Essay Questions

Using Lacanian psychoanalysis, explain the implication of the bracelet in Remen’s friends’ life. - “The Trajectory”

Remen narrates, “Her grandmother, had mother’s mother, had left her a bracelet, a delicate Victorian thing of filigree and seed pearls…It had meant a great deal to her to have this bracelet, something that belonged to her grandmother. For years, she had kept in a leather box in her bureau drawer and worn it only when she had felt the need for her grandmother’s sort of unconditional support…her new apartment had been robbed. Many valuable things including her wedding gifts had been taken. Over time she had replaced them all, except for the bracelet. She had mourned its loss for a long time.” In the context of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, the bracelet is an unqualified irreplaceable Objet Petit a for her grandmother. The bracelet embodies the grandmother’s absolute affection, and support. Donning it assures that her grandmother is with her. Its loss is unbearable; no other bracelet, no matter how appealing or expensive, would replace it. Losing it is comparable to losing her grandmother for a second time.

Explain the psychological implication of the “sandtray work” - “Celebration”

Remen expounds, “One of the opportunities for self-discovery the retreat offers people is the chance to do some sandtray work. The sandtray room has shelves on every wall, each holding a great number of small objects, some symbolic, others literal, which encompass the complexity and scope and both inner about outer life. In this Jungian technique people are invited to choose whatever objects they are attracted to place them into a shallow box filled with sand that stands on a table in the center of the room, and then talk about their personal significance. The objects are chosen intuitively, and often their meaning becomes clear only after people begin to talk about the arrangement they have made in the sand.” The sandtray exercises are perfect tools for sublimation which distract the cancer patients from thoughts concerning cancer, their suffering and death. Undertaking the exercise permits the patients to explore their unconscious desires which could be represented by the object. Intuitions are useful in mapping out the desires for they are associated with the patients’ subjective instincts. The Jungian approach is unqualifiedly effective in contributing to the patients’ psychological healing notwithstanding their physical agony.