We searched to understand the process of meaning making about adoption, addressing a member of the extended family of a satisfactory case of adoption, using the theoretical and methodological foundations of Semiotics Cultural Psychology from idiographic orientation. We highlighted the dynamic between the meanings that exist in the collective culture, in transformation, and the personal meaning making. The construction of the meanings of adoption, even in a family whose adoption is accepted by all, is characterized by the existence of a constant tension and by the ambivalence between the collective culture - full of myths and prejudices shared in a system of redundant messages, but also reflecting a current process in which the adoption is presented as commendable and desirable - and the gradual construction of a personal culture. Some suggestions on useful directions for the work of guidance to prospective parents and adoption support groups are suggested.
adoption; semiotics cultural psychology; semiotic regulation; affective fields; ambivalence
