Maternity experience in adopted women

• Grant number: 13/26832-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Manoel Antônio dos Santos
• Grantee: Marina Vieira Madeira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Adoption context involves many complex aspects, ranging from the abandonment and the premature rupture of affective linkages to the constitution of a new bonding in a new, safer and more reliable family context. Adoption can be understood as a psychological needs reunion, from the child and from the adoptive parents and, through this perspective, it is possible to reflect about the significance of the established bond in the new family constitution, permeated by expectations and frustrations from the past, due to the abandonment experience by the biological family, with the consequent losses and abrupt and early separations. To Winnicott, the most relevant aspect to a good conclusion of the adoption is the family capacity to provide the necessary care, with parents that demonstrate genuine disposition to adapt to the child needs through its emotional development process. Winnicott (1997) gives crucial importance to the experiences from the first year of living, once they constitute the mental health foundation of the individual. Thus, it is possible to affirm that for the mother to be capable of exercise her function in a satisfactory manner - in other words, good enough - it is important that she have had satisfactory affective experiences in her life, in other words, that she had lived the presence of a good enough environment, capable of propitiate the holding and cares to her healthy emotional development. Taking these in consideration, the aim of the present study is to comprehend how adopted women that had biological children, live the maternity and what are the resources and the eventual difficulties that they encounter to take care of their biological children. It will be a qualitative research, theoretically grounded to psychoanalysis in a Winnicott's approach. The study will promote a specific view to the life history, psychodynamic function and the constitution of premature bonding in these women. Data gathering will consist in semi structured interviews and the application of the Drawings of Families with Stories (DF-E). The instruments shall be applied individually, through two meetings with each participant. The DF-E will be analyzed according to the material free inspection method, proposed by Walter Trinca (1989). The reports of the interviews will be integrally transcripts and organized according to the thematic content analysis method. Data from the interviews and the DF-E procedure will be organized under the case study form.