The State of Disbelief, Juliet Rosenfeld
The State of Disbelief, Juliet Rosenfeld
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The State of Disbelief
A story of death, love and forgetting

Author: Juliet Rosenfeld

Narrator: Helen Keeley

Unabridged: 7 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Short Books

Published: 02/06/2020

Synopsis

'A beautifully written, profoundly moving and immersive account of grief that will bring solace.' - Louise France, The Times

A revelatory book about death and mourning by a psychotherapist faced with sudden bereavement. When Juliet Rosenfeld's husband dies of lung cancer only seven months into their marriage, everything she has learnt about death as a psychotherapist is turned on its head.

As she attempts to navigate her way through her own devastating experience of loss, Rosenfeld turns to her battered copy of Freud's seminal essay 'Mourning and Melancholia'. Inspired by the distinction Freud draws between the savage trauma of loss that occurs at the moment of death - grief - and the longer, unpredictable evolution of that loss into something that we call mourning, Rosenfeld finds herself dramatically rethinking the commonly held therapeutic idea of 'working through stages of grief'.

This is a beautifully written meditation on what the investment of love means and how to find your own path after bereavement in order for life to continue.

About Juliet Rosenfeld

Juliet Rosenfeld read French and Italian at Oxford before working in advertising and briefly in the civil service. She began to retrain as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist 15 years ago. She works in London in private practice and has two sons. This is her first book.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Lara on April 03, 2023

I don't quite know how to review or rate this book. I mean I wanted to really like this memoir but I couldn't really connect. I want to say thank you for sharing this difficult story but I also felt a little excluded and slighted by Rosenfeld's way of portraying loosing a spouse as the one true bere......more

Goodreads review by Tamara on October 19, 2022

wonderful and heartbreaking I highly recommend this book for anyone dealing with loss, whether of a spouse or someone else. Rosenfeld brings to her subject the insights of her profession and they are so profound that one side effect has been that I’ve reconsidered Freud.......more

Goodreads review by Sally on May 29, 2022

loved the personal story - mixed with theoretical discussions a book that gave me something new to think about lovely to find the library was stocking this for dying matters week......more

Quotes

'A breath-taking piece of work: tragic, terrifying and gripping as any novel, but ultimately, thanks to Rosenfeld's clear-eyed psychoanalytical honesty, also deeply consoling. I don't think writers or human beings can share their experience more movingly and generously than this.' Julie Myerson

'A brave and beautifully-written account of an experience usually shrouded in silence. This is such an intelligent and honest book.' Amelia Gentleman

'A masterpiece... bold and accessible.' Professor Brett Kahr, Psychotherapist, Senior Fellow at Tavistock Institute

'A beautifully written, profoundly moving and immersive account of grief that will bring solace to readers who have been bereaved, and guide anyone who knows them, who feels at a loss how to understand what they are going through. Which pretty much means all of us, at some point in our lives.' The Times

'Rarely has the physical nature of memory of the dead been so well written about.' The Oldie

'This powerfully written book has much to say both to the bereaved and to those working with them about loss and how we can come to live with it, lovingly, as we once lived with the one who has died.' Therapy Today Magazine

'Great stories - entertaining but not patronising' Financial Times

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