The Examined Life

How We Lose and Find Ourselves

By: Stephen Grosz

Narrated by: Peter Marinker

Brought to you by Penguin.

**SUNDAY TIMES BESTELLER**

This book is about learning to live.

Echoing Socrates' statement that the unexamined life not worth living, psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz draws on his twenty-five years of work and more than 50,000 hours of conversations to form a collection of beautifully rendered tales that illuminate the human experience.

These are stories about everyday lives: from a woman who finds herself daydreaming as she returns home from a business trip to a young man loses his wallet, to the more extreme examples: the patient who points an unloaded gun at a police officer and the compulsive liar who convinces his wife he's dying of cancer. The resulting journey will spark new ideas about who we are and why we do what we do.

'A captivating journey... These are universal themes, insights into an emotional world we inhabit, often with equal difficulty. A wonderful book' Sunday Times

©2013 Stephen Grosz (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

I was enthralled… profound and moving, packed large ideas into a slim volume (Lucy Lethbridge)

With deceptive simplicity and gentle wisdom, Grosz teases out a lesson or chases down a fugitive insight. I have distrusted psychoanalysis for years, but I would leap onto Grosz’s couch (James McConnachie)

This moving book of patient portraits by the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz will make the reader think of Freud’s keenly observed and literary-minded case studies. Writing with sympathy and insight, Mr Grosz distils 25 years of work into a series of slim, piercing chapters that read like a combination of Chekhov and Oliver Sacks (Michiko Kakutani)

The success of The Examined Life by the psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz has, I think, relatively little to do with his clinical know-how; it rests, as Freud's did, on his story-telling abilities (Rachel Cooke)

Grosz is a superb storyteller and tells lots of his patients' stories with sensitivity, but also with great acuity. You might keep thinking you recognise things about people you know (William Leith)

A wonderful example of a book that provides a safe space that can be used as a base to explore the less safe (Alex Clark)

Riveting... Grosz is adept at uncovering the little lies we tell ourselves and he's very perceptive about the potentially positive effects of bad experiences

Because of [Grosz's] skill at getting to the heart of the matter, we forget the distance separating us and become quickly involved in the lives of those he discusses

Absolutely fascinating. You’ll be amateur psychoanalysing yourself and everyone you know

It made me stop and think, and it has stayed with me. Grosz is a superb storyteller and tells lots of his patients' stories with sensitivity, but also with great acuity. You might keep thinking you recognise things about people you know (William Leith)

Very well organized and interesting takeaways

“If you don’t consciously tell your story, you’ll tell your story unconsciously” this concept was fascinating. I’ve listened to this audiobook twice through. It’s very well done.

loved it

an exceptional listen into stories that are so easily our own. re listening immediately 5stars

Everything that's wrong with psychoanalysis in one convenient volume

A series of stories where the author felt he'd been particularly clever. Whether this was of any use to the patient isn't discussed. People's lives aren't whodunnits. Amazing this guy got through a whole career and didn't figure this particular mystery out.