Mulheres com câncer de mama: o corpo que habitam

Abstract

It’s undeniable that the woman affected by breast cancer register in her trajectory a series of biological, psychological and social changes in the body, which in their majority come from the treatment. Understanding how the women who have had breast cancer realize their body before and after being submitted to a 12 week resistance training protocol and how they think that have been seen by other people, were the goal of this dissertation. Ten women who had breast cancer participated in this research, which were individually interviewed before and after the strength training, answering two generating questions: How do you see your body today? And how do you think people see your body today? For analysis and interpretation of the data obtained, was used the Analysis and Elaboration of Meanings Technique proposed by Moreira; Simões and Porto (2005). Previously results to the beginning of the training, showed that they saw the body without difference (n=4), because the changes due to the treatment weren’t sufficient to evidence changes. As for finding out how other people saw their bodies, it was described as normal (n=6). Such speech was due to the changes not being “so” visible. When they were interviewed again at the end of the 12-week protocol, changes in speech about changes in their perceptions of how to see the body and how they thought they were seen by other people compared to the initial responses. In both answers to the units of better meaning (n=7 in the 1st generating question and n=5 in the 2nd generating question) it was the most evident, with changes both in the physiological spheres such as losing weight and better disposition, as well as emotional ones, such as feeling happy and receive praise, confirming the effect that physical exercise had on the volunteers of this research. Regarding the context of the study, there were changes both in the perception that everyone had when they saw their bodies and how people saw them. We concluded that having participated in a training protocol for 12 weeks changed the perception of how women who had breast cancer saw themselves and how they thought they were seen by other people.