An extraordinary book for anyone eager to understand the hidden motives that shape our lives.
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.
1113066977
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves
An extraordinary book for anyone eager to understand the hidden motives that shape our lives.
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.
An extraordinary book for anyone eager to understand the hidden motives that shape our lives.
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.
Stephen Grosz is a practicing psychoanalyst who 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 now lives in London.
Table of Contents
Preface xi
Beginnings
How we can be possessed by a story that cannot be told 1
On laughter 11
How praise can cause a loss of confidence 18
The gift of pain 23
A safe house 28
Telling Lies
On secrets 39
On not being in a couple 44
A passion for ignorance 55
On intimacy 63
The bigger the front 67
Loving
At home 73
How paranoia can relieve suffering and prevent a catastrophe 81
On the recovery of lost feelings 86
Why parents envy their children 91
On wanting the impossible 96
On hate 101
How lovesickness keeps us from love 109
Changing
How a fear of loss can cause us to lose everything 121
Ever make a slip of the tongue? Ever drive home, get to you front door, then realize you don’t have your keys, that somewhere between the car and the stoop you lost them, distracted by your thoughts? There’s a reason scientists call the mind “a black box”: a lot more goes on in our heads than […]
