This article is the result of a qualitative study, based on Qualitative Epistemology, aimed to promote reflections on postnatal depression, emphasizing the psychological and social factors involved. This is a case study about one of the participants of a support group for mothers with postnatal depression, developed at the Universidade Católica de Brasília. The aim of this group was to provide a space of emotional listening and support, and it was a field for collecting data. The technique of completing phrases, projective techniques, and accounts presented in individual and group sessions were used for the survey and construction of indicators about the experience of maternity and postnatal depression. The study of this case gave us elements to understand how an ideal of maternity presented as natural and instinctive can be harmful for women that try to obtain absolute satisfaction in their experience of maternity, configuring this ideal as one of the responsible elements for the installation and maintenance of postnatal depression.
Postnatal depression; maternity; ambivalence