Session 5: The Female Body:  Passion and Peril

Participants: Rosemary H. Balsam, MD, Rachel Boué-Widawsky, PhD, Jeri Isaacson, PhD, Chair

Date: February 22, 2025

Time: 11:00 am – 12:30 pm ET

Registration Link: https://wbcp.memberclicks.net/registration_cowap_women_revolution_2024-2025

Click Here to View the Program Flyer

Registration Deadline: February 19, 2025

Description: Why do we pay so little attention to the role that the female natal body plays in the development of the psyche?  This contrasts with how the birthing body holds psychic meaning that resonates throughout society.  A graphic example is the fight for legal control over the female body in recent conflicts about abortion.  Yet the procreative body remains relatively unexplored in psychoanalytic literature.  In this discussion, Drs. Rosemary Balsam and Rachel Boué-Widawsky will consider ways of thinking psychoanalytically about the female body.  Dr. Balsam will talk about the meaning of this absence in our field, and its impact for our understanding of psychological development.   Dr. Boue-Widawsky will elaborate on this topic by discussing Julia Kristeva’s ideas about the maternal body as an object that is often experienced unconsciously – and consciously – with horror.   What might we add to our understanding of internal, interpersonal, and sociocultural dynamics if we were to more fully incorporate these ideas into the larger body of psychoanalytic thought?   We will consider societal dynamics that reflect internal psychic experience, particularly in light of the burgeoning misogyny we face today.