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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.

Shares the best literary qualities of Freud’s most persuasive work. It is…an insightful and beautifully written book…a series of slim, piercing chapters that read like a combination of Chekhov and Oliver Sacks. [A] deeply affecting book.
— Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

Magnetically compelling…The result is a shared sense of humanity, understanding and even hope.
— Kate Tuttle - Boston Globe

Beautifully written…The insights here will cut close to the bone.
— Dinah Loon - Nature

A peek into the human psyche…Marked by a clear absence of technical jargon…An immensely personal work, and something much more than just a legacy of advice.
— Lucy Scholes - Daily Beast

Grosz’s vignettes are so brilliantly put together that they read like pieces of bare, illuminating fiction…utterly captivating.
— Robert Collins - Sunday Times

By turns edifying and moving. Grosz offers astute insights into the perplexities of everyday life.
— Trisha Andres - Financial Times

Impossible to put down…it will leave you wiser about humanity than you were when you picked it up.
— Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree

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.