Abstract
Aging promotes a series of symbolic representation of old age and its unconscious implications. This process is yet more complex for HIV-positive older adults, who deal with a disease that impacts the subject’s narcissism. Thus, from a psychoanalytic perspective, this qualitative descriptive study aimed to understand how seropositive individuals construct the experience of aging. The sample consisted of seven older adults (three women and four men) diagnosed with HIV/AIDS between 2016 and 2017, and who were monitoring the disease in a public hospital in the countryside of Rio Grande do Sul. Data were collected by means of a sociodemographic questionnaire and a semi-structured interview and analyzed in the light of Bardin’s (2009Bardin, L. (2010). Análise de Conteúdo. Edições 70; LDA.) content analysis, resulting in three categories: 1) ““Am I old? Do I act like I’m old?!”“; 2) ““- You have AIDS! (…) - I feel lost;”“ and 3) “This stays between us, I won’t tell anyone”. Participants’ reported difficulty in looking at themselves in the mirror, for they could see the marks of both aging and the disease. HIV diagnosis caused them grief and horror, so that it remained confidential. The results highlight the relevance in offering a more sensitive and integral care for HIV-positive older adults, since this diagnosis undermines not only their emotional-sexual life, but also the singular process of aging, putting in test structuring questions of the identity.
Keywords:
Aging; HIV; Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome; Psychoanalysis