Children with congenital heart disease: their parents’ discourse analysis

Abstract

Abstract: Supported by the precept that speech is crossed by the ideology and the unconscious that cause and precede the subject and concerned with the constitution subject's process, I decided to explore this field. Objective: Intervening in children with congenital heart disease parents’ speech, analyzing their statements about their relationship with their children and their relationship with the disease. Methodology: It is an intervention research, developed among children with congenital heart disease parents, in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, supported by the discourse analysis method, a psychoanalytic device proposed by J.-A. Miller. The researcher interacted dialogically with the parents, recording, and transcribing the utterances. For the discourse material, the corpus, analysis, Pêcheux’s Discourse Analysis reading mechanism was chosen. Results: Parents considered their children, due to illness, as not autonomous, turning it impossible for them to live in the same conditions as their age experience children, even if they were released for activities by the medical team. Conclusion: There is an excess in the relationship among these parents and children that spills over, promoting the subject’s obliteration, that is, keeping these children alienated by their parents’ desire. The impossibility of dissociation among parents and children can infringe several losses in their constitution process as subjectivities given that they are treated as if they were extremely fragile children, which is not the case, but which prevents them from leading a regular life.

Keywords: Congenital heart disease, discourse analysis, parent’s group.