Abstract
The occurrence of the Marawi Siege on the 23rd of May 2017 caused a variety of negative implications among the residents of Lanao del Sur, Philippines, both from their psychological and physical aspects. Recruitment of child soldiers, as part of the extremist groups’ military forces, is one of the highly concerning issues during the siege. Existing accounts, including anecdotal evidence, consistently revealed that a number of those recruited child soldiers died during the siege. Significantly, literature suggests that losing a child has a detrimental impact on the psychological and physical well-being of the mother. Henceforth, this study aimed to explore the lived experiences, precisely the psychological challenges and coping mechanisms of the bereaved mothers of child soldiers recruited by extremist groups who died during the Marawi Siege. This study used interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and employed semi-structured interviews among three (3) participants selected through the purposive sampling method. After rigorous thematic analysis, the researchers identified three (3) major themes: ‘Onset of Mental Turmoil,’ ‘Grief’s Emotional Landscape,’ and ‘Threads of Healing.’ The results indicate that participants encountered profound emotional distress, behavioral and cognitive difficulties, and few social impairments since the time that their children were recruited and their deaths were reported. Apart from that, the participants had trouble managing these psychological challenges despite their loss-oriented and emotion-focused coping mechanisms. Lastly, the participants were still grieving and had not categorically accepted their children’s deaths in the present.
References
Acallar, M. L. J., & Bitos, M. L. F. (2018). Lived experiences, coping strategies, and resilience of internally displaced mothers of the Marawi siege. University of the Philippines Visayas. https://tinyurl.com/4uy4kwn9
Alam, K., & Muzahid, M. (2006). Informal Islamic education and its role in human resource development in society: A theoretical evaluation. IIUC Studies, 3, 83–92. https://doi.org/10.3329/iiucs.v3i0.2667
Alase, A. (2017). The interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA): A guide to a good qualitative research approach. International Journal of Education and Literacy Studies, 5(2), 9–19. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.5n.2p.9
Alburez-Gutierrez, D., Kolk, M., & Zagheni, E. (2021). Women’s experience of child death over the life course: A global demographic perspective. Demography, 58(5), 1715–1735. https://doi.org/10.1215/00703370-9420770
Al-Jaza’iry, A. B. J. (2001). Minhaj al-Muslim. Darussalam.
Amnesty International. (2017, November 17). The battle of Marawi: Death and destruction in the Philippines. Amnesty Philippines. https://tinyurl.com/2p9vd62z
Asiyah, S. N., Fauziyah, N., Khotimah, S. K., & Balgies, S. (2014). The social discrimination against former terrorist convicts and their families: Psychological perspectives.
Journal of Indonesian Islam, 8(1), 71–90. https://doi.org/10.15642/jiis.2014.8.1.71-90
Austenfeld, J., & Stanton, A. (2004). Coping through emotional approach: A new look at emotion, coping, and health-related outcomes. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1335–1364. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00299.x
Averill, J. R. (1968). Grief: Its nature and significance. Psychological Bulletin, 70(6), 721–748. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0026824
Balbuena, L., Baetz, M., & Bowen, R. (2013). Religious attendance, spirituality, and major depression in Canada: A 14-year follow-up study. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 58(4), 225–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/070674371305800408
Boss, P. (2002). Ambiguous loss in families of the missing. The Lancet, 360(s39–s40). https://tinyurl.com/2za83925
Boss, P. (2007). Ambiguous loss theory: Challenges for scholars and practitioners. Family Relations, 56(2), 105–110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4541653
Boyd, D., & Bee, H. (2014). Lifespan development (7th ed.). Pearson International.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper, P. M. Camic, D. L. Long, & A. T. Panter, D. Rindskopf, & K. J. Sher (Eds.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-004
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2014). Thematic analysis. Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, 1947–1952. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_311
Bryan, J. L., Lucas, S. H., Quist, M. C., Steers, M.-L. N., Foster, D. W., Young, C. M., & Lu, Q. (2016). God, can I tell you something? The effect of religious coping on the relationship between anxiety over emotional expression, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 8(1), 46–53. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000023
Cacciatore, J., Killian, M., & Harper, M. (2016). Adverse outcomes in bereaved mothers: The importance of household income and education. SSM - Population Health, 2, 117–122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2016.02.009
Fabricatore, A. N., Handal, P. J., Rubio, D. M., & Gilner, F. H. (2004). Stress, religion, and mental health: Religious coping in mediating and moderating roles. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 14(2), 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327582ijpr1402_2
Field, N. P., Gao, B., & Paderna, L. (2005). Continuing bonds in bereavement: An attachment theory based perspective. Death Studies, 29(4), 277–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481180590923689
Greif, G. L., & Hegar, R. L. (1991). Parents whose children are abducted by the other parent: Implications for treatment. The American Journal of Family Therapy, 19(3), 215–225. https://doi.org/10.1080/01926189108250853
Hendrickson, K. C. (2009). Morbidity, mortality, and parental grief: A review of the literature on the relationship between the death of a child and the subsequent health of parents. Palliative and Supportive Care, 7(1), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1478951509000133
Ingilan, S. S., & Abdurajak, N. C. (2021). Unveiling the Tausug culture in parang sabil through translation. Southeastern Philippines Journal of Research and Development, 26(2), 97–108. https://doi.org/10.53899/spjrd.v26i2.156
Khaki, A., & Sadeghi Habibabad, A. (2020). Investigating the effect of religious and Islamic teachings on calmness and mental health in educational spaces. Journal of Religion and Health, 60, 2632–2645. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-020-01022-7
Klass, D. (1988). Parental grief: Solace and resolution. Springer Publishing.
Klass, D., Silverman, P., & Nickman, S. L. (1996). Continuing bonds: New understandings of grief. Taylor & Francis.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. Macmillan.
Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer.
Maguire, M., & Delahunt, B. (2017). Doing a thematic analysis: A practical, step-by-step guide for learning and teaching scholars. All Ireland Journal of Higher Education, 9(3). https://tinyurl.com/3j9wky9n
Medical News Today. (2023, March 8). Depression vs. grief. Medical News Today. https://tinyurl.com/yc7z6vsm
Nen, S., Alavi, K., Ibrahim, F., Mohd Hoesni, S., & Sarnon, N. (2013). Missing children and parental struggle: From chaos to coping. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences & Humanities, 21(S), 17–29. https://tinyurl.com/5cs9pd9t
Pargament, K., Smith, B., Koenig, H., & Perez, L. (1998). Patterns of positive and negative religious coping with major life stressors. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37(4), 710-724. https://doi.org/10.2307/1388152
Peña-Vargas, C., Armaiz-Peña, G., & Castro-Figueroa, E. (2021). A biopsychosocial approach to grief, depression, and the role of emotional regulation. Behavioral Sciences, 11(8), 110. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs11080110
Pohlkamp, L., Kreicbergs, U., & Sveen, J. (2019). Bereaved mothers’ and fathers’ prolonged grief and psychological health 1 to 5 years after loss— A nationwide study. Psycho-Oncology, 28(7), 1530–1536. https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5112
Silbert, C., & Arendt, F. (2018). The Marawi siege: Women’s reflections then and now. UN Women. https://tinyurl.com/xz43rs22
Sim, C., Heuse, S., Weigel, D., & Kendel, F. (2020). If only I could turn back time: Regret in bereaved parents. Pediatric Blood & Cancer, 67(6), e28265. https://doi.org/10.1002/pbc.28265
Smith, J. A., & Osborn, M. (2014). Interpretative phenomenological analysis as a useful methodology for research on the lived experience of pain. British Journal of Pain, 9(1), 41–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/2049463714541642
Stroebe, M., & Schut, H. (1999). The dual process model of coping with bereavement: Rationale and description. Death Studies, 23(3), 197–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/074811899201046
Stroebe, M., Schut, H., & Stroebe, W. (2007). Health outcomes of bereavement. The Lancet, 370(9603), 1960–1973. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61816-9
Tavares, A., Crespo, C., Ferreira, L., & Ribeiro, M. T. (2021). Left behind parents: A qualitative study on the experience of parental abduction of a child in Portugal. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 47(3), 595–613. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12478
Tyrrell, P., Harberger, S., Schoo, C., & Siddiqui, W. (2023). Kubler-Ross stages of dying and subsequent models of grief. StatPearls Publishing. https://tinyurl.com/3vta95d8
UNICEF Philippines. (2019, February 19). Law protecting child soldiers a victory for the Philippines - UNICEF. UNICEF. https://tinyurl.com/ucas7s8f
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2018). Profiling internally displaced persons of the Marawi conflict. Protection Cluster Philippines. https://tinyurl.com/nju2d8b9
Utz, A. (2011). Psychology from the Islamic perspective (1st ed.). International Islamic Publishing House.
van Doorn, C., Kasl, S. V., Beery, L. C., Jacobs, S. C., & Prigerson, H. G. (1998). The influence of marital quality and attachment styles on traumatic grief and depressive symptoms. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease, 186, 566-573. https://doi.org/10.1097/00005053-199809000-00008
Waskowic, T. D., & Chartier, B. M. (2003). Attachment and the experience of grief following the loss of a spouse. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 47(1), 77-91. https://doi.org/10.2190/0cmc-gyp5-n3qh-weh4

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.