In Psychosomatic Gynecology - Living with a Genetic Risk of Breast Cancer Natacha ESPIÉ

Abstract

Living with a genetic risk of breast cancer
Living with the knowledge that you are a carrier of the genetic risk of breast cancer is complicated. Once a woman has
been notified that she was carrying this gene, she must first
take in the meaning of risk and possibly of such words meaningless for her as “mutation of BCRA1/2”. She is not a
cancer patient, may never be so, but this knowledge entails
that she will never more feel quite in good health. Then she
needs to learn how to live permanently with a form of anxiety
sometimes felt as a curse if there is a family history of cancers: filiation, transmission,curse. The woman is then faced
with a choice: to live under surveillance or to make a prophylactic decision: mastectomy associated with ovariectomy. The
high-risk woman needs to develop a strategy in order that this
new frightening knowledge should find its place in her psyche.
The analyst’s role is then of primary importance. He / She
can reconcile fantasy with scientific knowledge.