Mirroring Lives: The Subjective Experiences of Children of Alcoholics.

This paper reviews psychological literature on childhood experiences of abuse, alcoholism, and adult children of alcoholics, and presents a novel that explores the psychology of children of alcoholics. There has been plenty of research done about alcoholics, but not as much on the experiences of children of alcoholics. The purpose of this capstone project was to write a play informed by research on the subjective experiences of children of alcoholics. There is not enough qualitative information regarding children and adolescent's experience as children of alcoholics (COAs). I wanted to examine the research on the experience on the children's point of view, and adult's, in order to create a play that neither demonizes nor completely victimizes the child. The play is about the psychological repercussions of a volcanic family dynamic exaggerated by alcoholism.