Focusing on Resilience in Canadian Immigrant Mothers’ Mental Health

Abstract

In this chapter we provide examples from two contexts in child and family mental health in which immigrant mothers' practices are sometimes conceptualized as maladaptive or unhealthy. We assert that it is important to contextualize these practices in the availability of social support and to reframe culture-informed behaviors in terms of resilience. We draw on the results of two of our studies to propose an alternative conceptualization of immigrant women's mental health for research, practice, and policy purposes, in the context of the often inordinately challenging social and economic conditions presented to women, and especially mothers, by a new life in Canada. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)