Empirical evidence for psychic transparency in pregnancy - Université de Lorraine Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Psychoanalytic Psychology Année : 2019

Empirical evidence for psychic transparency in pregnancy

Etayage empirique de la transparence psychique pendant la grossesse

Ariane Bazan
Sandra Jorge Mendes
  • Fonction : Auteur
Julie Antoine-Moussiaux
  • Fonction : Auteur
Déborah Prys
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

Bydlowski has proposed that pregnant women show an altered mental state, qualified as ‘psychic transparency’, characterized by a lowering of the usual defenses against the repressed unconscious and the parallel surfacing of (infantile) reminiscences, fantasies and representations. This state of highly invested mental work is thought to be characterized by a predominance of primary process mentation. The Geo-Cat, a simple non-linguistic instrument for the probing of primary and secondary processes, revealed a substantial increase in primary process mentation in pregnant women compared with control groups (n = 118 pregnant women from their 6th to their last month of pregnancy, n = 81 nonpregnant control women, n = 78 future fathers, and n = 40 control men). This difference remained highly significant after factoring out the influence of confounding variables. Also, this increase was not different between women giving birth for the first time, and women, having a second or subsequent child. For all these reasons, we are drawn to think that it is the mere event of having another being growing inside one’s own body, which, by requiring huge mobilization of mental energy, dries up the mental sources required to maintain the usual defenses. As a consequence, primary process mentation would be at work, resulting in a so-called ‘psychic transparency’ state. This mental explanation is an alternative for a mere biological and deficit interpretation, as it allows us to consider the function of this state, both for the mother-to-be and for the mother-infant bond.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
pdf1.second revision primary process predominance pregnancy (1).pdf (744.59 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)

Dates et versions

hal-03452388 , version 1 (02-09-2023)

Identifiants

Citer

Ariane Bazan, Sandra Jorge Mendes, Julie Antoine-Moussiaux, Déborah Prys. Empirical evidence for psychic transparency in pregnancy. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2019, 36 (3), pp.239-248. ⟨10.1037/pap0000212⟩. ⟨hal-03452388⟩

Collections

UNIV-LORRAINE
17 Consultations
16 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More