Chapter 3: A Qualitative Analysis of the Experience of Parentification

This chapter aims to identify what it means to grow up and live in a family with a role disorder. Thus, it is necessary to identify the mechanisms that occur in the family environment, as well as the factors (external and internal) that affect its functioning. The chapter addresses the issue of a specific phenomenon within it – parentification. The research presented here uses Fritz Schütze’s (1983) autobiographical narrative interview technique. The autobiographical narratives of individuals who experienced role reversal in the family and whose families were classified as at-risk were analyzed (Schier, 2015). Qualitative analysis of the experience of parentification made it possible to construct a processual model of parentified childhood and extract biographical strategies for coping with its consequences.