Viagem ao Vale da Morte: Estudo psicológico sobre mulheres mastectomizadas por câncer de mama [A journey to the valley of death: a psychological study about women who have been mastectomized due to breast cancer]

BARBOSA, A. M. S. Viagem ao Vale da Morte: Estudo psicológico sobre mulheres mastectomizadas por câncer de mama [A journey to the valley of death: a psychological study about women who have been mastectomized due to breast cancer]. Master’s Dissertation – Instituto de Psicologia da USP. São Paulo (SP), 1989. Abstract: This work is a psychological pilot study regarding women who have been mastectomized due to breast cancer, with the objective of verifying the validity of using imported concepts in the psychological approach to the question. The sample, made up of thirty-three women, was submitted to a series of psychological tests (Life Style Index, colored Pyramid Test, Drawing of the Human Figure and Drawing-and-Story Procedure). In the development of the study, we brought in techniques used in other areas of human knowledge: from journalism, the direct and indirect readings of MEDINA (1989); from the cinema, the “travelling” of GODARD; from optics, the “Lucid Chamber”; from epistemology, the phenomena of resonance and repercussion of resonance and repercussion of BACHEARD (w/d). Evaluating the dynamic and structural aspects of personality and speech, we proposed a tragic-phenomenological method of circumspection of a tender gaze upon the object of knowledge. Comparing the manifested sensibility to the arts, we used defensive mechanisms as esthetical instruments, pyramids as symphonic works drawings as paintings and drawing stories as poetic spaces. In this way, we detected a great quantity of psychological contents related to mastectomy, not mentioned in foreign publications, which leads us believe that there is a need to elaborate a technique of psychological approach more adapted to the real necessities of women who have undergone mastectomies.