지는 것으로 나타났다. 이러한 연구결과는 알코올 중독자 가정자녀의 적응에 대한 이론 구축과 사회복지실천의 방향제시에 함의를 가진다.