The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

154 Pages·2013·0.68 MB·English

by  Stephen Grosz

PUBLISHED BY RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
Copyright © 2013 Stephen Grosz
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this
book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in 2013 by Random
House Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, and simultaneously in
the United States by W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York.
Distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited.
www.randomhouse.ca
Random House Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Grosz, Stephen
The examined life : how we lose and find ourselves / Stephen Grosz.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-30735912-4
1. Psychoanalysis. 2. Psychology. I. Title.
BF173.G755 2013 150.19′5 C2012-905599-9
Jacket design by Lynn Buckley
Image credits: © Shutterstock
v3.1
To Nicola, Clara and Samuel
We receive and we lose, and we must try to achieve gratitude; and with that
gratitude to embrace with whole hearts whatever of life that remains after the
losses.
ANDRE DUBUS II, Broken Vessels
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Preface
Beginnings
How we can be possessed by a story that cannot be told
On laughter
How praise can cause a loss of confidence
The gift of pain
A safe house
Telling Lies
On secrets
On not being in a couple
A passion for ignorance
On intimacy
The bigger the front
Loving
At home
How paranoia can relieve suffering and prevent a catastrophe
On the recovery of lost feelings
Why parents envy their children
On wanting the impossible
On hate
How lovesickness keeps us from love
Changing
How a fear of loss can cause us to lose everything
How negativity prevents our surrender to love
On losing a wallet
A change in the family
Why we lurch from crisis to crisis
On being boring
On mourning the future
How anger can keep us from sadness
On being a patient
Going back
On bearing death
Leaving
Through silence
On closure
On waking from a dream
Sources and Notes
Acknowledgements
Preface
For the past twenty-five years, I’ve worked as a psychoanalyst. I’ve
treated patients in psychiatric hospitals, psychotherapy and forensic
psychotherapy clinics, child and adolescent units, and private practice.
I’ve seen children, adolescents and adults for consultation, referral and
once-a-week psychotherapy. Most of my work, however, has been with
adults in psychoanalysis – meeting with one person for fifty minutes,
four or five times a week, over a number of years. I have spent more
than 50,000 hours with patients. The substance of that work is the
substance of this book.
What follows are tales drawn from day-to-day practice. These stories
are true, but I’ve altered all identifying details in the interest of
confidentiality.
At one time or another, most of us have felt trapped by things we find
ourselves thinking or doing, caught by our own impulses or foolish
choices; ensnared in some unhappiness or fear; imprisoned by our own
history. We feel unable to go forward and yet we believe that there must
be a way. ‘I want to change, but not if it means changing,’ a patient once
said to me in complete innocence. Because my work is about helping
people to change, this book is about change. And because change and
loss are deeply connected – there cannot be change without loss – loss
haunts this book.
The philosopher Simone Weil describes how two prisoners in
adjoining cells learn, over a very long period of time, to talk to each
other by tapping on the wall. ‘The wall is the thing which separates
them, but it is also their means of communication,’ she writes. ‘Every
separation is a link.’
This book is about that wall. It’s about our desire to talk, to
understand and be understood. It’s also about listening to each other, not
just the words but the gaps in between. What I’m describing here isn’t a
magical process. It’s something that is a part of our everyday lives – we
tap, we listen.
Beginnings