Nicole Jeammet is a psychoanalyst and an honorary senior lecturer in psychopathology at the University of Paris-V-René-Descartes. She was formerly a psychotherapist in Professor Soulé’s Centre de Guidance, where she worked with children and their mothers. She currently teaches theology at the Centre de Sèvres, in Paris. She is the author of Les Violence morales and Amour, Sexualité, Tendresse, both published by Editions Odile Jacob, and of Lettre aux couples d’aujourd’hui (Bayard, 2012).

Giving is easy; it is receiving that is difficult. Receiving a gift may rouse feelings of confusion and vulnerability, indebtedness and dependence, which in turn lead to fear: fear of not being in control and of not being loved. And so, to protect ourselves, we develop stratagems that are supposed to keep suffering at bay.
Drawing on her own experience as a psychoanalyst, as well as on her knowledge of the Bible and on her faith, Nicole Jeammet shows how an affective relationship may, instead, become a tie that is based on trust, and in which both participants, while retaining their individual identity, learn to welcome the Other.
Although Roman Catholicism has traditionally stressed the notion of self-sacrifice, forgetting the Self is not the object: it is only a prerequisite for learning to share the Other’s joy.

• The author insists on the spiritual dimension of all affective relationships: between child and parent, between friends, between lovers.
• Understanding affective relations, by examining the fears they may arouse.
• An original approach to some major biblical texts (Beatitudes, the Book of Job).