<p>This study focuses on how the heritage of slavery has affected the mothering of two mothers in Toni Morrison's novels <em>Sula </em>and <em>Beloved </em>and how this is portrayed in the novels. It has made a comparison between the mothers and many similarities are found in the lives of these women although they live in different time periods. The essay also elucidates aspects of power and powerlessness as well as the consequences of motherlove.</p>

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / A partir das considerações teóricas de Sigmund Freud e Jacques Lacan a respeito da maternidade e da psicose, este trabalho busca realizar um estudo sobre a maternidade na psicose através da experiência psicanalítica. Se a falta de referência simbólica ao falo, decorrente da foraclusão do significante Nome-do-Pai, compromete o reconhecimento da diferença sexual, assim como a resposta do sujeito no nível da paternidade e da maternidade, a nossa pesquisa questiona: o que é um filho para uma mãe psicótica? Na neurose, a tese freudiana da equação simbólica falo-filho e a hipótese criada através das fórmulas da sexuação de Lacan segundo a qual a mulher enquanto mãe, localiza-se do lado homem, regido pelo falo, lugar do sujeito do desejo , nos leva a considerar uma estreita relação entre maternidade e atribuição fálica. Entretanto, quando interrogamos como uma psicótica, fora-da-norma-fálica, viveria a maternidade, observamos um dado novo. A investigação convoca a comunidade analítica ao debate de uma outra modalidade de exercício da maternidade, distinta da tese freudiana falo-filho. / From theoretical considerations of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan about motherhood and psychosis, this research performs a study of the maternity in psychosis, through the psychoanalytic experience. If the fail of symbolic reference to the phallus, due to the foreclosure of the signifier Nom-du-Père, compromises the admission of sexual difference, as well as the response of the subject at the level of fatherhood and motherhood, our research questions: what is a son for a psychotic mother?. In neurosis, the freudian thesis of symbolic equation phallus-child and the hypothesis created through the lacanian recipe of sexuation the woman as mother, is located beside the man, regulated by the phallus, place of the subject of desire - leads us to consider a close relationship between motherhood and assignment phallic. However, when we questioned how a psychotic, out-of-standard-phallic, live motherhood, we observed something new. The investigation invites the analytical community to debate another modality of motherhood, distinct from the Freudian thesis phallus-child.

Alors qu’une maternité heureuse est une aspiration collective, il est établi que de nombreuses femmes souffrent de détresse psychologique dans la période périnatale. Or, la santé psychologique des femmes ne peut être considérée indépendamment de leurs rôles au sein de la société et des normes qui y sont attachées. Ce travail de recherche vise à tester un modèle psychosocial et culturel de compréhension des troubles de l'adaptation à la maternité, (symptômes dépressifs postpartum et burnout). Dans une première étude, différentes étapes auprès de plusieurs populations (N = 250, 22, 474, 249 et 231) ont mené à la validation en langue française d’une échelle de mesure des croyances associées au rôle maternel. Dans un second temps, un suivi longitudinal a été mis en place auprès de femmes rencontrées en fin de grossesse puis à 2 et 4 mois postpartum (N = 129). Ces travaux ont permis d’établir la validité convergente, prédictive et de construit du concept de burnout maternel. Par ailleurs, le poids des caractéristiques psychosociales et normatives du rôle maternel dans le développement de symptômes dépressifs et de burnout a été exploré. Pour finir, des analyses en cluster ont permis de dégager des profils d’articulation, plus ou moins adaptatifs, entre investissement dans la maternité et dans la vie professionnelle. Ces travaux ouvrent des perspectives de recherche concernant le concept de burnout maternel dans la période postpartum et la prise en compte des aspects socio-normatifs du rôle maternel dans la prévention et la prise en charge de ces troubles. / Whereas a happy motherhood is a collective aspiration, it is known that many women are reporting psychological distress during the perinatal period. Yet, women’s psychological health can not be considered regardless of their roles in society and norms associated. This research work aims to test a psychosocial and cultural model to understand adjustment disorder regarding motherhood (postpartum depressive symptoms and burnout). In a first study, various steps with different populations (N = 250, 22, 474, 249 and 231) have led to the validation in French of a scale assessing beliefs associated with the maternal role. Then, a longitudinal follow up was settled with women who were seen during late pregnancy and at 2 and 4 months postpartum (N = 129). This work has served to demonstrate the convergent, predictive and construct validity of maternal burnout. Furthermore, the impact of motherhood psychosocial and normative characteristics in the development of depressive and burnout symptoms have been explored. Finally, cluster analyses were conducted to identify more or less adaptive patterns regarding articulation of investment in motherhood and working life. This research work has opened research avenues regarding maternal burnout in the postpartum period and considerations of socio-normative aspects of the mothering role regarding prevention and care of those troubles.

This thesis adopts maternal well-being as a prism for studying the roles and identities of African women. It critically analyzes the dynamics in culture and religion that militate against women's quest for fullness of life. As its methodology, it adopts narratives of African women as a source and means of theological research based on the anthropological model. This method prioritizes the voices and humanity of previously silenced, excluded, and oppressed women and their conditions of maternal mortality, poverty, and oppression rooted in gender biases and patriarchal stereotypes. Theology has largely ignored the reality of maternal mortality evidenced by the paucity of theological materials. A consequence of the neglect and ignorance of this critical factor is the chasm between the rhetorical use of feminine and maternal symbolisms to represent and define the significance of women in church and society and the concrete realities that confront them as women. Bridging this gap necessitates identifying exemplary icons and models of maternal leadership and wisdom in scripture, traditions, and cultural practices to redefine the status, identity, and role of women. It also entails recognizing and harnessing the unique gifts, qualities, and spirituality of African women for the edification of church, transformation of society, and flourishing of humanity. Of salience is the practice of maternal leadership as a source of a new ethos for church and society through women's capacities and contributions, though a patriarchal mind-set imposes biological motherhood as the sole criterion for defining women's existence and relevance. Maternal leadership and wisdom liberated from a reductionist, biological understanding of motherhood and the highlighting of incarnated roles and identities inspired by maternal values represent innovative and original aspects of this thesis. Only by listening to voices of women can church and society develop a more just, liberating, and inclusive understanding of womanhood and motherhood. Nothing substitutes for the voices of women.

Background: The aims of this qualitative research were to explore a range of challenges encountered by mothers coping with infant sleep difficulties, and subsequent impacts on the transition to becoming a parent. The intention was twofold – to raise awareness amongst practitioner psychologists that “many new mothers experience some level of emotional distress and all deserve systematic and compassionate support” (Boots Family Trust, p.1), with particular reference to early relationship formation, and to encourage opportunities for translation from multidisciplinary research into practice. Method: Five semi-structured interviews were conducted. Four with mothers who were either experiencing, or had in the past experienced sleep difficulties with their babies. The fifth was with a professional ante-natal educator, herself a mother. The interviews were transcribed and analysed according to a constructivist version of grounded theory methodology guided by Charmaz (2006). Analysis: A central narrative of ‘the wearing mask of transition’ was developed from four analytic categories: being me’, ‘being pushed to the limit’, ‘relationships’ and ‘coping, learning and trusting’. The interconnectedness of the categories was conveyed via the visual translation of the proposed pluralistic model – ‘the coping mask of transition’. Conclusion: After having been neglected within mainstream mental health services, perinatal mental wellbeing is currently being prioritised, representing a unique opportunity for multidisciplinary consultation and sharing of expertise and training. The ‘normal’ experiences of the women interviewed were revealed as emotionally complex. They worked through their sleep deprivation and distress feeling largely unsupported, and often unwilling to disclose even to partners the extent of their difficulties. It is hoped that this small-scale study, with its focus on a non-clinical population, and the significance of maternal mental and emotional wellbeing and outcomes for children, will encourage professionals to consider the distressing impacts of ‘normal’ sleep disturbance and deprivation within the broader context of this major life transition.

Based upon fieldwork in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, South East Mexico, this thesis is about how mestiza women in a low-income barrio become mothers. As such, it is an engagement with theories of embodiment, maternal subjectivity, transformation of self and gendered modernities. The chapters are intended to evoke discussion around the roles that mestiza women, the wider Mexican society and the state play in simultaneously embracing and rejecting constructed notions of the good mother. Competing notions of good motherhood come about through local practices and ideals, and also through discourses of risk and global health. The thesis is structured so that the corporeal processes of maternity (pregnancy, birth and nurturing) provide a common and interlinking theme which also demonstrate maternal transition as a life event akin to others. In doing so, this thesis is ultimately about the way in which gendered beings experience change. I intend this thesis to be both a political and theoretical project which highlights the lives of a community of women in a particular moment in their history. This thesis provides further evidence for the need to formulate new global theories of change that foreground gender in global processes. The women I met during fieldwork, and whose narratives have shaped the direction of this thesis, show that when individuals have recourse to a mixed economy of health care and are not reliant on state intervention, it can result in an outcome that better meets with the woman’s expectations. Women’s combined use of lay and clinical services reveal ways in which they make active attempts to avoid negative pre and postnatal experiences. In doing so, they embody a maternal identity that is deeply rooted in local ways of being-in-the-world. By managing the process of maternity more akin to local ways of thinking about gendered personhood, the women reveal how social change is both assimilated and contested in daily life.

O estudo investigou a experiência da maternidade em portadoras do HIV/Aids aos três meses de vida do filho/a. Participaram do estudo seis mães com idades entre 19 e 30 anos, de nível sócio-econômico baixo, recrutadas em uma Unidade de Saúde referência para HIV/Aids da Grande Porto Alegre. Três destas mães engravidaram sabendo que já eram portadoras da doença, enquanto as demais ficaram sabendo apenas na hora do parto ou logo após. Cada mãe respondeu a uma entrevista estruturada, realizada de forma semi-dirigida, e a um questionário sobre sua saúde e acompanhamento médico. Os relatos das participantes sobre a maternidade foram examinados através de uma análise de conteúdo qualitativa baseada em quatro eixos teóricos derivados da literatura: vida-crescimento, relacionar-se primário, matriz de apoio e, reorganização da identidade. Os resultados mostraram que as mães tinham muitas preocupações com a possibilidade de infecção do filho/a e com a saúde do bebê, além de sentimentos de incerteza quanto ao futuro, culpa e medo do preconceito. Estes temores pareciam mais intensos para as três mães que tiveram seu diagnóstico no momento do nascimento do filho/a. O estigma do HIV/Aids, a presença de conflitos familiares, instabilidade na relação com o pai do bebê, dificuldades em assimilar o diagnóstico e o tratamento, além de restrições sócio-econômicas e em sua rede de apoio exigiam um grande esforço emocional e uma reorganização familiar e subjetiva destas mulheres. As mães buscavam sustentar uma identidade forte, centrando suas preocupações na criança, evitando pensamentos negativos para enfrentar a doença e apoiando-se em modelos maternos positivos. Com isso, as mães procuravam assegurar uma relação de afeto e proteção do bebê e garantir seu desenvolvimento físico e psíquico. Discute-se a necessidade de apoio psicológico e de intervenções psicossociais com estas mães que lhes auxiliem a lidar com as preocupações com o filho/a, as dificuldades em aderir ao próprio tratamento e com o impacto do HIV/Aids nas suas relações familiares. / The present study investigated the experience of motherhood in HIV-positive women in the thirtieth month of the baby. Participated in this study six mothers, 19 to 30 years old, from low socioeconomic status, selected from a health center for treatment of HIV/Aids. Three of these mothers got pregnant knowing that they were infected, while the others were informed in the childbirth or soon after. Each mother answered a semi-structured interview, and a questionnaire about her health and medical treatment. Mothers’ accounts about their motherhood were examined through qualitative content analysis based on four themes derived of the literature: life-growth, primary relatedness, support matrix, and identity reorganization. The results showed that mothers were worried about having transmitted HIV to their baby and about his/her health. They reported uncertainty feelings concerning the future, guilt and fear of discrimination. These fears seemed more intense for the three mothers who had their diagnosis in the childbirth. Issues such as HIV/Aids-related stigma, family conflicts, instability in the relationship with the baby’s father, difficulties in assimilating the diagnosis and the treatment, socioeconomic difficulties and lack of support required large emotional strength and family and subjective reorganization of these women. The mothers tried to preserve a strong identity, concentrating their concerns on the child, avoiding negative thoughts about the disease and leaning on positive maternal models. Thus, the mothers tried to assure a relationship of affection and protection of the baby and to assure his/her physical and psychic development. The need for psychological support and psychosocial intervention with these mothers is discussed. This could contribute to deal with baby’s concerns, their treatment adherence, and with the impact of HIV/Aids on their family relationships.

I posit that contemporary fears about the effect electronic media has on us and our children is anything but new. Therefore, reminiscing about the "good ole days" and wanting to go back would not actually solve the problem. However, looking back to a time when there was also anxiety about electronic media and the shifting field of public and private may reveal new possibilities for relating to and with these media. Rather than flatly blame media as an apparently new cause of harm, it is essential to reveal media's historical and political conditions, only in this way can we better assess its possibilities and limits. I argue that the figure of the mother in Poltergeist (1982) and Stranger Things (2016-) can be read as both a metaphor and model for media. The mother exhibits, what I call, active-passivity, which means that she does not amputate herself from her media use and its implications, but rather provides oversight and intervenes when necessary. I draw upon the work of media scholar Marshall McLuhan in order to read the figure of the mother as a cool medium that demonstrates and invites a high level of involvement. The figure of the mother's method of media use is affirmed by the film and offered as not only a mode of media use but also a mode of politicization. In our present moment, we are constantly technologically extended into the world with our networked media. I contend that Stranger Things returns to the 1980s to reveal that even while using cool media, what is important is how one uses that media. I utilize the work of Svetlana Boym in my argument that not only can we learn something from media that is nostalgic, but we can learn something about our relationship with media through nostalgia.

O presente estudo investigou a experiência da maternidade e a relação mãe-bebê desde a gestação no contexto do HIV/Aids, até os três meses de vida do bebê. Além disso, examinou as contribuições de uma intervenção psicoeducativa para o enfrentamento da doença, bem como para a adesão à profilaxia da TMI e ao tratamento para HIV/Aids. Participaram quatro gestantes com idades entre 29 e 37 anos, duas mães primíparas e duas multíparas, sendo que duas já sabiam do seu diagnóstico de HIV/Aids antes de engravidarem e duas souberam da infecção nesse último pré-natal atual. Foi utilizado um delineamento de estudo de casos de caráter longitudinal envolvendo entrevistas de avaliação pré e pós-intervenção, nos relatos das mães durante sua participação na PIP-Gestante e na avaliação aos três meses de vida do seu filho/a. Análise de conteúdo qualitativa revelou o sofrimento psicológico das mães vivendo com HIV/Aids diante da possibilidade de que seus filhos fossem infectados e uma vivência persistia mesmo com a adesão rigorosa às recomendações profiláticas e após os primeiros exames dos filhos atestarem resultados negativos. Em especial, a notícia do HIV/Aids durante a gestação esteve associada a uma situação de grande risco psicológico, uma vez que envolvia um imenso esforço de adaptação e sobrecarga emocional potencializadas por envolverem o filho. A culpa, o medo e a incerteza diante do risco de TMI foram os sentimentos mais marcantes relacionados às dificuldades emocionais das mães sobressaindo-se as limitações dos serviços de saúde em acolher e amenizá-los. Os processos psicológicos associados à maternidade e ao enfrentamento do HIV/Aids mostraram-se interligados, tendo como principal objetivo a proteção do filho e da relação mãe-bebê. Nesse contexto, a intervenção realizada apresentou contribuições positivas para o enfrentamento do HIV/Aids, da profilaxia da TMI e do tratamento, melhorando também o bem-estar psicológico das mães. Discute-se a necessidade de se oferecer atendimento psicológico adequado a todas as gestantes vivendo com HIV/Aids, ampliando o apoio dos serviços de saúde a essas mulheres para que possam exercer seu direito a maternidade de modo menos sofrido, garantindo o desenvolvimento emocional dos seus filhos e a sua presença na vida deles. / The present study investigated the experience of motherhood in women living with HIV/Aids and the contributions of a brief psychoeducative intervention during pregnancy to cope with HIV/Aids and adherence to treatment and prophylaxis of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT). Participated in this study four mothers, 29 to 37 years old, among two of them were primiparous. Two mothers got pregnant knowing that they were infected, while two were informed during their current antenatal exams. A collective study-case design was used to examine mother’s accounts during pre-intervention assessment, five intervention sessions, and post-intervention assessments during pregnancy and in the thirtieth month of the baby. Qualitative content analysis revealed the psychological suffering of mothers living with HIV/Aids facing the possibility that their children were infected and it was persisted even with their strict adherence to MTCT prophylaxis and after the first child’s HIV exams resulted negative. Particularly, HIV/Aids diagnosis during pregnancy represented a psychological risky situation, since it required a large strength to adaptation and emotional burden by involving the child. Feelings of guilt, fear and uncertainty with the risk of MTCT were remarkable and revealed not just emotional difficulties of these mothers but also pointed out the health care services fails in recognizing and mitigate them. Psychological processes related to motherhood and HIV/Aids coping showed to be interconnected in order to protect the baby and the motherinfant relationship. In this context, the psychoeducative intervention proved to have positive contributions to coping with HIV/Aids, MTCT prophylaxis and treatment, improving the mothers’ psychological well-being. The need for appropriate psychological support to all pregnant women living with HIV/Aids is discussed. Enlarged health care services should support the right to motherhood to these women, diminishing their psychological burden and ensuring their children’s emotional development.

O presente estudo investigou os sentimentos de mães em relação à maternidade adotiva. Participaram da pesquisa nove mães, cujos filhos haviam sido adotados ainda bebês e tinham em torno de dois anos no período da coleta de dados. Foi realizada uma entrevista semi-estruturada com as participantes, abordando questões referentes ao desenvolvimento do filho e à experiência da maternidade. Os dados foram analisados através da análise de conteúdo qualitativa. As mães demonstraram uma forte idealização tanto em relação à criança quanto à experiência da maternidade adotiva. Chamou a atenção que praticamente todas disseram sentir um amor imediato por seus filhos, logo no primeiro encontro. Além disso, verificaram-se sentimentos ambivalentes por parte das mães no que se refere a esta forma de filiação. Ao mesmo tempo em que o filho adotivo foi visto como sem nenhuma diferença em relação ao filho biológico, foi também retratado “como se fosse um filho”, “especial”, “diferente”. As implicações clínicas desses achados são discutidas. / The present study investigated maternal feelings regarding adoptive motherhood. Nine adoptive mothers who adopted their children when they were infants took part in the study. The children were around two years old when data were collected. A semistructured interview was used, focusing on themes such as their children’s development and the motherhood experience. The data were analyzed through qualitative content analysis. The mothers demonstrated a strong idealization both regarding their children and their motherhood experience. Almost all mothers said they felt an immediate love for their children, when they first met them. Besides the idealization, maternal ambivalent feelings were also observed. At the same time the adoptive child was seen as not being different from a biological child, he/she was also portrayed by mothers “as if” he/she was their child, as well as “special”, “different”. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.