O encontro com um corpo estranho: algumas reflexões psicanalíticas sobre o encontro de uma mulher e seu filho com síndrome de Down

Abstract

Focusing on maternal perspective, this paper aims to reflect through psychoanalytic theory some conflicts that involve a woman meeting her son with Down Syndrome. A son for being so different from the idealized can cross the maternal psyche, producing unimaginable effects and totally unique. The paper looks at Sandra s story for she has a son with Down syndrome. Using the interview as a method in psychoanalysis Sandra reported her experience conveying in her speech conscious and unconscious contents, which were essential, not only for a later link with the theory, but for further reflection on this difficult encounter. From her speech, the theoretical research was constructed and articulated with the case, in other words, from a singular story it was possible to capture plural issues that can be seen in other women and other meetings. The theoretical study was based on psychoanalysis developed by Freud and the contributions from Piera Aulagnier, as well as some of its interpreters. The desire to have children in women is the result of a long and complex process that culminates in the psychic constitution of femininity and it is settled after the dissolution of the Oedipal complex and the assumption of symbolic castration. Such process brings about narcissistic and imaginary expectations whose effect on that woman in the idealization of her son. Even in small traces a child will never match this mother idealization, but, in the case of a baby with Down syndrome, this perception is even more concrete as the phenotypic characteristics, shortcomings and impossibilities that the syndrome carries open up the difference in her child. So after the baby is born, the mother faces a strange body, distinct from that one expected during her pregnancy. The difference in the child's body might produce a concussion in the woman s narcissistic illusion whose baby would answer her unconscious ambitions, therefore maternal castration is highlighted by the void that is opened. This encounter might cause discomfort and anguish in the mother as the stranger disturbs and frightens. This narcissistic injury, in some cases, can trigger a trauma of encounter , as the mother might not anchor the psychic representative created and invested during her pregnancy on to the body of her baby, hindering the libidinal investment. The elaboration of such encounter will depend on the psychic mechanisms of each woman subjective constitution and her resources to go through this mourning