“My hormones drive me crazy”: psychoanalytic research with Brazilian mommy blogs

Abstract

Our article seeks to investigate the collective imaginaries of mothers about maternal suffering in the perspective of the concrete psychoanalytical psychology. This investigation may ground contemporary psychological clinical practices and offer a comprehensive knowledge to debates of social movements and civil society that focus on improving the conditions of emotional and mental care for mothers and children. Our study applies the psychoanalytic method, using posts from Brazilian mommy blogs as material. The psychoanalytical consideration of the posts, based on hovering attention and free association of ideas, allowed the interpretive production of one affective-emotional field “My hormones drive me crazy”. This field is organized around the phantasy that anxious and depressive feelings experienced by mothers during the post-partum (postpartum period) would be determined by hormones and/or neurotransmitters. The results indicate an imaginative tendency to prioritize biological dimensions of human behaviors rather than the drama of relational contexts.