Abjectly Boundless

Within a variety of practice environments, health professionals often experience feelings of disgust and repulsion in their practice, and for these intense feelings to occur, an abject object must exist. Cadaverous, sick, disabled bodies, troubled minds, wounds, vomit and so forth are all part of health and care work and threaten the clean and proper bodies of those who undertake it, yet this 'unclean' side of health work is rarely accounted for in academic literature. This volume employs the work of Julia Kristeva, in particular her conception of the psychoanalytical defence mechanism of abjection, to analyse bodies and boundary work in health care. This theorisation of abjection affords the possibility of voicing the incomprehensible in bodies that leak, in the chaos of illness and disease, and in the monstrosity of illnesses such a cancer, as well as much that is deemed 'out of place' in nursing and health care. Presenting a range of case studies drawn from care and nursing settings around the world, this book brings together work from researchers and practitioners within the social and health sciences, the caring professions and psychotherapy, to expose and highlight the important impact of the concept of abjection, which historically has been silenced in the health sciences.