Verissimo J, Pucheu D, Morais de Sa CA; International Conference on AIDS.
Int Conf AIDS. 1993 Jun 6-11; 9: 808 (abstract no. PO-D03-3543).
Gaffree and Guinie University Hospital, University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
OBJECTIVE: To determine the bio-psycho-social profile and psychological features of those women who contracted HIV through sexual intercourse with steady partners. METHOD: 50 women contaminated through sexual intercourse with steady partners whose ages ranged from 21 to 55 were studied from six months to one-year of psychotherapeutic treatment. Low-income women, predominantly were interviewed and a qualitative analysis has been performed-socio-economic and personal data prior to and after contamination- by psychoanalysis according to psychosomatic perspective. RESULTS: The self-image constructed by those women was characterized by low self-esteem, emotional and sexual passiveness, subjectiveness before others' desires, emotional dependence and self-confidence limitation despite their active behavior to other aspects of their lives. CONCLUSION: The psychological features observed reveal a high level of masochism, localized in those women's personalities. They seem to forge a commitment to pain, humiliation and self destruction, generating risky behavior. The choice of their partners is based on such premisses, reaching summit by the acknowledgement of being HIV positive. Thus, it seems that contamination by HIV discloses those women's overall behavior and their way of being.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
- Female
- HIV Infections
- HIV Seropositivity
- Humans
Other ID:
UI: 102206840
From Meeting Abstracts