The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves

As soon as I heard the NPR "On Point" program about psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz's book The Examined Life, I knew I had to read it. I waited weeks for it from the library, and after five weeks I gave in and purchased it inexpensively for the Kindle (much cheaper than for the Nook, by nearly 4 dollars).

I found Grosz, in both the NPR interview and the book, to be simply a compassionate, considerate psychotherapist who has great interest in human behavior and in the ways in which our family backgrounds influence our lives in adulthood. Grosz tells many, many stories about people who find themselves stuck in their lives, in one way or another, and I have found that each tale has been illuminating to me, either personally in my own experience, or in the experiences of the people I have known.

I highly recommend this book. If you have had counseling in the past at some point, you will be most fascinated, I think, but anyone with keen personal insight and interest in people's lives will enjoy it. So many, many fascinating stories!