Over the past several years, the physical appearance of pregnant and new mothers has been evolving within Western society. In particular, celebrity mothers who are templates for contemporary ideals within society (Tyler 2011) experience heightened levels of surveillance and normalizing practices. The shifting ideal, maternal form illustrates how the bodies of women continue to be subjected to discipline and control within society. Furthermore, the flourishing of consumer culture within some neoliberal societies pressures women to consume in order to fully realize their maternal identity. Increased articulation of individual identity through consumption, coupled with increasingly specific appearance standards, narrow the scope of what idealized motherhood embodies. In order to best investigate the issue of the shifting, ideal maternal form, various issues of tabloid magazines will be analyzed. Relying on social constructionism in conjunction with Foucault’s theories of the disciplining of docile bodies and biopower, along with Lyotard’s desire-based, libidinal economy, the literature on the public presentation of maternal bodies will be analyzed with focus on newly developed, rigorous appearance and fitness standards for mothers. Additionally, how these disciplinary practices function within neoliberal climates that champion desire-based consumption, freedom, liberty, individualism and self-subjectification will also be investigated. A cultural analysis of thirty-seven tabloid publications from 2012 to 2013 will be examined for both visual and written discourse pertaining to the cultural construction of ideal motherhood. Through this analysis the interplay between the two seemingly contradictory messages of excessive, desire-based consumption and restrictive, corporeal discipline will be explored in order to gain a better understanding of how these incongruous scripts affect the lives of mothers today. / Thesis (Master, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-26 13:25:26.234

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T20:39:23Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Gabriela Dias Pires.pdf: 381241 bytes, checksum: bb360de9e854851a16797189ee439c1c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-04-13 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This research was developed from the clinical study of an eight year old child, Rodrigo, who is now eleven years old and still being treated. I suppose he is establishing a melancholic potential. The objective of this paper is to understand the identity disorder of this subject starting from the clinical manifestations of some melancholic features and its libidinal and identity history. These features appear during treatment sessions and reveal how Rodrigo s I searches for identity references to reconstruct his history. The methodology used in this work is psychoanalysis, as a theory of the psyche, investigative method of the unconscious and therapeutic technique / A presente pesquisa desenvolve-se a partir do atendimento clínico de uma criança de oito anos, Rodrigo, estando atualmente com onze anos de idade e ainda em atendimento. Suponho que ele esteja estabelecendo uma potencialidade melancólica. Este trabalho tem como objetivo compreender a problemática identificatória desse sujeito a partir das manifestações clínicas de alguns traços melancólicos e de sua história libidinal e identificatória. Tais traços fazem-se presentes nos atendimentos e revelam como o Eu de Rodrigo busca referências identificatórias para reconstruir sua história. A metodologia de trabalho é a psicanálise, enquanto teoria do psiquismo, método de investigação do inconsciente e técnica terapêutica

[pt] Nesta dissertação o conceito freudiano de pulsão é articulado com a teoria econômico-sexual de Reich. Sob a ótica deste autor a pulsão ganha uma nova leitura que permite rediscutir este conceito sob um viés orgânico-energético. Assim, Reich desenvolve a teoria da libido de Freud, buscando demonstrar que a libido frustrada em sua finalidade (estase libidinal) constitui a fonte de energia que alimenta as neuroses. Em relação à pulsão de morte, Reich argumenta contra a ideia de haver no ser vivo um impulso à morte e, por conseguinte, contra a noção de um masoquismo erógeno, uma autodestruição primária. Dessa forma, ao desconsiderar a primazia da pulsão de morte, o dualismo pulsional, na visão reichiana, também não se sustentaria. / [en] In this thesis the Freudian concept of drive is linked to Reich s sex-economy theory. From the perspective of this author the concept of drive (Trieb) acquires a new interpretation that allows to revisit this concept in an organic-energy view. Reich developed Freud s libido theory, seeking to demonstrate that a frustrated libido (libidinal stasis) is the source of energy supplying the neurosis. Regarding the death drive, Reich argues against the idea of a natural impetus to death and therefore against the notion of an erogenous masochism, a primary self-destruction. Thus, the Reichian vision disregards the primacy of the death drive and rejects the instinctual dualism.

La dysorthographie est considérée en psychiatrie comme un trouble spécifique des apprentissages. Les découvertes neuropsychologiques de la place des émotions dans les apprentissages confirment une idée soutenue par l’approche psychopathologique psychanalytique selon laquelle le développement cognitif ne peut être dissocié du développement affectif. Notre recherche a porté sur le silence des affects repéré chez certains enfants présentant ce trouble dans notre pratique clinique, émettant l’hypothèse d’une logique psychosomatique sous-tendant ce symptôme. L’analyse du CAT d’un groupe de vingt enfants et l’analyse de la thérapie d’une enfant de neuf ans ont permis de mettre en évidence une répression majeure des affects, une restriction de l’expression fantasmatique, une prévalence des agirs et des sensations en lien avec un attachement fort au perçu. La présence de ces éléments laisse envisager que dans ces cas, le symptôme dysorthographique peut témoigner de l’action de défenses de type opératoire et ne constitue pas un symptôme psychonévrotique exprimant un conflit symbolique. Au-delà de l’hétérogénéité du fonctionnement psychique de ces enfants, l’existence de telles constantes cliniques nous conduit à établir un parallèle entre le symptôme dysorthographique et un symptôme psychosomatique. Ceci ne le laisse cependant pas dépourvu de sens, que nous avons tenté de rechercher à travers l’analyse des mouvements transféro-contre-transférentiels de la thérapie de Jeanne. Nous avons ainsi été amené à proposer l’hypothèse d’un défaut de subversion libidinale à l’origine d’un maintien dans une écriture purement fonctionnelle et mécanique chez certains patients dysorthographiques. / The spelling disorder is considered in psychiatry as a specific learning disorder. The recent neuropsychological discoveries of the role of emotions in the learning process confirm the idea, supported by the psychopathologic psychoanalytical approach, according to which the cognitive development cannot be separated from the emotional one. Our research concerned the silence of affects which we had already found with children presenting this specific disorder in our clinical practice ; therefore making us utter the hypothesis of a psychosomatic logic underlying the symptom of spelling disorder. The analysis of a projective test, the CAT, for a group of twenty children and the analysis of Jeanne’s therapy, a child presenting this disorder, highlighted a main repression of affects, a limitation of the fantasmatic expression, prevalency of acts and feelings linked to a very strong importance put on perceptions. These aspects lead us to consider that in those cases, the spelling disorder syptom may be the result of operating defenses but is not necessarily a psychonevrotic symptom expressing a symbolic conflict. Beyond the variety of psychic process of these children, the presence of such steady clinical aspects, leads us to establish a link between the spelling disorder symptom and the psychosomatic symptom. We tried to find a reason for it through the analysis of the transfert movements in Jeanne’s therapy. This brought us to utter the hypothesis of a lack of libidinal subversion leading some patients with spelling disorders to remain in a purely functional and mechanical writing.

Fictional narratives of 68 female undergraduates classified as either high or low on sex-guilt were rated for libidinal content following subliminal exposure to either a sex-related or a neutral stimulus. Separate dependent measures were obtained for libidinal derivatives bearing either a transparently "close" or a symbolically "distant" relationship to the sex-related stimulus. Subjects in the sex-related stimulus condition expressed significantly fewer close libidinal derivatives than subjects in the neutral condition. High sex-guilt subjects' distant derivative production revealed a near-significant trend toward repression in the neutral condition, but the greatest amount of expression in the sex-related condition. Type of defenses employed are discussed as a function of subliminally perceived stimulus threat.