Love's Labor

Love's Labor

How We Break and Make the Bonds of Love

About the Book

An acclaimed author and psychoanalyst shares moving true stories from his practice to explore the central question of our lives: How do we find and keep love?

“A profound meditation on love and healing. Powerful and important. Essential reading.”—Tara Westover, author of Educated

In these brief, powerful accounts drawn from his more than thirty-five years counseling patients, Stephen Grosz brings us into the lives of people who cannot fully connect to their loved ones. Grosz helps his patients map their internal worlds to uncover the unconscious fears and desires sabotaging their relationships.

Hoping to avoid love’s end, one man obsessively tends to everyone around him. Another retreats from the world, unable to live fully until he’s able to confront the failure of a tragic romance. Adultery and betrayal tear apart two married couples, but in surprising ways, love persists between the spouses.

These true stories of everyday suffering—and profound relief—display Grosz’s deep understanding of the wayward heart and the obstacles to enduring connection.
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Praise for Love's Labor

“This is a beautiful book.”—Nigella Lawson

“A profound meditation on love and healing. P . . . powerful and important. E . . . essential reading.”—Tara Westover, author of Educated

“A compressed, brilliant distillation of forty years of clinical experience and deep thought, written to last. Grosz conveys what he knows, in all its richness, in as pithy and digestible form as possible.”Financial Times

“A fascinating examination of this process [of psychoanalysis] in action . . . Grosz is a captivating writer whose understated vignettes often capture the complexities of the human condition”New Scientist

“Chilling, moving, unforgettable . . . what a privilege it is for the reader to catch a glimpse of this process.”The Guardian

Love’s Labor is a hopeful book and all the more convincingly so because it promises relatively small shifts rather than miraculous recoveries”The Times

“Love really is a labor: that's that’s something they don’t tell you in the fairy stories or the reality shows. But Stephen Grosz knows a lot about the pain and joy of human relationships, and in this book he generously shares his wisdom with the rest of us.”—Zadie Smith, author of The Fraud

“This is a special book, full of little epiphanies. It’s a love story about the relationship between lovers, between a therapist and patient, and between us all, if we are brave enough.”Natasha Lunn, author of Conversations on Love

“Grosz’s transfixing stories will increase your openness to and aptitude for the greatest of all emotions;: you will be better at love after you read this book.”—Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree

“Full of moments of revelation that stay with you forever . . . It would not be humanly possible for me to recommend his work more highly.”―India Knight, author of My Life on a Plate

“Reading Stephen Grosz is a deep sort of pleasure, and this book’s movingly told true stories left me feeling wiser and more open to life.”―Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks

“Stephen Grosz is a beautiful writer;, a clear, compelling thinker;, an observant, wise, and deeply empathetic human being.”—Nick Hornby, author of Fever Pitch
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About the Author

Stephen Grosz
STEPHEN GROSZ is a psychoanalyst and writer. He is the internationally bestselling author of The Examined Life. Born in America and educated at the University of California, Berkeley and at Oxford University, he now lives and practices in London. More by Stephen Grosz
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