When an organic deficit or disease knocks the door of the parental imaginary The effects on the subjective constitution of the child

Abstract

This study proposes a discussion regarding the impact of brain diseases and other organic pathologies on the constitution of the speaking subject, based on the effects of these organic conditions in the maternal and paternal functions, seen as key supports to this structuring of the infants in the field of language. To support this discussion, we describe three cases of children who presented some organic disease and who came to the clinic of DERDIC/PUC-SP for presenting impasses in their constitution as speakers. Such problems were interrogated with the aim of knowing the extent to which they stemmed only from organic or impediments or if they also represented a psychic symptom, a sign of some obstacle in their subject constitution, specifically arising from impasses from the maternal and paternal functions, detailed in this article based on the psychoanalysis guided by Lacan’s teaching. In the clinical cases presented, psychoanalytic listening allowed us to read differences and nuances between them. The impact of the hearing loss and brain diseases of the children on the functions supported by parents occurred in different ways in these cases. The maternal and paternal functions supported by the parents suffered the effects of imaginary and symbolic injuries caused by the impact of the disease diagnosis. Parents, taken by the body and its deficiencies, hesitated to assume the subject in the children, placing them in limbo between the living being and the subject.