Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 11

who has cast a curse on them. The hearing parents in this study perceive their deaf child as a victim of a curse from a relative. The act of witchcraft is a manifestation of the conflict between the Ego and the BLE. Witchcraft is a process through which the individual perceives the loss or diminution of his or her vital state due to the evil action of another individual who is a witch. The fact that these hearing parents see the total or partial loss of their child's ear leads them to attribute their child's illness to the act of witchcraft. V. D iscussions The results of the present study show that hearing parents experience feelings of fear, helplessness, devaluation, insecurity and guilt in relation to their child's disability. These results corroborate those of William et al. (2003) who showed that some siblings of children with disabilities experience negative emotions such as anxiety and depression because siblings are part of the family or act as parents at times. In contrast, the present study did not find antisocial behavior or delinquent acts among hearing parents as reported by William et al . (2003). It should also be noted that the aspect of narcissistic suffering was also found by Dethorre (1997). The results of the present study on the representation of deafness coincide to a large extent with those of Bourcheix (2009), who also found as representations of the parents, the divine will, organic conception, curse, witchcraft, punishment. Likewise, the aspects concerning psychological suffering in terms of reactions were found, namely fear of the future, feelings of rejection, fear. Our results, concerning the experience of the child's disability such as the fits of weeping, the refusal of the diagnosis and the guilt, were also found by Touma (2007) in his study on the factors influencing parental reactions in relation to deaf children. However, to explain these reactions, Touma (op. cit.) relied on factors such as fear of the unknown, ignorance, lack of information, the negative gaze of the surroundings, and fear of judgment, whereas in the present study, the parents' reactions are explained by the degree of children’s deafness and the parents' representations. Furthermore, the results of the present study do not corroborate those of Guillon (2011) despite the fact that she took into account the social representations of hearing parents of deaf children and tried to see the relationships between these parents and their child. This can be explained by the specificity of indicators of the subjects’ representations in our study. VI. C onclusion The objectives of this research are to describe the sufferings of parents and to assess the link between the degree of child’s deafness and the psychological sufferings of his/her parents on the one hand and the hearing parents’ representations of deafness on the other hand. The psychological sufferings that are summarized on three levels: experience of the child's disability, relational difficulties, painful experience of the parent-deaf child communication. Among the factors to which we have linked the suffering of the subjects of our study, are the hearing parents’ representations of the deaf children’s deafness, which include the act of witchcraft, persecution, organic conception, divine will, punishment and curse. We reviewed, without pretending to be exhaustive, the psychological sufferings that some parents of deaf children undergo. In this problematic of the psychic shaking of which the close relations and the disabled persons are the object, the present study, whose subjects are the hearing parents of deaf child, could not answer other questions which can exist. Thus, it would be preferable that other studies be envisaged to explore certain aspects that were not taken into account in this research, among others the representations of these parents towards their deaf child, the attitude of hearing parents towards their deaf child. B ibliographic R eferences 1. Andolfi, M., Angelo, C., Penghi, P. & Nicolo, A. (1987). The family fortress: a relational clinical model. Rome: Dunod. 2. Bourcheix, L. (2009). Representation of deafness, communication and integration of the deaf in the land of honest men. Master's thesis in Anthropology, University of Lyon 2. 3. Colin, S. Geraci, C., Leybaert, J. & Petit, C. (2021). The schooling of deaf pupils in France: inventory and recommendations. Scientific Council for National Education "Deafness" sub-working group, June 2021. 4. Dethorre, M. (1997). History of deafness, psychoanalytical and anthropological reflection on the representations of deafness and its effects, Handicap, The notebooks of CTNERHI, (74). 5. Diderot, D. (2004). Psychic process and deafness. Master's thesis, University of Paris VII. 6. Dorey, J-L. (2005). The effects of hearing impairment in the family and in the institution or the metamorphosis of the link prevented. The Family Divan, 1 (14), pp 167-179. DOI 10.3917/difa.014. 0167. https://www.cairn.info/revue-le-divan-familial- 2005-1-page-167.htm 7. Freud, S. (1988). Mourning and melancholy, complete works. Psychoanalysis. Paris: PUF. 8. Greenberg, M.T., Lengua, L.J., & Calderon, R. (1997). The nexus of culture and sensory loss: Coping with deafness. In S. A. Wolchik, & I. N. Sandler (Eds.), Handbook of children’s coping: Linking theory and intervention (pp. 301-331). New York: Plenum Press Volume XXII Issue XI Version I 8 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 © 2022 Global Journals A Social Representations of Deafness and Psychological Suffering in Parents of Deaf Children