Conversion Disorder: Listening to the Body in Psychoanalysis

by Jamieson Webster

Conversion disorder--a psychiatric term that names the enigmatic transformation of psychic energy into bodily manifestations--offers a way to rethink the present. With so many people suffering from unexplained bodily symptoms; with so many seeking recourse to pharmacological treatments or bodily modification; with young men and women seemingly willing to direct violence toward anybody, including themselves--a radical disordering in culture insists on the level of the body.

Part memoir, part clinical case, part theoretical investigation, this book searches for the body. Is it a psychopathological entity; a crossroads for the cultural, political, and biological in the form of care; or the foundation of psychoanalytic work on the question of sexuality? Jamieson Webster traces conversion's shifting meanings--in religious, economic, and even chemical processes--revisiting the work of thinkers as diverse as Benjamin, Foucault, Agamben, and Lacan. She provides an intimate account of her own conversion from patient to psychoanalyst, as well as her continual struggle to apprehend the complexities of the patient's body. When listening to dreams, symptoms, worries, or sexual impasses, the body becomes a defining trope that belies a vulnerable and urgent wish for transformation. Conversion Disorder names what is singular about entanglement of the fractured body and the social world in order to imagine what kind of cure is possible.

Genres: Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Theory, Psychology

312 pages, Hardcover

Published November 27, 2018

About the author

JAMIESON WEBSTER is a psychoanalyst based in New York. She is a founding member of Das Unbehagen, a collective of psychoanalysts working outside of institutional affiliation; supervises clinical psychology graduate students in the doctoral program of City College; graduate and member of IPTAR. She has written for Artforum, Apology, Cabinet, the Guardian, Playboy, Spike Art Quarterly, the New York Review of Books and the New York Times. She is the author of Conversion Disorder: Listening to the Body in Psychoanalysis (Columbia University Press, 2018); Stay, Illusion!: The Hamlet Doctrine, with Simon Critchley (Pantheon, 2013); and The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis (Karnac, 2011). With Marcus Coelen, she is currently working on The Cambridge Introduction to Jacques Lacan.

Reviews

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not the kind of book I usually read, but it was insightful. Recommended to anyone interested in the mind/physical sympton connection.

[Jane Kivnick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m fascinated with Jamieson for a number of reasons. Her celebrity (and need to be seen, as the hot/trendy/smart Lacanian of the moment) confuses, frustrates, intrigues, and calls upon a kind of envy that I’m still trying to understand. Her writing feels like pearl diving. There were countless spans of paragraphs in this book where I thought to myself “what the fuck is this pseudo philosophical/poetic drivel” and then arrived at a point that felt totally lucid and interesting. In her writing (and interviews/lectures I have seen) I find her kind of distant, cold and hard to access - who is this person? Sometimes it feels like she is playing the part of the hysteric with oddly timed laughter and centering herself in ways that mostly aren’t approachable/humanizing. (Except for her article on abortion! That was the first thing I read of hers where I thought ahhh there she is!) I think I would hate being her patient! But I’m intrigued and will probably read more by her.

[Wanyoung Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lucid writing, with interesting references to Agamben and Foucault.

[Rachelle]

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC for my honest review.
This is not my us usual genre but I found this a very interesting read. If you are interested in reading about psychological disorders and psychoanalysis this is a good book for you.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exhaustive investigation about the psycho pathological effects. The author explains how these effects results in common diseases which are treated with drugs and surgical treatments instead of looking for the root of the problem with less invasive methods.

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