Conversion Disorder : Columbia University Press : 9780231184083 : 0231184085 : 28 Dec 2018 : Conversion disorder?a psychiatric term that names the enigmatic transformation of psychic energy into bodily manifestations?offers a way to rethink the present. With so many people suffering from unexplained bodily symptoms; with so many seeking recourse to pharmacological treatments or bodily modification; with young men and women seemingly willing to direct violence toward anybody, including themselves?a radical disordering in culture insists on the level of the body. Part memoir, part clinical case, part theoretical investigation, this book searches for the body. Is it a psychopathological entity; a crossroads for the cultural, political, and biological in the form of care; or the foundation of psychoanalytic work on the question of sexuality? Jamieson Webster traces conversion's shifting meanings?in religious, economic, and even chemical processes?revisiting the work of thinkers as diverse