Some issues I have encountered on my path to becoming a psychoanalyst

The author describes her personal journey in training and as a therapist. She explores the area of cultural difference and decides that the main cultural difference between now and her previous life is the advent of the new language of psycho-analysis. She explores the move to online treatment during the pandemic to arrive at a conclusion that the process of analytic therapy is paramount, overriding the superficial differences whether it is in-person or online.

Leading While Female: A Personal Journey

Growth in the administrative function of universities along with the fragility of academic culture creates challenges for academic leaders invested in change. In my own case, these challenges were compounded by my gender: my status as an immigrant woman in a leadership role. In this chapter I outline the basic requirements of a democratic culture—allowing individuals to preserve their identity while positively contributing to the community in which they're embedded—and question the gender stereotypes that see men but not women as “naturally” suited to leadership. This prejudice can translate into implicit or even explicit bias and discrimination when women attempt to fill roles that historically have been reserved for men, and thereby violate gender expectations. As a consequence, women leaders may be marginalized and their authority resisted or unrecognized. This chapter is a personal journey detailing my own experiences of “leading while female.”

Fulfilling the self through food in wellness blogs: Governing the healthy subject

In the world of wellness, food and eating are fundamentally important to one’s subjectivity: the self in this sphere is created and maintained through food consumption along a plant-based, ‘wholesome’ and healthy personal journey to well-being. This article focuses on the analysis of wellness food blogs run by women, aiming to map out the technologies of the self through which the ‘ideal wellness subject’ is created. The analysis examines technologies of subjectivity as they aspire towards (1) balance, (2) healing and (3) narrativization of the self. The article suggests that the subjectivities related to wellness culture draw from postfeminist and healthist ideologies and are based on a neoliberal discourse of individuality and self-control. The sociocultural indifference of wellness culture and its prerogative to police the self through culturally hegemonic pursuits based on (the right kind of) consumption makes the language of wellness a prominent neoliberal discourse.

Overcoming Fear

A personal journey reflecting on the motivation for and content of my teaching. I use the rhythm of a walk in remote countryside in France and the city of Paris to lead the writing: what I notice, the sensations of my body in different spaces and contexts, and draw upon the ideas that inspire me.