Family perceptions and coping strategies in cases of intersexuality: understanding their significance.
Considering that the intersexual condition has a negative impact on the individual, their family, and society, health professionals and researchers have dedicated themselves to is to describe and understand the perceptions of primary caregivers regarding intersexuality and its developmental aspects. Six mothers and one grandmother of school age children were interviewed. The data indicated that living with the stigma of intersexuality can mean a permanent state of crisis within the family system. Issues such as guilt about the child's suffering and questions related to the choice of gender follow the family from the moment of diagnosis. It is suggested that the therapeutic follow-up should foster the necessary conditions for the family group to be organized as a model of competence, replacing the model of guilt.
Santos
Moara de Medeiros Rocha
Mde M
Universidade de Brasília, Brazil. moara@unb.br
de Araujo
Tereza Cristina Cavalcanti Ferreira
TC
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D012734:Disorders of Sex Development / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D012944:Social Support