Dominando a arte do possível: os processos de resiliência familiar em famílias de crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista

• Ano de defesa: 2023
• Autor(a) principal: Valente, Stephanye Meirelles de Oliveira
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo; BR; Mestrado em Psicologia; Centro de Ciências Humanas e Naturais; UFES; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Psicologia
• Palavras-chave em Português: Resiliência; Resiliência familiar; TEA; Teoria bioecológica do desenvolvimento humano; subject.br-rjbn; Psicologia
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.ufes.br/handle/10/16745

The phenomenon of individual resilience has become an object of research in recent studies in Psychology, especially after the Positive Psychology movement. Resilience is understood as a set of processes involving: adversities and challenges, protective factors, overcoming and growth from these. Despite the initial approach to resilience as an intrinsic characteristic of some individuals, the phenomenon could later be understood as a set of dynamic processes. The emergence of new research aimed at understanding the phenomenon of resilience in groups, such as the family, proposes systemic and contextualist research methodologies. Specifically in research on family resilience processes, the evaluation of internal and external family processes is proposed. These refer to the forces that the family itself develops to overcome and grow from adversities, as well as the resources of the support networks and the contexts in which they are inserted. Families of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are considered as groups that face different challenges, adversities, as well as stress and overload. What are the strengths and resources that these families access? This research proposed, as a general objective, the investigation of family resilience processes in families of children with ASD. This research was carried out through the concepts of the key processes of family resilience, proposed by Froma Walsh, namely: the belief system, the organizational and communication patterns in the family. Based on these key processes, the specific objectives of this research were developed. The first specific objective was to know the understandings and experiences of the family in the face of the contextual change brought about by the arrival of the individual with ASD, identifying: beliefs about the diagnosis, about the child's development and about the role of the family for the child with ASD. The second aimed to identify possible changes in the organization of the family microsystem, in addition to communication processes with the child and between family members and the solution of problems in this environment in the experience with the child with ASD. The third proposed to describe the support networks available to families that constitute part of their organizational pattern, composing the family's mesosystem in the relationship with the child: in its structural aspect (formal and informal support) and its functional aspect (the type of support offered). The Bioecological Theory of Human Development (TBDH), by Urie Bronfenbrenner, with its Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) research model, was used as a theoretical basis for the analysis of processes. In order to reach the proposed objective, the research used a qualitative methodology, based on the narratives of the participants. Thus, the following were chosen as data collection instruments: the semi-structured interview script, the ecomap and the comic book technique. With each participating family, up to four interview moments were carried out, namely: initial interview with the parental couple; application of the ecomap with the parental couple; individual interviews (with each father and mother). All data collection was carried out in a digital environment, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The data collection instruments were, therefore, adapted for online application. Four families participated in this research, with different times of diagnosis of their children, composed of a parental couple and at least one child diagnosed with ASD. The data analysis procedure was carried out from the content analysis of all instruments, which resulted in the division of two thematic axes. The first thematic axis emerged from the analysis of the initial interviews with the parental couple and the comic book technique. The results presented the internal processes of the family microsystem, demonstrating its belief system, as well as its patterns of organization and communication processes of the subsystems (marital and parental). The second thematic axis, resulting from the analysis of the ecomap, specifically explored the relations of the family microsystem with other contexts. In these, people, groups and institutions were identified that were considered by families as their support network. The analysis of the results of the two thematic axes, carried out individually and in an integrated way, showed the overcoming and growth of families. These were identified in changes in family beliefs and understandings that could be considered risk factors for the execution of parenting practices and in family organization processes, which demonstrated patterns of flexibility and stability, as well as the connection of family members, who overcame extreme changes in routines and roles. For these processes to take place effectively, families needed to develop clear and effective communication patterns, both between parents and between parents and children. All these confrontations carried out by the family microsystem, as well as its growth, also depended on network support. This support was identified by representatives of formal and informal support, in the most diverse forms (information, emotional, affective, material and support of pleasurable interactions). It was highlighted, in the end, that many of the challenges and adversities that families face do not come from the characteristics of the child, but are dependent on multiple social factors, such as lack of knowledge about the disorder, lack of professional preparation and difficulties in inclusion. It also became evident that in the resilience processes that families of children with ASD experience, there is development and growth not only of the child, but of all members of the family unit, especially their parents.