Conversations

Exploring loss, love and meaning with psychoanalyst Stephen Grosz

Apr 6, 2026
Stephen Grosz, a British-American psychoanalyst and bestselling author with over 40 years of clinical work, shares stories from the consulting room. He discusses why analysis takes time, how silence and small details reveal inner patterns, dreams as films of feeling, the pain of desire, and how loss, love and endings shape who we become.
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ADVICE

Name The Fear To Break Silence

  • When a patient is silent from shame or fear, name the fear to help them speak.
  • Grosz might say: you're frightened you'll be judged, which often lets patients continue and reveal the hidden material.
ANECDOTE

Dream Revealed Fear Behind Cold Feet

  • A bride-to-be brought a dream that revealed her fear of marriage as killing off her birth family.
  • The dream of a changing room the size of Stephen Grosz's consulting room showed marriage meant destroying parental ties, explaining why she couldn't post invitations.
INSIGHT

Healthy Growth Requires Giving Things Up

  • Developmental progress always requires necessary losses at each stage of life.
  • Grosz lists examples: giving up the womb for the breast, breastfeeding for solid food, and leaving the birth family to form a new marital family.
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