This article is based on the author’s master’s dissertation, wherein menopause is considered a critical moment in the acquisition of a women’s sense of femininity. This process is quite different today from what was possible when psychoanalysis was in its early stages.
During this phase of a woman’s life cycle, the psychosomatic effects that appear require a psychoanalytic understanding of physical marks based on the primitive motherbaby relationship, on which the demand for medical and psychological care is founded. Based on field research, vicissitudes of femininity in today’s world are discussed.
Woman; motherhood; femininity; menopause; mother-baby relationship; physical marks; body image; sensoriality