Abstract

TEIXEIRA FILHO, Fernando Silva. Narrative inquiry and psychoanalysis: searching the body-without-organs. Temas psicol. [online]. 2002, vol.10, n.3, pp.229-248. ISSN 1413-389X.

This paper concerns the stigmatization of people who were born with a physical condition known, in Medicine, as vesical extrophy. It focuses on the ways the medical, welfare, familiar and educational practices label this condition. It presents arguments considering that these practices place their bearers in the position of "excluded from normal standards", and respectively, label it as a "genetic anomaly" (medicine), a "divine mystery" (religion), a "misfortune" (to the family) and an "exceptionality" (to schools). Being in one of these positions (or in all of them) narrows the arrangements of these people. We have proposed a way to deconstruct these labels (de)naturalization by means of Narrative Inquiry as a research method into psychoanalysis. The major feature of this research practice is the promotion of a body@ntology - the clinical construction of new sensations and lines-of-escape that cross a body-without-organs and, within it, produces new modes of existence.

Keywords : narrative inquiry; stigmatization; congenital malformation; psychoanalysis research methods; hospital psychology.