Synopses & Reviews
We are all storytellers--we create stories to make sense of our lives. But it is not enough to tell tales. There must be someone to listen. In his work as a practicing psychoanalyst, Stephen Grosz has spent the last twenty-five years uncovering the hidden feelings behind our most baffling behavior. distils more than 50,000 hours of conversation into pure psychological insight without the jargon. This extraordinary book is about one ordinary process: talking, listening, and understanding. Its aphoristic and elegant stories teach us a new kind of attentiveness. They also unveil a delicate self-portrait of the analyst at work and show how lessons learned in the consulting room can reveal as much to the analyst as to the patient. These are stories about our everyday lives: they are about the people we love and the lies we tell, the changes we bear and the grief. Ultimately, they show us not only how we lose ourselves but also how we might find ourselves.
Review
"Shares the best literary qualities of Freud's most persuasive work. It is... an insightful and beautifully written book... a series of slim, piercing chapters that read like a combination of Chekhov and Oliver Sacks. [A] deeply affecting book." Michiko Kakutani
Review
"Magnetically compelling. . . . The result is a shared sense of humanity, understanding and even hope." New York Times
Review
"Beautifully written. . . . The insights here will cut close to the bone." Kate Tuttle Boston Globe
Review
"Grosz's vignettes are so brilliantly put together that they read like pieces of bare, illuminating fiction... utterly captivating." Dinah Loon Nature
Review
"By turns edifying and moving. Grosz offers astute insights into the perplexities of everyday life." Robert Collins Sunday Times
Review
"Impossible to put down... it will leave you wiser about humanity than you were when you picked it up." Trisha Andres Financial Times
Synopsis
An extraordinary book for anyone eager to understand the hidden motives that shape our lives.
Synopsis
We are all storytellers--we create stories to make sense of our lives. A moving collection of short, personal encounters between a psychoanalyst and his patients, The Examined Life reveals how the art of insight can illuminate the most complicated, confounding, and human of experiences. Ultimately, these stories show us not only how we love ourselves but how we might find ourselves.
About the Author
Stephen Grosz is a practicing psychoanalyst--he has worked with patients for more than twenty-five years. Born in America, educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Oxford University, he lives in London. A Sunday Times bestseller, The Examined Life is his first book.