In this master's thesis, we investigate the relationship between the experience of parentification and experiencing shame and guilt in adult children of alcoholics. These are adults who spent part or all of their childhood growing up with at least one alcohol dependent parent. The first part of the thesis presents the theoretical overview of these concepts, while the second part focuses on the results of a quantitative survey completed by 341 participants, half of whom were adult children of alcoholics. The study determined that adult children of alcoholics statistically assumed more parentified roles in relation to their parents and took more care of their parents in their childhood than adult children of non-alcoholics. Adult children of alcoholics carried statistically fewer positive thoughts and beliefs from the experience of parentification compared to adult children of non-alcoholics. However, results from the study failed to confirm the hypothesis that adult children of alcoholics experience higher levels of shame and guilt than adults who are not children of alcoholics. While on all dimensions measured adult children of alcoholics scored slightly higher than those of non-alcoholic adults, this difference did not prove to be statistically significant. Thus, adult children of alcoholics who have experienced a greater degree of childhood parentification are not statistically more likely to experience guilt. Nevertheless, the survey showed that adult children of alcoholics who to a greater extent took care of their siblings are more prone to experience shame in personal transgressions and failures and tend to think of themselves as bad. Also, no statistically significant differences were found in the propensity to experience shame and guilt among adult children of alcoholics according to marital status.
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