The authors discuss the sensemaking process of the illness, by a semiotic and psychological perspective in particular the diagnosis’ receiving. The authors present a qualitative research about sensemaking processes organized by mothers with children who have received diagnosis of Disorder of Sexual Differentiation (DSD). It is observed and discussed how the sensemaking process of illness experience and diagnosis are configured as an experience of crisis and rupture of continuity of experiences. The authors’ work is articulated in a semiotic perspective, scene of a possible and fruitful dialogue between cultural psychology and clinical psychology, in order to consider the mediation between cultural, intersubjective and subjective instances. In this perspective it is presented and discussed the opportunity to observe in the text of the interviews, linguistic markers which represent: subjective positioning and specific ways of sensemaking processes about diagnosis; intra-inter-subjective mediations; the specific way of dealing with cultural meanings; and the relationship between continuity and discontinuity generated by the crisis of meaning in illness.
Keywords: Disorders of Sexual Differentiation, sensemaking process about diagnosis, illness experience as a semiotic discontinuity, linguistic markers of subjectivity.