The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

This made a profound effect on me upon reading. The author gives such insight to the human condition. A must read for anyone looking to understand why we as humans act the way we do especially when we are struggling with mourning or psychological problems. A perfect book.

This collection of observations captures the intimacy of the client/ therapist relationship through addressing tether emotional context of the stories. There is a lot for the reader to learn from the individual client cases, but the book seems to lack a central thesis or through line connecting the title to the collection of case studies. While I learned a good deal about these patients and about the author, and I can gather lessons from both, the implication of a “how” eluded to in the title seems to be mostly absent. Still a valuable read, but it’s not a guide.

This is sort of an Aesop's Fables for us all, from encounters of a psychoanalyst with his clients over his lengthy career. I read it in the first day I got this, and wanted more! I really hope he comes out with another book. I had several Ah-Ha moments of my own and I think anyone who reads this beautiful book would, too. Some people on here have complained that they wanted more details, more of the story of each character (and that did make me hesitate on purchasing, but I'm glad I decided to try it out myself) - but I actually disagree with them. The beauty of this book is that each story, or insight ends with a bang. You are brought into the scene adequately enough, with just the right amount of backstory, you are told the meat of the matter, and a little explanation on the reasoning behind the behavior. I think there were only 2 or 3 that I had a couple of questions about. But it is better to leave your audience wanting more, and I definitely did. I don't want to give too much away, just say that for me, personally, this book woke me up- and it was nice to relate to some stories, and I think anyone that enjoys studying human behavior would love to add this to their collection. For me, it will be one I reread when I need to remind myself how not to get stuck, to not be afraid of change, and all around how to be a better person.

This book goes a long way towards helping the reader understand how psychoanalysis works. It convinced me that if I ever need therapy, I would rather get cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) rather than psychoanalysis. With a psychoanalyst you might spend years and many thousands of dollars trying to understand yourself and the cause of your problems. While self-awareness may be a sufficient goal for some, I prefer CBT, the primary goal of which is to modify your behavior rather than your self-awareness. The stories in The Examined Life are a mixed bag. Perhaps two-thirds are really fascinating (up to a point). The rest just seem like filler. My main problem with the book is that the author does not reveal the resolution of many, if not most, of the stories. At the end of each chapter, I found myself asking, what happened next? Was the problem resolved or not? It was as if the book's editor inadvertently cut out the last few pages of every chapter. Maybe the author was unable to resolve these problems. Maybe he wasn't even seeking a resolution. He never tells the reader.

Thoughtful. Helps you think about important life issues.

Loaded with Meaning--Stephen Grosz allows us to examine our deepest thoughts and feelings in a non-judgmental way---He reminds us that a lot of therapy is listening with, and not trying to be judgmentally analytical. In his vignettes and stories, he reminds us that closure can be a myth, if pursued too aggressively. There is no closure once and for all, there is only a patient working through. At times he shows emotions, but most of the time he patiently allows the patient to examine their own words, and own thoughts and arrive at their own examined conclusions. 5 Stars--A must read and reflect on Book

This collection of vignettes from the practice of a skilled psychotherapist, who is a very good writer, helped me understand things about my life that have been mystifying for decades. I was lucky to find this book and read it. I am grateful.

Stephen Grosz’s “The Examined Life” is a marvelous and profound book. The possibility to delve into a psychoanalytical session between analysand and psychoanalyst, and learn about our very human responses to psychic pain is enlightening. I much appreciated Grosz’s humility and capacity to delve into his possible human errors as a psychoanalyst, including his attempts to help his patients, for instance. even when this patient was in the hospital dying from AIDS. This is a book for people humble enough to recognize errors and painful past situations that may be impinging on the present. The question of love —the incapacity to love, the refusal of love, and other love sicknesses—is central to this work. The cases Grosz describes read like short stories. I highly recommend this book.

Looking through the numerous and wide ranging reviews this book has already attracted, if you are still considering whether or not to buy it you might find the following explanation useful. If you buy this book for the wrong reasons you won't get much out of it, and that might help explain the 1-3 star reviews. For example, if you think you are going to get just over 30 sessions (the number of chapters in this book) of psychotherapy on the cheap (the price of this book), think again. Being a fly on the wall during an intimate session between patient and psychotherapist isn't how psychotherapy works. Nor is there any value in reading it as though this was an exercise in `spot-the ball'. For example, as you read each Chapter you may start to identify with a few of its symptoms or circumstances. You say to yourself `oh, I suffer from that', or `I'm a bit like that'. Well don't think you will find the answer to your problems by the end of the chapter. But if you buy this book for the right reasons, expect to get a great deal out of Grosz's distillation of some 50,000 hours of conversation in his consulting room over a period of the last twenty-five years, covering a wide range of topics including: telling lies, loving, changing, and leaving. This might help to explain the numerous 4-5 star reviews. The main benefit of the book lies in his prompting questions, and a few of the generalised lessons he draws out for himself. For example, ask yourself `what haunts you?' after reading his chapter on `How lovesickness keeps us from love.' Grosz argues that effective desire to change our lives does not come about from fear or other negative emotions, but rather from things that haunt us. For example, we might be frightened of gaining weight, but that alone is unlikely to cause us to change our diet. "Haunting is different." he argues. It makes us feel alive to some fact about the world, or more likely about ourselves, or something we've experienced in the past that we're trying our best now and in future to avoid. Each chapter is a narrative, sometimes focussing on one individual, sometimes a composite of his clients. In some cases, for example `A passion for ignorance', it reads like a fictional and fascinating short story during which you have to pinch yourself to remember it's based on fact. The narrative style is deliberate as Grosz want to emphasise his view that we are all storytellers because we want to make sense of our lives in the stories we tell.Understanding ourselves by storytelling is one thing, but it soon becomes clear to the reader how important it is to be listened to (not merely being heard), i.e. being understood. In his introduction, he sums the book up succinctly by a reference to the philosopher Simone Weil. She describes two prisoners in adjoining cells who learn to talk to each other over a very long period of time by tapping on the wall that divides them. The wall that separates them is also the wall that facilitates their communication. This book is about that wall.

Questo dovrebbe essere un libro di testo per tutti. E' pieno di utilissime lezioni di vita che renderebbero la vita piu' facile a molti. E' una raccolta di storie corte scritte da uno psicoterapista basato a Hampstead Londra. Le storie son basate su fatti appresi durante la terapia, o sono pensieri e memorie generati dall'incontro del terapista col paziente. Nel leggere queste storie ci si sofferma a pensare a nostre esperienze simili e a quanto sarebbe stato utile aver ricevuto una lezione di vita come quella appena letta

Great book.

I liked Scott Penck but this book by Dr Stephan Grosz is a epic on the topic.. you will love every chapter of the book,and will make you appreciate the world around you in a entirely different perspective,afterall human nature stays the same.

A fascinating compendium of people with all sorts of problems, together with an understanding of the psychoanalist's way of treating them and own personal involvement with them. Extremely interesting.