A review by irina_sky
The Examined Life: How We Lose and Find Ourselves by Stephen Grosz

3.0

Q.:

― “Closure is just as delusive-it is the false hope that we can deaden our living grief.”

― “Being present, whether with children, with friends, or even with oneself, is hard work. But isn't this attentiveness -- the feeling that someone is trying to think about us -- something we want more than praise?”
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Frankly, I expected a bit more from this book. After all the hype that it received, I was prepared that this book was going to change my way of thinking in some way. But it didn't.
The patients' stories were too short for my liking and didn't reveil the depth of human psychology. The analysis that Mr. Grosz provided within the stories was just not enough for me. I know that it's not a scientific work, nor a even a university lecture, but merely a set of short stories of human experiences seen through the eyes of a psychoanalyst. But somehow I was waiting for a more detailed and thorough insight.

The writing itself was very smooth and easy to follow. Grosz avoids the use of psychological terms, (I only came across a couple of them), which makes this book incredibly readable.