Book Announcement by Joan K. Peters (USA)

Peters, J.K. (2025.) Untangling: A memoir of psychoanalysis. Rowman and Littlefield.

English professor Joan Peters’ memoir, Untangling: A memoir of Psychoanalysis, focuses on her experiences as a patient in psychoanalysis at two different points in her life, comparing two different theoretical and technical analytic views.

Peters first tells the story of her initial transformative psychoanalysis. In her tempestuous twenties, her classical analyst helped quiet her recurring nightmares through a discovery of her family’s secret past. Decades later, her second analyst guided her through the frightening depths of that past as it played out in the intense strife and love in their clinical relationship. Her second analyst contributes an afterword discussing the challenge of analyzing Peters.

Peters’ willingness to expose her own demons brings psychoanalysis to life with the drama of a novel. Unique in its reach, Untangling reveals the inner workings of both psyche and psychoanalysis.

www.rowman.com/ISBN/9798881802264/Untangling-A-Memoir-of-Psychoanalysis

Joan K. Peters, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus of literature and writing at California State University at Channel Islands. She has taught literature and writing at Middlebury College, The City College of New York, Rutgers University, and Sarah Lawrence’s MFA Program. She’s previously published Manny and Rose, a novel; When Mothers Work and Not Your Mother’s Life, memoir and commentaries on motherhood. She lives in California with her husband, 2 dogs, and 6 chickens. She’ll be speaking on “Memoir and Psychoanalysis” at the American Psychoanalytic Association meeting in San Francisco this month.

Joan K. Peters, Ph.D.
Ojai, California, USA
Email Joan K. Peters