By raising the possibility that poison ivy, a noisome contact allergy,can also be located within psychosomatic phenomena, the author's premis is straightforward: the psyche will often make use of the body in the form of such repetitive poison ivy outbreaks to communicate dissociated emotional experiences that transcend ego awareness. Dialoging with such luminaries as Winnicott, Bion, and Jung, and piecing together a poignant narrative of familial and personal neglect - coupled with growing awareness of her own kinship with the poison ivy plant itself, a plant that "blooms in neglect, that is never cared for except to exterminate it," - Ann Ulanov renders bare her own process of discovering and integrating the dissociated, "unmirrored" experiences of her life that had lived itself over and again through painful bodily paroxysms. This was a process, she explains,of rescuing into thought and feeling "what I did not know I had known,but what had known me." Simply put, "what was entombed in repetitive suffering becomes released into living, and the body is right in the center of it."
Those familiar with Ann Ulanov's other books will immediately recognize and appreciate her clarity and ease of expression, as well as her theological thoughtfulness. There is much to chew on here, especially that which concerns the nature of somatic consciousness and the psychological meaning of physical symptoms. Following her own example, Attacked By Poison Ivy is a call to enter into conversation with the deeper parts of ourselves, "the mute parts, the left-out parts," those parts which, like poison ivy, are often untended and rejected. This is work initiated by analysis, and continued through our own dialoging with dreams and imagination, in a way that is profoundly spiritual. We do this, the author writes, in order to build up a sturdiness to receive in ourselves what has been there from the beginning. This work, writes Ulanov, "lies in learning how to take what is offered, to receive what is given, to correspond with luminous grace."
Brian T. Peterson, New York City