The Examined Life

**As heard on Book of the Week, Radio 4**. 'This book is about change.' We are all storytellers - we make 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 practising psychoanalyst, Stephen Grosz has spent the last twenty-five years uncovering the hidden feelings behind our most baffling behaviour. The Examined Life distils over 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 him as to the patient. These are stories about our everyday lives: they are about the people we love and the lies that we tell; the changes we bear, and the grief. Ultimately, they show us not only how we lose ourselves but how we might find ourselves too. Praise for The Examined Life: '...it will leave you wiser about humanity than you were when you picked it up.' - Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree. 'A fascinating collection of quiet stories about very real human predicaments: the listening cure at its best.' - Patrick McGrath, author of Asylum. 'I couldn't put this down - I read about other people, but learned about myself...No preaching, no cliches--just wisdom.' - Victoria Hislop, author of The Thread'. 'There is a rare integrity in the writing: no showing off, just honest attention to each trusted relationship.' - Ruth Padel, author of 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem. 'This gripping book offers psychological solutions to some extremely complex human puzzles and is full of wisdom and insight.'- Sophie Hannah, author of Little Face.

ISBN	070118535X	Pages	240
ISBN13	9780701185350 (What's this?)	Weight (grammes)	370
Publisher	Vintage	Reprint date	31-Jan-2013 12:00:00 am
Imprint	Chatto & Windus	Published in	London
Format	Hardback	Height (mm)	222
Publication date	03 Jan 2013	Width (mm)	143
DEWEY	158.1	Spine width (mm)	21
DEWEY edition	DC23	Academic level	General

"Grosz's vignettes are so brilliantly put together that they read like pieces of bare, illuminating fiction... utterly captivating" -- Robert Collins Sunday Times "Marvellous. After reading [Grosz's] absorbing accounts of his patients' journeys you might feel that The Examined Life ought to be given out free at birth" -- Melissa Katsoulis The Times "Crystal-clear and completely magical.The Examined Life is a book full of troubles, but also of wonders" -- Craig Brown Mail on Sunday "Engaging, frank, and with many penetrating insights. His short, succinct chapters have both the tension and the satisfaction of miniature detective or mystery stories" -- Michael Holroyd The Spectator "By turns edifying and moving.Grosz offers astute insights into the perplexities of everyday life" -- Trisha Andres Financial Times

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