Making the Breast of It: Overcoming Fear of Intimacy After Mastectomy

by Lea Yekutiel

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Yekutiel, Lea. Making the Breast of It: Overcoming Fear of Intimacy After Mastectomy, Sherman Oaks, CA: Who Am I Press 2007. 156 pp   $19.95     

Lea Yekutiel discusses a subject that has too long been neglected. I have heard regularly from too many women that their surgeons treated their bodies very nicely but ignored the person occupying the body. In Lea Yekutiel's case, however, after her mastectomy her plastic surgeon didn't even treat her body well. He botched the implant, which had to be repositioned in a second surgery. This, too, ended in complications that led to Yekutiel insisting that the implant be removed.

Throughout this book, Yekutiel is extremely open in sharing her experiences and feelings about her self-image, her sexuality, and the psychological processes she experienced as she underwent the ordeals of diagnosis, decisions around treatment, mastectomy, reconstructive surgeries and all that surrounds these experiences.

Any woman seeking information about the experience of mastectomy will benefit from reading this book. The information and experiences shared here will help to understand the emotional processes of adjusting to having one or both breasts removed, and to dealing with the emotions that are stirred in the process of surgery and afterwards – in the person experiencing the mastectomy, as well as in their partner or spouse.

Review by Daniel J. Benor, MD, IJHC Editor in Chief

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