GAILLE, Marie. Is woman a mother by nature? Medically assisted procreation techniques, in the light of psychoanalysis, in the French context. Psicol. rev. (Belo Horizonte) []. 2008, 14, 2, pp.17-36. ISSN 1677-1168.

This article aims at contributing to the understanding of a specific issue, classically debated in humanities, especially in the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, anthropology and (political, moral or scientific) philosophy: is woman a mother by nature? The text concerns the intersection between theory and practice. Its focus is the way psychoanalysis was summoned to the patient’s bedside to help understand the phenomenon of sterility, when it cannot be explained only by physiological reasons. At the same time, it discusses the way by which medically assisted procreation practice nowadays contributes to renew theoretical hypotheses of psychoanalysis related to the female experience of pregnancy and maternity. The article considers particularly one of the hypotheses elaborated to explain sterility, that is, the patient’s relation with her own mother and with her ‘passivity’.

: Maternity; Desire; Psychoanalysis; Sterility; Activity/Passivity.

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