The Examined Life

Looking forward to reading The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz, a new book on psychoanalysis–how it works and what it’s like.

From the New York Times review by Michiko Kakutani:

“…an insightful and beautifully written book about the process of psychoanalysis, and the ways people’s efforts to connect the past, present and future reflect their capacity to change.”

“Mr. Grosz quotes Isak Dinesen, who observed that ‘all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them,’ and he goes on to argue that stories can help us to make sense of our lives, but that if ‘we cannot find a way of telling our story, our story tells us — we dream these stories, we develop symptoms, or we find ourselves acting in ways we don’t understand.’”

“Being a psychoanalyst, Mr. Grosz writes, means spending his workdays ‘alone with another person, thinking — trying to be present.’ He is a ‘tour guide — part detective, part translator’ — an editor who helps his patients connect the dots of their stories, helping them to make sense of their lives, or, at the very least, assuring them that they are ‘alive in the mind of another.’”