Editor and contributing author Escalante (Univ. of Monterrey, Mexico) has organized this collection around the themes of subjectivity, the feminine, loss, violence, and mourning, to include essays by herself and seven other psychoanalysts of international background and experience, from Delhi to Paris, with some contributions from others within her local institution. Each essay takes a different arresting angle, addressing a range of proposals, such as, what does psychoanalysis owe to women, freed from phallocentricity; what is the relation between woman's abjection and her community role in death; what happens to femininity after a woman gives birth and becomes a mother. . . The overall aim of the volume is to support the female subjective voice. There are clinical vignettes aplenty. Many references to Freud, Lacan, Laplanche, and Bion are found, and Kristeva is aptly represented. . . the originality of the ideas is stimulating and thought provoking. Although this book is not for lay readers, the text warrants close study and will enrich mainly graduate students and others who either study or seek to apply psychoanalysis in their own practice. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students through faculty; professionals.

Choice Reviews

Rethinking the Relation between Women and Psychoanalysis shows the fundamental complexity of the relationship between loss, mourning, grief, and femininity. It is an indispensable tool in order to think about a womaen’s position nowadays. Editor Hada Soria Escalante and the contributors have made an extraordinary work. It This book brings variety and innovation to the subject of loss and femininity that is very useful, especially for those who are interested in the clinical practice and the investigation of the contemporary psychoanalysis.

Adriana Bauab, Freudian School of Buenos Aires

The contributors to Rethinking the Relation between Women and Psychoanalysis have abelong to diverse cultural belonginges, and their different orientations offer an interesting contrast toin the study of mourning. The study of mourning is very important in a global social context that tends to deny the lack or to ‘correct’ it with merchandises.

Araceli Colín, Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro