The Impossible Return-Psychoanalytic Reflections on Breast Cancer, Loss and Mourning

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-81194-9
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

The Impossible Return – Psychoanalytic Reflections on Breast Cancer, Loss, and Mourning is a work of creative non-fiction and auto-theory. It is part cancer memoir, part psychoanalytic theorizing, and part history of late-Soviet Ukraine.

Anna Fishzon’s personal narrative is interspersed with interludes exploring other “reconstructions” (Chernobyl’s sarcophagus, the perestroika years) as well as psychoanalytic reflections on anxiety, prosthesis, hypochondria, and tattooing. The authorial voice is intentionally polyphonic: elegiac, humorous, at times academic and philosophical. Each chapter is set in the context of the writing process, with discussion of the Covid-19 pandemic and war in Ukraine. The prologue examines the psychoanalyst’s bodily presence in treatment and includes clinical vignettes illustrating the impact of remote therapy sessions during lockdown, and an epilogue provides a meditation on repetition compulsion and the impossibility of mourning fully.

Through theoretical and personal reflections on mourning and recovery after catastrophic collapses of psyche, body, and place, the book makes original contributions to psychoanalysis, Slavic and cultural studies, trauma studies, film criticism, and history. This unique work will be relevant to readers interested in psychoanalytic studies, cancer and disability studies and critical theory, and academics of auto-theory and memoir.

Zielgruppe

General, Postgraduate, Professional Practice & Development, and Professional Reference

Autoren/Hrsg.

Fishzon, Anna

Fachgebiete

• Medizin | Veterinärmedizin Medizin | Public Health | Pharmazie | Zahnmedizin Medizin, Gesundheitswesen Medizin, Gesundheit: Sachbuch, Ratgeber
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Psychologie / Allgemeines & Theorie Psychologische Theorie, Psychoanalyse Psychoanalyse (S. Freud)

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface  Prologue. The Body of the Analyst   1. Technology  2. Looking Inside  3. The Zone  4. Cut!  5. ".not without object"  6. The Sarcophagus  7. A Dialogue on Loss: Love Letters to Audre Lorde  8. Queer Temporalities  9. Prosthesis  10. Perestroika  11. Anniversary  12. The Voice  13. Tattoo  Epilogue. Rem(a)inder  References

Über Autor(innen)

Anna Fishzon is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She is the author and co-editor of two previous books.