Abstract

GOES, Fernando Antônio de Barros. The unexpected meeting: the parents and the mentally deficient child. Psicol. cienc. prof. [online]. 2006, vol.26, n.3, pp. 450-461. ISSN 1414-9893.

The objective of this article is to reflect about the birth of a child who has special needs and about the parents' conflicts (as will as the conflicts' extensions) that follow the confirmation that the child isn't healthy. Such conflicts emerge due to the dialectic confrontation of the idealized child illusion, in which the parents projected their own ideal ego, with the desillusion they feel by the birth of a mentally deficient child who has special needs. These issues are the focus of this paper analyses, that were thoroughly discussed in the author's Master Degue paper (as in the Bibliography), in which the theoretical base is psychoanalysis, mainly the freudian field. First the analyses on the parents psychic representations about the child's birth will be made, and these analysis will be then enlarged, taking into consideration these psychic constructions and deconstructions for the parent who have mentally deficient children, mainly in the first moments after birth.

Keywords : Psychological representation (psychoanalysis); Parent relationship (psychoanalysis); Parent - children relationship; Mental deficiency; Family; Special education.

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