Family's Beliefs About a Family Member with a Mental Illness in Javanese Culture

This paper describes the application of phenomenological hermeneutics approach forunderstanding the family’s beliefs about a family member with a mental illness in Javaneseculture. Recently, this district has experienced a significant increase in mental illness case. Themajor catalyst for undertaking this research is the lack of knowledge and support for families in caring for family members with a mental illness. Some people in the community may havenegative perceptions of people experiencing a mental illness; furthermore, Javanese culturalbackground has particular beliefs about variety of disease problems including mental illness.Consequently, people living with mental illness in the community are treated poorly. A qualitative interpretive approach is utilized to explore the family’s beliefs. Data collections utilized unstructured questions for in-depth interviews. In this study, we assessed one case of extended families with a member who was suffering from schizophrenia in Javanese culture. Each family member range in age from 50 to 60 years old was literate and stays with the patient more than one year. Hermeneutics phenomenology was used as data analysis strategy that determined the intended and meaning of experience. The data analysis process consisted of transcribing the data, reducing the data, thematic data analysis, interpreting data, and writing the results. Results show that they believe an evil spirit has entered the body of their family member who suffers from mental illness. In addition, they also assume that the power generated by the patient when raging is influenced by the evil spirit. It is the reason that they restrict the patient. The findings are presented under three thematic headings: 'supernatural power', ‘violence, and restriction