Relationships
Changing Yourself Rather Than Trying to Change Your Partner
We know – of course – that they urgently need changing. Where do we start with the problems? They are…
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- 01. On Feeling Manic
- 02. Ostracism Anxiety
- 03. The Need For A Modern Monastery
- 04. Why the World Can Seem So Frightening – and How to Make It Feel Less So
- 05. Four Ways of Coping With Anxiety
- 06. Might You Be Hypervigilant? A Sombre Questionnaire
- 07. A Question to Ask Ourselves When We’re Feeling Low and Paranoid
- 08. The Importance of Not Knowing
- 09. Why We May Be Addicted to Crises
- 10. The Causes of Obsessive Thinking
- 11. What Our Bodies are Trying to Tell Us
- 12. Anxiety-as-Denial
- 13. Our Anxious Ancestry
- 14. Auditing Our Worries
- 15. Why We May Need a Convalescence
- 16. Don’t Hope for the Best; Expect the Worst
- 17. The Age of Agitation
- 18. How to Sleep Better
- 19. How and Why We Catastrophise
- 20. On Being ‘Triggered’
- 21. OCD — and How to Overcome It
- 22. How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
- 23. Signs You Might Be Suffering from Complex PTSD
- 24. On Skin Picking
- 25. Stoicism and Tigers Who Come to Tea
- 26. The Seven Most Calming Works of Art in the World
- 27. After the Storm
- 28. Thoughts for the Storm
- 29. Emotional Maturity in a Crisis
- 30. Preparing for Disaster
- 31. How to Stop Being Scared All the Time
- 32. The Ultimate Dark Source of Security
- 33. What Everybody Really Wants
- 34. Simplicity & Anxiety
- 35. A Way Through Panic Attacks
- 36. Self-Hatred & Anxiety
- 37. The Question We Should Ask Ourselves When Anxious
- 38. On Anxiety
- 39. The True Cause of Dread and Anxiety
- 40. On Being Scared All the Time
- 41. The Importance of Having A Breakdown
- 42. On Asking for Help
- 43. The Normality of Anxiety Attacks
- 44. On Panic Attacks
- 01. The Letter You May Need to Send to Save Your Life
- 02. Might I Be Feeling Lonely Rather Than Worried?
- 03. A Place for Despair
- 04. On Being Gaslit In Our Childhoods
- 05. How to Make It Through
- 06. When Our Battery is Running Low
- 07. The Many Moods We Pass Through
- 08. When I Am Called to Die
- 09. If You Stopped Running, What Would You Need to Feel?
- 10. Can We Live With the Truth?
- 11. Five Questions to Ask Yourself Every Evening
- 12. Why Things May Need to Get Worse Before They Can Get Better
- 13. The Limits of the Conscious Mind
- 14. Why Life is Always Difficult
- 15. What is a Transcendental Experience?
- 16. Building the Cathedral
- 17. Rewriting Our Inner Scripts
- 18. What Sleeping Babies Can Teach Us
- 19. How to Endure
- 20. Everything Is So Weird
- 21. Escaping Into History
- 22. The Inevitability of Choice
- 23. What Would Jesus Do?
- 24. Stop Worrying About Your Reputation
- 25. You Still Have Time
- 26. I Will Survive!
- 27. On Trying to Control the Future
- 28. A Few Things Still to Be Grateful For
- 29. No One Knows
- 30. There is No Happily Ever After
- 31. The Catastrophe You Fear Will Happen has Already Happened
- 32. There is Always a Plan B
- 33. The Consolations of History
- 34. The Lessons of Nature
- 35. What Others Think of You – and The Fall of Icarus
- 36. On the Sublime
- 37. Gratitude for the Small Things
- 38. Why ‘Earthrise’ Matters
- 39. On Flowers
- 40. The Valuable Idea Behind the Concept of the Day of Judgement
- 41. The Wisdom of Animals
- 42. The Lottery of Life
- 43. Untranslatable Words
- 44. The Wisdom of Rocks: Gongshi
- 45. Wu Wei – Doing Nothing 無爲
- 46. The Faulty Walnut
- 47. Perspectives on Insomnia
- 48. On the Wisdom of Space
- 49. Memento Mori
- 50. On the Wisdom of Cows
- 51. On Calming Places
- 52. Why Small Pleasures Are a Big Deal
- 53. The Consolations of a Bath
- 54. The Importance of Staring out the Window
- 55. Clouds, Trees, Streams
- 56. On Sunshine
- 01. Keep Going
- 02. The Wisdom of Liming
- 03. The Ecstatic Joy We Deny Ourselves
- 04. Why Illusions Are Necessary to Achieve Anything
- 05. Preparing for a Decent Night of Sleep
- 06. Returning Anger to Where It Belongs
- 07. Controlling Insomnia – and Life – Through Pessimism
- 08. How to Be Cool the Yoruba Way
- 09. Why We Should Refuse to Get into Arguments
- 10. The Perils of Making Predictions
- 11. Making Peace with Life’s Mystery
- 12. The Promise of an Unblemished Life
- 13. Daring to Be Simple
- 14. Haikus and Appreciation
- 15. The Call of Calm
- 16. What Would Paradise Look Like?
- 17. How to Process Your Emotions
- 18. The Wisdom of Dusk
- 19. The Appeal of Austere Places
- 20. How to Go to Bed Earlier
- 21. Why We All Need Quiet Days
- 22. The Benefits of Provincial Life
- 23. How to Live in a Hut
- 24. For Those Who (Privately) Aspire to Become More Reclusive
- 25. The Hard Work of Being ‘Lazy’
- 26. Expectations – and the 80/20 Rule
- 27. Taking It One Day at a Time
- 28. Spirituality for People who Hate Spirituality
- 29. How to Spill A Drink Down One’s Front – and Survive
- 30. How To Stop Worrying Whether or Not They Like You
- 31. On Soothing
- 32. What Is Wrong with Modern Times – and How to Regain Wisdom
- 33. The Disaster of Anthropocentrism – and the Promise of the Transcendent
- 34. On Needing to Find Something to Worry About — Why We Always Worry for No Reason
- 35. How We Are Easily, Too Easily, ‘Triggered’
- 36. Hypervigilance
- 37. If The Worst Came to the Worst…
- 38. The Wonders of an Ordinary Life
- 39. In Praise of the Quiet Life
- 40. The Pursuit of Calm
- 41. Insomnia and Philosophy
- 01. Reasons Not to Give Up
- 02. What Goes With What
- 03. Eight Rules to Create Nicer Cities
- 04. The Secret Toll of Our Ugly World
- 05. Henri Rousseau
- 06. Albrecht Dürer and his Pillows
- 07. On the Consolations of Home | Georg Friedrich Kersting
- 08. Francisco Goya’s Masterpiece
- 09. How Industry Restores Our Faith in Humanity
- 10. Rembrandt as a Guide to Kindness
- 11. Buildings That Give Hope – and Buildings That Condemn Us
- 12. Katsushika Hokusai
- 13. Agnes Martin
- 14. The Importance of Architecture
- 15. The Secret of Beauty: Order and Complexity
- 16. Le Corbusier
- 17. Two World Views: Romantic and Classical
- 18. Oscar Niemeyer
- 19. Against Obscurity
- 20. Why Do Scandinavians Have Such Impeccable Taste in Interior Design?
- 21. Art for Art’s Sake
- 22. Why We Need to Create a Home
- 23. Why You Should Never Say: ‘Beauty Lies in the Eye of the Beholder’
- 24. Andrea Palladio
- 25. Why Design Matters
- 26. On Good and Bad Taste
- 27. On How to Make an Attractive City
- 28. Art as Therapy
- 29. On Ugliness and the Housing Crisis
- 30. Johannes Vermeer
- 31. Caspar David Friedrich
- 32. Henri Matisse
- 33. Edward Hopper
- 34. Louis Kahn
- 35. Coco Chanel
- 36. Jane Jacobs
- 37. Cy Twombly
- 38. Andy Warhol
- 39. Dieter Rams
- 40. A Therapeutic Approach to Art
- 41. Christo and Jeanne-Claude
- 42. On the Importance of Drawing
- 43. On Art as a Reminder
- 44. On the Price of Art Works
- 45. Secular Chapels
- 46. Relativism and Urban Planning
- 47. What Art Museums Should Be For
- 48. On Fakes and Originals
- 49. The Museum Gift Shop
- 01. What We Might Learn From The Dandies of The Congo
- 02. The Beauty of Komorebi
- 03. The Past Was Not in Black and White
- 04. The Drawer of Odd Things
- 05. Why Middle-Aged Men Think So Often About the Roman Empire
- 06. The Consolations of Catastrophe
- 07. What is the Point of History?
- 08. What Rothko’s Art Teaches Us About Suffering
- 09. The Value of Reading Things We Disagree with
- 10. Easter for Atheists
- 11. The Life House
- 12. Why Philosophy Should Become More Like Pop Music
- 13. Why Stoicism Continues to Matter
- 14. The School of Life: What We Believe
- 15. Cultural Mining
- 16. Lego – the Movies
- 17. Philosophy – the Movies
- 18. History of Ideas – the Movies
- 19. Sociology – the Movies
- 20. Political Theory – the Movies
- 21. Psychotherapy – the Movies
- 22. Greek Philosophy – the Movies
- 23. Eastern Philosophy – the Movies
- 24. Art – the Movies
- 25. On Aphorisms
- 26. What Comes After Religion?
- 27. The Serious Business of Clothes
- 28. What Is the Point of the Humanities?
- 29. Why Music Works
- 30. The Importance of Music
- 31. The Importance of Books
- 32. What Is Comedy For?
- 33. What Is Philosophy For?
- 34. What Is Art For?
- 35. What Is History For?
- 36. What Is Psychotherapy For?
- 37. What Is Literature For?
- 38. The Joys of Sport
- 01. Following in the Buddha’s Footsteps
- 02. Six Persimmons
- 03. The Four Hindu Stages of Life
- 04. Rice or Wheat? The Difference Between Eastern and Western Cultures
- 05. Eastern vs Western Views of Happiness
- 06. Four Great Ideas from Hinduism
- 07. Zen Buddhism and Fireflies
- 08. Six Ideas from Eastern Philosophy
- 09. Wu Wei – Doing Nothing 無爲
- 10. Kintsugi 金継ぎ
- 11. Buddha
- 12. Lao Tzu
- 13. Confucius
- 14. Sen no Rikyū
- 15. Matsuo Basho
- 16. Mono No Aware
- 17. Guan Yin
- 18. Gongshi
- 19. Wu Wei
- 20. Kintsugi
- 21. Yinshi
- 22. Why so Many Love the Philosophy of the East – and so Few That of the West
- 01. Charles Dickens’s Secret
- 02. Giuseppe di Lampedusa — The Leopard
- 03. Sei Shōnagon — The Pillow Book
- 04. Kakuzo Okakura — The Book of Tea
- 05. Victor Hugo and the Art of Contempt
- 06. Edward Gibbon — The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
- 07. How to Read Fewer Books
- 08. The Downfall of Oscar Wilde
- 09. What Voltaire Meant by ‘One Must Cultivate One’s Own Garden’
- 10. James Baldwin
- 11. Camus and The Plague
- 12. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- 13. Charles Dickens
- 14. Gustave Flaubert
- 15. Fyodor Dostoevsky
- 16. Marcel Proust
- 17. Books as Therapy
- 18. Jane Austen
- 19. Leo Tolstoy
- 20. Virginia Woolf
- 21. James Joyce
- 01. What Should A Good Therapist Do For Us?
- 02. The Usefulness Of Speaking Your Feelings To An Empty Chair
- 03. What’s the Bit of Therapy That Heals You?
- 04. Why We Need Therapy When We Give Up on Religion
- 05. How Psychotherapy Might Truly Help Us
- 06. Why You Should Take a Sentence Completion Test
- 07. Carl Jung’s Word Association Test
- 08. Freud’s Porcupine
- 09. How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
- 10. How the Modern World Makes Us Mentally Ill
- 11. Twenty Key Concepts from Psychotherapy
- 12. Why Psychotherapy Works
- 13. The True and the False Self
- 14. What Happens in Psychotherapy? Four Case Studies
- 15. The Problem of Psychological Asymmetry
- 16. Freud on Sublimation
- 17. Sigmund Freud
- 18. Anna Freud
- 19. Melanie Klein
- 20. Donald Winnicott
- 21. John Bowlby
- 22. A Short Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
- 23. Jacques Lacan
- 01. The Pleasures of the Underground
- 02. Why Small Pleasures Become a Bigger, Not a Smaller Deal, the More We Suffer and Age
- 03. You Are Living in the Greatest Museum in the World
- 04. When Something is Beautiful…
- 05. Albrecht Dürer and his Pillows
- 06. How Giraffes Can Teach Us to Wonder
- 07. Sun Worship
- 08. The Importance of Dancing Like an Idiot
- 09. Walking in the Woods
- 10. Getting More Serious about Pleasure
- 11. On Going to the Zoo
- 12. The Fish Shop
- 13. On Small Islands
- 14. On Stars
- 15. On Grandmothers
- 16. Up at Dawn
- 17. On Crimes in the Newspapers
- 18. Driving on the Motorway at Night
- 19. On Sunday Mornings
- 20. A Favourite Old Jumper
- 21. Holding Hands with a Small Child
- 22. Feeling at Home in the Sea
- 23. The Book That Understands You
- 24. Old Photos of One’s Parents
- 25. Whispering in Bed in the Dark
- 26. On Feeling That Someone Else is So Wrong
- 27. The First Day of Feeling Well Again
- 28. Figs
- 01. The Wisdom of Liming
- 02. Three Essays on Flight
- 03. The Wisdom of Islamic Gardens
- 04. A World Without Air Travel
- 05. Walking in the Woods
- 06. Why We Argue in Paradise
- 07. The Advantages of Staying at Home
- 08. The Wisdom of Nature
- 09. The Holidays When You’re Feeling Mentally Unwell
- 10. The Shortest Journey: On Going for a Walk around the Block
- 11. How to Spend a Few Days in Paris
- 12. Why Germans Can Say Things No One Else Can
- 13. Travel as Therapy – an Introduction
- 14. Lunch, 30,000 Feet – for Comfort
- 15. The Western Desert, Australia – for Humility
- 16. Glenpark Road, Birmingham – for Boredom
- 17. Comuna 13, San Javier, Medellin, Colombia – for Dissatisfaction
- 18. Pumping Station, Isla Mayor, Seville – for Snobbery
- 19. Eastown Theatre, Detroit – for Perspective
- 20. Capri Hotel, Changi Airport, Singapore – for Thinking
- 21. Cafe de Zaak, Utrecht – for Sex Education
- 22. Corner shop, Kanagawaken, Yokohama – for Shyness
- 23. Monument Valley, USA – for Calm
- 24. Heathrow Airport, London – for Awe
- 25. Pefkos Beach, Rhodes – for Anxiety
- 01. On Flying Too Close to the Sun – And Not Flying Close Enough
- 02. Kierkegaard on Love
- 03. Aristotle
- 04. Baruch Spinoza
- 05. Arthur Schopenhauer
- 06. Blaise Pascal
- 07. Six Ideas from Western Philosophy
- 08. Introduction to The Curriculum
- 09. Plato
- 10. The Stoics
- 11. Epicurus
- 12. Augustine
- 13. Boethius and The Consolation of Philosophy
- 14. Thomas Aquinas
- 15. Michel de Montaigne
- 16. La Rochefoucauld
- 17. Voltaire
- 18. David Hume
- 19. Immanuel Kant
- 20. Hegel
- 21. Hegel Knew There Would Be Days Like These
- 22. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- 23. Nietzsche
- 24. Nietzsche, Regret and Amor Fati
- 25. Nietzsche and Envy
- 26. Martin Heidegger
- 27. Ludwig Wittgenstein
- 28. Jean-Paul Sartre
- 29. Albert Camus
- 30. Michel Foucault
- 31. Jacques Derrida
- 32. E. M. Cioran
- 01. What to Say in Response to an Affair
- 02. How To Handle the Desire for Affairs?
- 03. What Does It Take To Be Good at Affairs?
- 04. What Ideally Happens When An Affair is Discovered?
- 05. When Does An Affair Begin?
- 06. A Brief History of Affairs
- 07. How to Reduce the Risk of Affairs
- 08. The Role of Sex in Affairs
- 09. How To Spot A Couple That Might Be Headed For An Affair
- 10. How Can An Affair Help A Marriage?
- 11. The Pleasures of Affairs
- 12. The Pains of Affairs
- 13. The Meaning of Infidelity
- 14. Loyalty and Adultery
- 15. Why People Have Affairs: Distance and Closeness
- 01. Good Endings in Love
- 02. Those of Us Who Don’t Expect Kindness in Love
- 03. Who Actually Ends a Relationship?
- 04. The Pains of Heartbreak
- 05. Those Who Cannot Feel Love Until It Is Over
- 06. The Heroism of Leaving a Relationship
- 07. Exquisite Agony in Love
- 08. Why It Should Not Have to Last Forever…
- 09. When Does a Divorce Begin?
- 10. Rethinking Divorce
- 11. Three Questions to Help You Decide Whether to Stay in or Leave a Relationship
- 12. Stop Repeating the Same Mistakes
- 13. There’s Nothing Wrong with Being on Your Own
- 14. The Wrong Idea of a Baddie
- 15. Finding Closure After a Breakup
- 16. Should Sex Ever Be a Reason to Break Up?
- 17. When a Relationship Fails, Who Rejected Whom?
- 18. The Fear of Not Being Able to Cope Practically Without a Partner
- 19. The Fear of Ending a Relationship
- 20. What About the Children When Divorce is on the Cards?
- 21. What If I Just Repeat the Same Mistakes Next Time?
- 22. Are My Expectations Too High?
- 23. Overcoming Nostalgia for a Past Relationship
- 24. The Feeling of Being Back in Love with the Person You’re About to Leave
- 25. The Capacity to Give up on People
- 26. For Those Stuck in a Relationship
- 27. 10 Ideas for People Afraid to Exit a Relationship
- 28. People Who Want to Own Us – but Not Nourish Us
- 29. The Hardest Person in the World to Break up With
- 30. A Non-Tragic View of Breaking Up
- 31. A Guide to Breaking Up
- 32. How to Reject Someone Kindly
- 33. When Someone We Love Has Died
- 34. Why Did They Leave Us?
- 35. How to Break Up
- 36. How We Can Have Our Hearts Broken Even Though No One Has Left Us
- 37. The Psychology of Our Exes
- 38. ‘Unfair Dismissal’ in Love
- 39. How Not to Be Tortured By a Love Rival
- 40. Coping with Betrayal
- 41. Can Exes be Friends?
- 42. How to Get Over Someone
- 43. Why True Love Doesn’t Have to Last Forever
- 44. How to Get Over a Rejection
- 45. How to End a Relationship
- 46. Stay or Leave?
- 47. How to Get Divorced
- 48. On Forgetting Lovers
- 49. How Not to Break Up with Someone
- 01. Changing Yourself Rather Than Trying to Change Your Partner
- 02. Offering Love to Someone Who Is Not Convinced of Their Loveability
- 03. The Sorrows of Anxiously Attached People
- 04. Five Ways to Handle an Avoidant Partner
- 05. How to Find Out What Might Happen With a New Partner
- 06. A Dark Way to Predict What Might Happen in Your Relationship
- 07. Why Some Of Us Are So Bad At Spotting Red Flags
- 08. The Appeal of Rescuing Other People
- 09. Daring to Love
- 10. People Pleasers in Relationships
- 11. People Not to Fall in Love With
- 12. Picking Partners Who Won’t Understand Us
- 13. How Do Emotionally Healthy People Behave In Relationships?
- 14. The Avoidant Partner With The Power To Drive You Mad
- 15. On Picking a Socially Unsuitable Partner
- 16. How to Sustain Love: A Tool
- 17. Questions To Ask About Someone We Are Thinking Of Committing To
- 18. Our Two Great Fears in Love
- 19. The Pains of Preoccupied Attachment
- 20. Are You Afraid of Intimacy?
- 21. Why You Will Never Quite Get it Right in Love
- 22. Understanding Attachment Theory
- 23. Why We ‘Split’ Our Partners
- 24. Why We Love People Who Don’t Love Us Back
- 25. Should I Be With Them?
- 26. The Seven Rules of Successful Relationships
- 27. Why We Must Explain Our Own Needs
- 28. How Good Are You at Communication in Love? Questionnaire
- 29. Why Some Couples Last — and Some Don’t
- 30. The Difference Between Fragile and Strong Couples
- 31. What Relationships Should Really Be About
- 32. The Real Reason Why Couples Break Up
- 33. 6 Reasons We Choose Badly in Love
- 34. Can People Change?
- 35. Konrad Lorenz & Why You Choose the Partners You Choose
- 36. The Stranger You Live With
- 37. The Attachment Style Questionnaire
- 38. Why Anxious and Avoidant Partners Find It Hard to Leave One Another
- 39. The Challenges of Anxious-Avoidant Relationships — Can Couples With Different Attachment Styles Work?
- 40. On Rescue Fantasies
- 41. How to Cope with an Avoidant Partner
- 42. What Is Your Attachment Style?
- 43. ‘I Will Never Find the Right Partner’
- 44. Too Close or Too Distant: How We Stand in Relationships
- 45. How Are You Difficult to Live with?
- 46. Why We’re Compelled to Love Difficult People
- 47. Why Your Lover is Very Damaged – and Annoying
- 48. Why Tiny Things about Our Partners Drive Us Mad
- 49. How to Love Ugly People
- 50. Why Polyamory Probably Won’t Work for You
- 51. Why We Go Cold on Our Partners
- 52. An Instruction Manual to Oneself
- 53. The Terrors of Being Loved
- 54. The Partner as Child Theory
- 55. On the Fear of Intimacy
- 56. Meet the Parents
- 57. On Finding the ‘Right’ Person
- 58. If You Loved Me, You Wouldn’t Want to Change Me
- 59. The Problems of Closeness
- 01. A Chance to Be Bad in Relationships
- 02. There Are No Small Issues in Love
- 03. When One Partner Feels Controlled; And the Other Feels Abandoned
- 04. What We Can Always Do to Improve Our Relationships
- 05. How to Break Logjams in a Relationship
- 06. The Miseries of Push-Pull Relationships
- 07. A Way To Break Logjams In A Couple
- 08. When Your Partner Loves You – but Does Their Best to Drive You Away…
- 09. A Rule to Help Your Relationship
- 10. Secret Grudges We May Have Against the Other Gender
- 11. The Demand for Perfection in Love
- 12. On Being Upset Without Knowing It
- 13. Who is Afraid of Intimacy?
- 14. Why Good Manners Matter in Relationships
- 15. A Role for Lies
- 16. The Secret Lives of Other Couples
- 17. On Saying ‘I Hate You’ to Someone You Love
- 18. When Love Isn’t Easy
- 19. Two Questions to Repair a Relationship
- 20. Three Steps to Resolving Conflicts in Relationships
- 21. Stop Avoiding Conflict
- 22. An Alternative to Passive Aggression
- 23. Why We Must Soften What We Say to Our Partners
- 24. How to Be Less Defensive in Love
- 25. On Gaslighting
- 26. Why We Play Games in Love
- 27. On ‘Rupture’ and ‘Repair’
- 28. Why it’s OK to Want a Partner to Change
- 29. On Arguing More Nakedly
- 30. Do You Still Love Me?
- 31. Why We Need to Feel Heard
- 32. Five Questions to Ask of Bad Behaviour
- 33. The Art of Complaining
- 34. The Challenges of Communication
- 35. How To Have Fewer Bitter Arguments in Love
- 36. The Arguments We Have From Guilt
- 37. Attention-Seeking Arguments
- 38. When Our Partners Are Being Excessively Logical
- 39. When We Tell Our Partners That We Are Normal and They Are Strange
- 40. When Your Partner Tries to Stop You Growing
- 41. When Your Partner Starts Crying Hysterically During an Argument
- 42. Why We Sometimes Set Out to Shatter Our Lover’s Good Mood
- 43. Why People Get Defensive in Relationships
- 44. A History of Arguments
- 45. The Fights When There Is No Sex
- 46. What We Might Learn in Couples Therapy
- 47. On the Tendency to Love and Hate Excessively
- 48. An Alternative to Being Controlling
- 49. Why We Should Not Silently Suffer From A Lack of Touch in Love
- 50. Why Anger Has a Place in Love
- 51. The Importance of Relationship Counselling
- 52. How to Argue in Relationships
- 53. Why We (Sometimes) Hope the People We Love Might Die
- 54. Be the Change You Want To See
- 55. I Wish I Was Still Single
- 56. Love and Sulking
- 57. On Being Unintentionally Hurt
- 58. The Secret Problems of Other Couples
- 59. On the Dangers of Being Too Defensive
- 60. On How to Defuse an Argument
- 61. How to Save Love with Pessimism
- 62. How ‘Transference’ Makes You Hard to Live With
- 63. Why You Resent Your Partner
- 64. Why It Is Always Your Partner’s Fault
- 65. If It Wasn’t for You…
- 66. Why You Are So Annoyed By What You Once Admired
- 67. Why You’re (Probably) Not a Great Communicator
- 01. The Need for Honesty on Early Dates
- 02. Why Dating Apps Won’t Help You Find Love
- 03. Being Honest on a Date
- 04. Why Haven’t They Called – and the Rorschach Test
- 05. Dating When You’ve Had a Bad Childhood
- 06. Varieties of Madness Commonly Met with On Dates
- 07. How to Seduce with Confidence
- 08. A Brief History of Dating
- 09. How to Prove Attractive to Someone on a Date
- 10. Existentialism and Dating
- 11. What to Talk About on a Date
- 12. What to Eat and Drink on a Date
- 13. How to Seduce Someone on a Date
- 14. How Not to Think on a Date
- 01. A Crucial Sign That Someone Is Worth Going Out With
- 02. On Not Being Very Good at Love
- 03. Our Longing to Avoid Love
- 04. The 9 Most Common Mistakes We Make When Choosing a Partner
- 05. Getting Better at Picking Lovers
- 06. How We May Be Creating The Lovers We Fear
- 07. What If the People We Could Love Are Here Already; We Just Can’t See Them?
- 08. The Lengths We Go to Avoid Love
- 09. Our Secret Wish Never to Find Love
- 10. Why We All End up Marrying Our Parents
- 11. True Love Begins With Self-Love
- 12. The Importance of Being Single
- 13. Why We Keep Choosing Bad Partners
- 14. Celebrity Crushes
- 15. Romantic Masochism
- 16. What Do You Love Me For?
- 17. If Love Never Came
- 18. On the Madness and Charm of Crushes
- 19. Why Only the Happy Single Find True Love
- 20. Should We Play It Cool When We Like Someone?
- 21. In Praise of Unrequited Love
- 22. Two Reasons Why You Might Still Be Single
- 23. How We Choose a Partner
- 24. Why Flirting Matters
- 25. Why, Once You Understand Love, You Could Love Anyone
- 26. Mate Selection
- 27. Reasons to Remain Single
- 28. How to Enjoy a New Relationship
- 01. Alternatives to Romantic Monogamy
- 02. Twenty Ideas on Marriage
- 03. For Moments of Marital Crisis
- 04. What to Do on Your Wedding Night
- 05. Who Should You Invite to Your Wedding?
- 06. Pragmatic Reasons for Getting Married
- 07. The Standard Marriage and Its Seven Alternatives
- 08. Utopian Marriage
- 09. When Is One Ready to Get Married?
- 10. On the Continuing Relevance of Marriage
- 11. On Marrying the Wrong Person — 9 Reasons We Will Regret Getting Married
- 01. When One Person Has to Be Needy so the Other Can Feel Invulnerable
- 02. Three Questions to Keep Your Relationship Together
- 03. The Pleasures of Talking Nonsense With Someone We Love
- 04. What Are We Lying To Our Lovers About?
- 05. Those Who Have to Wait for a War to Say ‘I Love You’
- 06. What Celebrity Stalkers Can Teach Us About Love
- 07. The Achievement of Missing Someone
- 08. How Love Can Teach Us Who We Are
- 09. Beyond the Need for Melodrama in Love
- 10. True Love is Boring
- 11. How to Make Love Last Forever
- 12. How to Be Vulnerable
- 13. Why You Can’t Read Your Partner’s Mind
- 14. What Teddy Bears Teach Us About Love
- 15. What Role Do You Play in Your Relationship?
- 16. Why We Should Be ‘Babyish’ in Love
- 17. The Maturity of Regression
- 18. The Benefits of Insecurity in Love
- 19. Taking the Pressure off Love
- 20. A Pledge for Lovers
- 21. A Projection Exercise for Couples
- 22. A New Ritual: The Morning and Evening Kiss
- 23. Can Our Phones Solve Our Love Lives?
- 24. If We’re All Bad at Love, Shouldn’t We Change Our Definition of Normality?
- 25. Other People’s Relationships
- 26. How to Cope with an Avoidant Partner
- 27. The Pleasure of Reading Together in Bed
- 28. 22 Questions to Reignite Love
- 29. The Wisdom of Romantic Compromise
- 30. How to Complain
- 31. How We Need to Keep Growing Up
- 32. Teaching and Love
- 33. Love and Self-Love
- 34. Humour in Love
- 35. The Advantages of Long-Distance Love
- 36. In Praise of Hugs
- 37. Why Affectionate Teasing is Kind and Necessary
- 38. The Couple Courtroom Game
- 39. Getting over a Row
- 40. Keeping Secrets in Relationships
- 41. A Lover’s Guide to Sulking
- 42. Artificial Conversations
- 43. On the Role of Stories in Love
- 44. On the Hardest Job in the World
- 45. On the Beloved’s Wrist
- 01. How Even Very ‘Nice’ Parents Can Mess Up Their Children
- 02. The Parents We Would Love To Have Had: An Exercise
- 03. Fatherless Boys
- 04. How to Raise a Successful Person
- 05. The Problems of Miniature Adults
- 06. Mothers and Daughters
- 07. The Importance of Swords and Guns for Children
- 08. When Parents Won’t Let Their Children Grow Up
- 09. The Fragile Parent
- 10. Parenting and People-Pleasing
- 11. Three Kinds of Parental Love
- 12. A Portrait of Tenderness
- 13. What Makes a Good Parent? A Checklist
- 14. On the Curiosity of Children
- 15. How to Lend a Child Confidence
- 16. The Importance of Play
- 17. Why Children Need an Emotional Education
- 18. Coping with One’s Parents
- 19. Are Children for Me?
- 20. How Parents Might Let Their Children Know of Their Issues
- 21. How We Crave to Be Soothed
- 22. Escaping the Shadow of a Parent
- 23. On Being Angry with a Parent
- 24. What You Might Want to Tell Your Child About Homework
- 25. On Apologising to Your Child
- 26. Teaching Children about Relationships
- 27. How Should a Parent Love their Child?
- 28. When people pleasers become parents – and need to say ‘no’
- 29. On the Sweetness of Children
- 30. Listening to Children
- 31. Whether or not to have Children
- 32. The Children of Snobs
- 33. Why Good Parents Have Naughty Children
- 34. The Joys and Sorrows of Parenting
- 35. The Significance of Parenthood
- 36. Why Family Matters
- 37. Parenting and Working
- 38. On Children’s Art
- 39. What Babies Can Teach Us
- 40. Why – When It Comes to Children – Love May Not Be Enough
- 01. What We Really, Really Want in Love
- 02. Falling in Love with a Stranger
- 03. Why We Need ‘Ubuntu’
- 04. The Buddhist View of Love
- 05. What True Love Looks Like
- 06. How the Wrong Images of Love Can Ruin Our Lives
- 07. Kierkegaard on Love
- 08. Why Do I Feel So Lonely?
- 09. Pygmalion and your Love life
- 10. How to Love
- 11. What is Love?
- 12. On Romanticism
- 13. A Short History of Love
- 14. The Definition of Love
- 15. Why We Need the Ancient Greek Vocabulary of Love
- 16. The Cure for Love
- 17. On Seduction
- 18. Why We Need to Speak of Love in Public
- 19. How Romanticism Ruined Love
- 20. Our Most Romantic Moments
- 21. Loving and Being Loved
- 22. Romantic Realism
- 23. On Being Romantic or Classical
- 01. Four Kinds of Sexual Deviancy and What They Really Mean
- 02. On Castration Anxiety
- 03. The Difficulties of Impotence
- 04. What is Sexual Perversion?
- 05. Our Unconscious Fear of Successful Sex
- 06. The Logic of Our Fantasies
- 07. Rethinking Gender
- 08. The Ongoing Complexities of Our Intimate Lives
- 09. On Post-Coital Melancholy
- 10. Desire and Intimacy
- 11. What Makes a Person Attractive?
- 12. How to Talk About Your Sexual Fantasy
- 13. The Problem of Sexual Shame
- 14. Who Initiates Sex: and Why It Matters So Much
- 15. On Still Being a Virgin
- 16. Love and Sex
- 17. Impotence and Respect
- 18. Sexual Non-Liberation
- 19. The Excitement of Kissing
- 20. The Appeal of Outdoor Sex
- 21. The Sexual Fantasies of Others
- 22. On Art and Masturbation
- 23. The Psychology of Cross-Dressing
- 24. The Fear of Being Bad in Bed
- 25. The Sex-Starved Relationship
- 26. How to Start Having Sex Again
- 27. Sexual Liberation
- 28. The Poignancy of Old Pornography
- 29. On Porn Addiction
- 30. A Brief Philosophy of Oral Sex
- 31. Why We Go Off Sex
- 32. On Being a Sleazebag
- 33. A Brief Theory of Sexual Excitement
- 01. Why We Sometimes Need to Be Tied to a Mast
- 02. Four Explanations for Self-Sabotage
- 03. Work Outs For Our Minds
- 04. Interviewing Our Bodies
- 05. The Top Dog – Under Dog Exercise
- 06. A Guide For The Recovering Avoidant
- 07. Where Are Humanity’s Problems Really Located?
- 08. On Feeling Obliged
- 09. Why We Struggle With Self-Discipline
- 10. Why We Should Practice Automatic Writing
- 11. Why We Behave As We Do
- 12. Mechanisms of Defence
- 13. On Always Finding Fault with Others
- 14. The Hidden Logic of Illogical Behaviour
- 15. How to Weaken the Hold of Addiction
- 16. Charles Darwin and The Descent of Man
- 17. Why We Are All Addicts
- 18. Straightforward vs. Complicated People
- 19. Reasons to Give Up on Perfection
- 20. The Need for a Cry
- 21. On Confinement
- 22. The Importance of Singing Badly
- 23. You Don’t Need Permission
- 24. On Feeling Stuck
- 25. Am I Paranoid?
- 26. Learning to Be More Selfish
- 27. Learning How to Be Angry
- 28. Why We’re All Liars
- 29. Are You a Masochist?
- 30. How Badly Adapted We Are to Life on Earth
- 31. How We Prefer to Act Rather Than Think
- 32. How to Live More Wisely Around Our Phones
- 33. On Dreaming
- 34. The Need to be Alone
- 35. On the Remarkable Need to Speak
- 36. Thinking Too Much; and Thinking Too Little
- 37. On Nagging
- 38. The Prevention of Suicide
- 39. On Getting an Early Night
- 40. Why We Eat Too Much
- 41. On Taking Drugs
- 42. On Perfectionism
- 43. On Procrastination
- 01. Why We Overreact
- 02. Giving Up on People Pleasing
- 03. The Benefits of Forgetfulness
- 04. How to Take Criticism
- 05. A More Spontaneous Life
- 06. On Self-Assertion
- 07. The Benefit of Analogies
- 08. Why We Need Moments of Mad Thinking
- 09. The Task of Turning Vague Thoughts into More Precise Ones
- 10. How to Catch Your Own Thoughts
- 11. Why Our Best Thoughts Come To Us in the Shower
- 12. Calm
- 13. Confidence
- 14. Why We Should Try to Become Better Narcissists
- 15. Why We Require Poor Memories To Survive
- 16. The Importance of Confession
- 17. How Emotionally Healthy Are You?
- 18. What Is An Emotionally Healthy Childhood?
- 19. Unprocessed Emotion
- 20. How to Be a Genius
- 21. On Resilience
- 22. How to Decide
- 23. Why It Should Be Glamorous to Change Your Mind
- 24. How to Make More of Our Memories
- 25. What’s Wrong with Needy People
- 26. Emotional Education: An Introduction
- 27. Philosophical Meditation
- 28. Honesty
- 29. Self-Love
- 30. Emotional Scepticism
- 31. Politeness
- 32. Charity
- 33. Charm
- 34. Love-as-Generosity
- 35. Comforting
- 36. Emotional Translation
- 37. Humour
- 38. On Pessimism
- 39. The Problem with Cynicism
- 40. On Keeping Going
- 41. Closeness
- 42. On Higher Consciousness
- 43. On Exercising the Mind
- 44. Authentic Work
- 45. The Sorrows of Work
- 46. Cultural Consolation
- 47. Appreciation
- 48. Cheerful Despair
- 01. Why We Can so Quickly End up Feeling Hated
- 02. Naturally You Don’t Trust Anyone!
- 03. What Is It Like to Be Mentally Unwell?
- 04. How ‘Mad’ People Make a Lot of Sense
- 05. Why We Keep Repeating Patterns of Unhappiness
- 06. Your Self-Esteem is a Record of Your History
- 07. Why Some People Love Extreme Sports
- 08. The Overlooked Pains of Very, Very Tidy People
- 09. On Feeling Guilty for No Reason
- 10. The Fear of Being Touched
- 11. Why Most of Us Feel Like Losers
- 12. One of the More Beautiful Paintings in the World…
- 13. The Origins of a Sense of Persecution
- 14. How to Overcome Psychological Barriers
- 15. The Sinner Inside All of Us
- 16. How to Be Less Defensive
- 17. Are You a Sadist or a Masochist?
- 18. You Might Be Mad
- 19. Fears Are Not Facts
- 20. Why It’s Good to Be a Narcissist
- 21. Am I a Bad Person?
- 22. Why Some of Us Are So Thin-Skinned
- 23. The Five Features of Paranoia
- 24. Why So Many of Us Are Masochists
- 25. In Praise of Self-Doubt
- 26. Why We Get Locked Inside Stories — and How to Break Free
- 27. Why Grandiosity is a Symptom of Self-Hatred
- 28. The Origins of Imposter Syndrome
- 29. The Upsides of Being Ill
- 30. The Roots of Paranoia
- 31. Loneliness as a Sign of Depth
- 32. How Social Media Affects Our Self-Worth
- 33. How to Be Beautiful
- 34. Trying to Be Kinder to Ourselves
- 35. The Role of Love in Mental Health
- 36. Trauma and Fearfulness
- 37. On Despair and the Imagination
- 38. On Being Able to Defend Oneself
- 39. The Fear of Death
- 40. I Am Not My Body
- 41. The Problems of Being Very Beautiful
- 42. 6 Reasons Not to Worry What the Neighbours Think
- 43. Am I Fat? An Answer from History
- 44. The Problem of Shame
- 45. On Feeling Ugly
- 46. The Particular Beauty of Unhappy-Looking People
- 47. How Not to Become a Conspiracy Theorist
- 48. The Terror of a ‘No’
- 49. On Being Hated
- 50. The Origins of Everyday Nastiness
- 51. The Weakness of Strength Theory
- 52. On Self-Sabotage
- 53. FOMO: Fear Of Missing Out
- 54. On a Sense of Sinfulness
- 01. An Interesting Life Rather Than a Happy One
- 02. We All Need Our North Pole
- 03. We Need to Change the Movie We Are In
- 04. Maybe You Are, in Your Own Way, a Little Bit Marvellous
- 05. Why We Deny Ourselves the Chance of Happiness
- 06. How to Live More Consciously
- 07. Our Secret Longing to Be Good
- 08. Why Everyone Needs to Feel ‘Lost’ for a While
- 09. On the Consolations of Home | Georg Friedrich Kersting
- 10. On Feeling Rather Than Thinking
- 11. How to Be Interesting
- 12. Am I Too Clever?
- 13. A More Self-Accepting Life
- 14. ‘Let Him Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Stone’
- 15. The Roots of Loneliness
- 16. Small Acts of Liberation
- 17. Overcoming the Need to Be Exceptional
- 18. The Fear of Happiness
- 19. The Truth May Already Be Inside Us
- 20. What Is the Meaning of Life?
- 21. The Desire to Write
- 22. Are Intelligent People More Lonely?
- 23. A Better Word than Happiness: Eudaimonia
- 24. The Meaning of Life
- 25. Our Secret Fantasies
- 26. Why We’re Fated to Be Lonely (But That’s OK)
- 27. Good Enough is Good Enough
- 28. An Updated Ten Commandments
- 29. A Self-Compassion Exercise
- 30. How to Become a Better Person
- 31. On Resolutions
- 32. On Final Things
- 01. How to ‘Grow’
- 02. The Life-Saving Nature of Poor Memories
- 03. The Stages of Development – And What If We Miss Out on One…
- 04. Who Might I Have Been If…
- 05. Yes, Maybe They Are Just Envious…
- 06. We Are All Lonely – Now Can We Be Friends?
- 07. How to Make It Through
- 08. 12 Signs That You Are Mature in the Eyes of Psychotherapy
- 09. The Breast and the Mouth
- 10. A Test to Measure How Nice You Are
- 11. What Hypochondriacs Aren’t Able to Tell You
- 12. The Origins of Sanity
- 13. The Always Unfinished Business of Self-Knowledge
- 14. Learning to Laugh at Ourselves
- 15. A Simple Question to Set You Free
- 16. Locating the Trouble
- 17. Who Knows More, the Young or the Old?
- 18. Beyond Sanctimony
- 19. The Ingredients of Emotional Maturity
- 20. When Illness is Preferable to Health
- 21. What Should My Life Have Been Like?
- 22. Why We Need to Go Back to Emotional School
- 23. The Point of Writing Letters We Never Send
- 24. Self-Forgiveness
- 25. Why We Must Have Done Bad to Be Good
- 26. Finding the Courage to Be Ourselves
- 27. What Regret Can Teach Us
- 28. The Importance of Adolescence
- 29. How to Love Difficult People
- 30. On Falling Mentally Ill
- 31. Splitting Humanity into Saints and Sinners
- 32. Becoming Free
- 33. Learning to Listen to the Adult Inside Us
- 34. The Ultimate Test of Emotional Maturity
- 35. Can People Change?
- 36. When Home is Not Home…
- 37. Learning to Lay Down Boundaries
- 38. You Could Finally Leave School!
- 39. When Do You Know You Are Emotionally Mature? 26 Signs of Emotional Maturity
- 40. How to Lengthen Your Life
- 41. We Only Learn If We Repeat
- 42. The Drive to Keep Growing Emotionally
- 43. On Bittersweet Memories
- 44. Small Triumphs of the Mentally Unwell
- 45. The Importance of Atonement
- 46. How To Be a Mummy’s Boy
- 47. On Consolation
- 48. The Inner Idiot
- 49. The Dangers of the Good Child
- 50. Why None of Us are Really ‘Sinners’
- 51. How We Need to Keep Growing Up
- 52. Are Humans Still Evolving?
- 53. On Losers – and Tragic Heroes
- 54. On the Serious Role of Stuffed Animals
- 55. Why Self-Help Books Matter
- 01. How We Can Feel Misunderstood – Without Ever Explaining Who We Are
- 02. Living Long Term With Mental Illness
- 03. Suffering From A Snobbery That Isn’t Ours
- 04. How to Recover the Plot
- 05. Why We Have Trouble Getting Back To Sleep
- 06. When, and Why, Do We Pick up Our Phones?
- 07. What is the Unconscious – and What Might Be Inside Yours?
- 08. Complete the Story – and Discover What’s Really On Your mind
- 09. Complete the Sentence – and Find Out What’s Really on Your Mind
- 10. The One Question You Need to Understand Who You Are
- 11. Six Fundamental Truths of Self-Awareness
- 12. Why Knowing Ourselves is Impossible – and Necessary
- 13. Making Friends with Your Unconscious
- 14. Do You Believe in Mind-Reading?
- 15. Questioning Our Conscience
- 16. A Bedtime Meditation
- 17. How to Figure Out What You Really, Really Think
- 18. Why You Should Keep a Journal
- 19. In Praise of Introspection
- 20. What Brain Scans Reveal About Our Minds
- 21. What is Mental Health?
- 22. The One Question You Need to Ask to Know Whether You’re a Good Person
- 23. Eight Rules of The School of Life
- 24. No One Cares
- 25. The High Price We Pay for Our Fear of Being Alone
- 26. 5 Signs of Emotional Immaturity
- 27. On Knowing Who One Is
- 28. Why Self-Analysis Works
- 29. Knowing Things Intellectually vs. Knowing Them Emotionally
- 30. The Novel We Really Need To Read Next
- 31. Is Free Will or Determinism Correct?
- 32. Emotional Identity
- 33. Know Yourself — Socrates and How to Develop Self-Knowledge
- 34. Self-Knowledge Quiz
- 35. On Being Very Normal
- 01. Is There Something Wrong – or Am I Just a Very Miserable Person?
- 02. How History Can Explain Our Unhappiness
- 03. How Lonely Are You? A Test
- 04. The Wisdom of Tears
- 05. You Don’t Always Need to Be Funny
- 06. On Suicide
- 07. You Have Permission to Be Miserable
- 08. The Pessimist’s Guide to Mental Illness
- 09. Why Do Bad Things Always Happen to Me?
- 10. Why We Enjoy the Suffering of Others
- 11. The Tragedy of Birth
- 12. What Rothko’s Art Teaches Us About Suffering
- 13. Our Tragic Condition
- 14. The Melancholy Charm of Lonely Travelling Places
- 15. Nostalgia for Religion
- 16. Parties and Melancholy
- 17. Why Very Beautiful Scenes Can Make Us So Melancholy
- 18. On Old Photos of Oneself
- 19. Are Intelligent People More Melancholic?
- 20. Strangers and Melancholy
- 21. On Post-Coital Melancholy
- 22. Sex and Melancholy
- 23. Astronomy and Melancholy
- 24. Nostalgia for the Womb
- 25. Melancholy and the Feeling of Being Superfluous
- 26. Pills & Melancholy
- 27. Melancholy: the best kind of Despair
- 28. On Melancholy
- 01. The Impulse to Sink Our Own Mood – and Return to Sadness and Worry
- 02. We Are Made of Moods
- 03. Why Sweet Things Make Us Cry
- 04. Overcoming Manic Moods
- 05. Learning to Feel What We Really Feel
- 06. Exercise When We’re Feeling Mentally Unwell
- 07. Why You May Be Experiencing a Mental Midwinter
- 08. Living Long-Term with Mental Illness
- 09. The Role of Sleep in Mental Health
- 10. The Role of Pills in Mental Health
- 11. Mental Illness and Acceptance
- 12. Mental Illness and ‘Reasons to Live’
- 13. Taming a Pitiless Inner Critic
- 14. Reasons to Give Up on Human Beings
- 15. The Window of Tolerance
- 16. On Realising One Might Be an Introvert
- 17. Our Right to be Miserable
- 18. How to Manage One’s Moods
- 19. On Living in a More Light-Hearted Way
- 20. On Disliking Oneself
- 21. Of Course We Mess Up!
- 22. Learning to Listen to One’s Own Boredom
- 23. On Depression
- 24. In Praise of the Melancholy Child
- 25. Why We May Be Angry Rather Than Sad
- 26. On Not Being in the Moment
- 27. ‘Pure’ OCD – and Intrusive Thoughts
- 28. Twenty Moods
- 29. How the Right Words Help Us to Feel the Right Things
- 30. The Secret Optimism of Angry People
- 31. On Feeling Depressed
- 32. The Difficulty of Being in the Present
- 33. On Being Out of Touch with One’s Feelings
- 34. Our Secret Thoughts
- 35. The Psychology of Colour
- 36. On Self-Pity
- 37. On Irritability
- 38. On the Things that Make Adults Cry
- 39. On Anger
- 40. Detachment
- 01. Trust What You Knew Then, Not What You Feel Now
- 02. When It’s Extremely Hard to Choose
- 03. On Those Ruined by Success
- 04. The Demand for Perfection in Love
- 05. The Secret Lives of Other Couples
- 06. How the Wrong Images of Love Can Ruin Our Lives
- 07. Self-Forgiveness
- 08. How Perfectionism Makes Us Ill
- 09. Reasons to Give Up on Perfection
- 10. Are My Expectations Too High?
- 11. Of Course We Mess Up!
- 12. Expectations – and the 80/20 Rule
- 13. Good Enough is Good Enough
- 14. The Perfectionist Trap
- 15. A Self-Compassion Exercise
- 16. On Perfectionism
- 01. What Does the Child in You Need Today?
- 02. Those of Us Who Need a War Zone
- 03. Why It Can Take Us So Long to Understand How Unwell We Are
- 04. Intergenerational Trauma
- 05. How the Unfinished Business of Childhood is Played Out in Relationships
- 06. How to Raise a Successful Person
- 07. Can Childhoods Really Matter So Much?
- 08. What Some Childhoods Don’t Allow You to Think
- 09. The Legacy of an Unloving Childhood
- 10. Why You Don’t Need a Very Bad Childhood to Have a Complicated Adulthood
- 11. When People Let Us Know What the World Has Done to Them
- 12. The Healing Power of Time
- 13. You Are Freer Than You Think
- 14. On Parenting Our Parents
- 15. Letting Go of Self-Protective Strategies
- 16. How to Tell If Someone Had a Difficult Childhood…
- 17. Childhood Matters, Unfortunately!
- 18. How Should We Define ‘Mental Illness’?
- 19. Taking Childhood Seriously
- 20. Sympathy for Our Younger Selves
- 21. How Music Can Heal Us
- 22. What Your Body Reveals About Your Past
- 23. Why Adults Often Behave Like Children
- 24. How to Live Long-Term With Trauma
- 25. Should We Forgive Our Parents or Not?
- 26. Reparenting Your Inner Child
- 27. The Agonies of Shame
- 28. How Trauma Works
- 29. Why Abused Children End Up Hating Themselves
- 30. Why We Sometimes Feel Like Curling Up Into a Ball
- 31. How to Get Your Parents Out of Your Head
- 32. Why Parents Bully Their Children
- 33. On Projection
- 34. Self-Archaeology
- 35. It’s Not Your Fault
- 36. If Our Parents Never Listened
- 37. Why Everything Relates to Your Childhood
- 38. Why Those Who Should Love Us Can Hurt Us
- 39. The Upsides of Having a Mental Breakdown
- 40. How Perfectionism Makes Us Ill
- 41. How We Should Have Been Loved
- 42. Self-Hatred and High-Achievement
- 43. A Self-Hatred Audit
- 44. How Mental Illness Impacts Our Bodies
- 45. Two Reasons Why People End up Parenting Badly
- 46. What is Emotional Neglect?
- 47. How Unloving Parents can Generate Self-Hating Children
- 48. How Mental Illness Closes Down Our Minds
- 49. Trauma and EMDR Therapy
- 50. How to Fight off Your Inner Critic
- 51. The One Subject You Really Need to Study: Your Own Childhood
- 52. Sharing Our Early Wounds
- 53. Trauma and How to Overcome It
- 54. Why We’re All Messed Up By Our Childhoods
- 55. The Golden Child Syndrome
- 56. The Importance of Being an Unhappy Teenager
- 57. How We Get Damaged by Emotional Neglect
- 58. The Secrets of a Privileged Childhood
- 59. What We Owe to the People Who Loved Us in Childhood
- 60. Criticism When You’ve Had a Bad Childhood
- 61. On Suffering in Silence
- 62. How a Messed up Childhood Affects You in Adulthood
- 63. Daddy Issues
- 64. The Non-Rewritable Disc: the Fateful Impact of Childhood
- 65. On the Longing for Maternal Tenderness
- 01. Ideal Questions to Ask at Parties
- 02. The Need for Processing
- 03. The Subtle Art of Not Listening to People Too Closely
- 04. The Art of Good Listening
- 05. Becoming More Interesting
- 06. In Praise of Small Chats With Strangers
- 07. Why We Should Listen Rather Than Reassure
- 08. How We Can Hurt Without Thinking
- 09. Leaning in to Vulnerability
- 10. How to Become Someone People Will Confide in
- 11. How To Write An Effective Thank You Letter
- 12. How to Be a Good Listener
- 13. How to Comment Online
- 14. Listening as Editing
- 15. The Importance of Flattery
- 16. How to Narrate Your Life Story
- 17. The Art of Listening
- 18. How to Narrate Your Dreams
- 19. How to Talk About Yourself
- 20. Communication
- 21. How to Be a Good Teacher
- 22. On How to Disagree
- 23. On the Art of Conversation
- 01. Why Introverts Are As They Are
- 02. On Feeling Painfully Different
- 03. Abandoning Hope
- 04. How to Leave a Party
- 05. On Becoming a Hermit
- 06. How to Have a Renaissance
- 07. Think Like an Aristocrat
- 08. Van Gogh’s Neglected Genius
- 09. How to Be Quietly Confident
- 10. How to Live Like an Exile
- 11. How to Cope With Bullying
- 12. Stop Being So Nice
- 13. The Origins of Shyness
- 14. On Friendliness to Strangers
- 15. What to Do at Parties If You Hate Small Talk
- 16. How to Approach Strangers at A Party
- 17. How to Be Comfortable on Your Own in Public
- 18. Akrasia – or Why We Don’t Do What We Believe
- 19. Why We Think So Much about Our Hair
- 20. Aphorisms on Confidence
- 21. How Knowledge of Difficulties Lends Confidence
- 22. How Thinking You’re an Idiot Lends Confidence
- 23. How to Overcome Shyness
- 24. The Mind-Body Problem
- 25. The Impostor Syndrome
- 26. On the Origins of Confidence
- 27. Self-Esteem
- 28. On Confidence
- 29. On Not Liking the Way One Looks
- 01. The Challenges of Male Friendships
- 02. The Need for Processing
- 03. Why Losers Make the Best Friends
- 04. Our Very Best Friends
- 05. The Difficulties of Oversharing
- 06. Is It OK to Outgrow Our Friends?
- 07. Why Everyone We Meet is a Little Bit Lonely
- 08. On ‘Complicated’ Friendships
- 09. The Friend Who Can Tease Us
- 10. Don’t Be Too Normal If You Want to Make Friends
- 11. The Forgotten Art of Making Friends
- 12. The Friend Who Balances Us
- 13. The Purpose of Friendship
- 14. Why the Best Kind of Friends Are Lonely
- 15. How to Lose Friends
- 16. Why Misfits Make Great Friends
- 17. How to Handle an Envious Friend
- 18. Loneliness as a Sign of Depth
- 19. Companionship and Mental Health
- 20. How Often Do We Need to Go to Parties?
- 21. Virtual Dinners: Conversation Menus
- 22. The Cleaning Party
- 23. On Talking Horizontally
- 24. Dinner Table Orchestra
- 25. On Sofa Jumping
- 26. On Studying Someone Else’s Hands
- 27. What Women and Men May Learn from One Another When They are Just Friends
- 28. How to Say ‘I Love You’ to a Friend
- 29. How to End a Friendship
- 30. What Can Stop the Loneliness?
- 31. Why Men Are So Bad at Friendship
- 32. What Would An Ideal Friend Be Like?
- 33. ‘Couldn’t We Just Be Friends?’
- 34. On Acquiring an Enemy
- 35. Why Old Friends Matter
- 36. Why Not to Panic about Enemies
- 37. What Is the Purpose of Friendship?
- 38. Friendship and Vulnerability
- 39. On Socks and Friendship
- 40. The Teasing of Old Friends
- 01. The Need – Sometimes – Not to Complain
- 02. The Boring Person
- 03. The Loveliest People in the World
- 04. The Life Saving Role of Small Chats
- 05. The Origins of Shifty People
- 06. The Many Faults of Other People
- 07. Why Nice People Give Us the ‘Ick’
- 08. How to Become a More Interesting Person
- 09. The Challenges of Hugging
- 10. Dale Carnegie — How to Win Friends and Influence People
- 11. The Origins of People Pleasing
- 12. The Eyes of Love
- 13. Kindness Isn’t Weakness
- 14. Why We’re All Capable of Damaging Others
- 15. Rembrandt as a Guide to Kindness
- 16. What Love Really Is – and Why It Matters
- 17. The Need for Kindness
- 18. 6 Reasons Not to Worry What the Neighbours Think
- 19. What to Do When a Stranger Annoys You
- 20. How to Choose A Good Present
- 21. How to Be a Good Guest
- 22. How To Make People Feel Good about Themselves
- 23. How To Tell When You Are Being A Bore
- 24. What Is Empathy?
- 25. How Not to Rant
- 26. How Not to Be Boring
- 27. On Eggs and Compassion
- 28. How to Become an Adult
- 29. People-Pleasing: and How to Overcome It
- 30. Why Truly Sociable People Hate Parties
- 31. How to Be Diplomatic
- 32. Sane Insanity
- 33. Charity of Interpretation
- 34. How to Be a Good Teacher
- 35. The Solution to Clumsiness
- 36. How to Be a Man
- 37. Political Correctness vs. Politeness
- 38. Aphorisms on Kindness
- 39. Why We Don’t Really Want to Be Nice
- 40. The Charm of Vulnerability
- 41. The Ultimate Test of Your Social Skills
- 42. How to Be Open-Minded
- 43. Why Kind People Always Lie
- 44. How to Be Warm
- 45. The Problem of Over-Friendliness
- 46. How to Forgive
- 47. Why We’re Fated to Be Lonely (But That’s OK)
- 48. How to Cope with Snobbery
- 49. On Charm
- 50. On Being Kind
- 51. On Gratitude
- 52. On Forgiveness
- 53. On Charity
- 54. On Wisdom
- 01. How to Fire Someone
- 02. Diplomacy at the Office
- 03. How to Tell a Colleague Their Breath Smells
- 04. How to Screw Up at Work
- 05. In Praise of Teamwork
- 06. How to Become an Entrepreneur
- 07. The Need for Eloquence
- 08. The Nature and Causes of Procrastination
- 09. In Praise of Networking
- 10. Why Creativity is Too Important to Be Left to Artists
- 11. How to Survive Bureaucracy
- 12. Machismo and Management
- 13. What Art Can Teach Business About Being Fussy
- 14. On Novelists and Manuals
- 15. How Not to Let Work Explode Your Life
- 16. How to Sell
- 17. Innovation, Empathy and Introspection
- 18. Innovation and Creativity
- 19. Innovation and Science Fiction
- 20. The Acceptance of Change
- 21. The Collaborative Virtues
- 22. Towards Better Collaboration
- 23. How To Make Efficiency a Habit
- 24. On Raising the Prestige of ‘Details’
- 25. Monasticism & How to Avoid Distraction
- 26. How to Dare to Begin
- 27. On Meaning – and Motivation
- 28. The Psychological Obstacles Holding Employees Back
- 29. On Feedback
- 30. How to Better Understand Customers
- 31. On Bounded and Unbounded Tasks
- 01. What Should Truly Motivate Us at Work
- 02. Nature as a Cure for the Sickness of Modern Times
- 03. The Difficulties of Work-Life Balance
- 04. The Challenges of Modernity
- 05. Businesses for Love; Businesses for Money
- 06. Countries for Losers; Countries for Winners
- 07. Towards a Solution to Inequality
- 08. Free Trade – or Protectionism?
- 09. Should We Work on Ourselves – or on the World?
- 10. Why Is There Unemployment?
- 11. Artists and Supermarket Tycoons
- 12. Business and the Arts
- 13. Sentimentality in Art – and Business
- 14. How to Make a Country Rich
- 15. First World Problems
- 16. On Devotion to Corporations
- 17. Good vs Classical Economics
- 18. What Is a Good Brand?
- 19. Good Economic Measures: Beyond GDP
- 20. What Good Business Should Be
- 21. On the Faultiness of Our Economic Indicators
- 22. On the Dawn of Capitalism
- 23. Utopian Capitalism
- 24. On Philanthropy
- 01. Why Do We Work So Hard?
- 02. On Eating a Friend
- 03. Is the Modern World Too ‘Materialistic’?
- 04. On Consumer Capitalism
- 05. How to Choose the Perfect Gift
- 06. The Importance of Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs
- 07. How to Live More Wisely Around Our Phones
- 08. Money and ‘Higher Things’
- 09. Why We Are All Addicts
- 10. Why We Are So Bad at Shopping
- 11. Business and the Ladder of Needs
- 12. Consumer Self-Knowledge
- 13. “Giving Customers What They Want”
- 14. The Entrepreneur and the Artist
- 15. What Advertising Can Learn from Art
- 16. What the Luxury Sector Does for Us
- 17. On Using Sex to Sell
- 18. Understanding Brand Promises
- 19. Consumer Education: On Learning How to Spend
- 20. Good Materialism
- 21. Why We Hate Cheap Things
- 22. Why We Continue to Love Expensive Things
- 23. Why Advertising Is so Annoying – but Doesn’t Have to Be
- 24. On Good Demand
- 25. On Consumption and Status Anxiety
- 26. On the Responsibility of the Consumer
- 27. Adverts Know What We Want – They Just Can’t Sell It to us
- 28. On the True Desires of the Rich
- 01. How to Be Original
- 02. When Are We Truly Productive?
- 03. The Importance of the Siesta
- 04. Career Therapy
- 05. On Meritocracy
- 06. The Vocation Myth
- 07. The Good Sides of Work
- 08. The Good Office
- 09. The EQ Office
- 10. Good Salaries: What We Earn – and What We’re Worth
- 11. What Good Business Should Be
- 12. On the Pleasures of Work
- 01. How Does An Emotionally Healthy Person Relate To Their Career?
- 02. The Concept of Voluntary Poverty
- 03. The Dangers of Having Too Little To Do
- 04. How Could a Working Life Be Meaningful?
- 05. On Learning to Live Deeply Rather than Broadly
- 06. What They Forget to Teach You at School
- 07. Authentic Work
- 08. Why We Need to Work
- 09. How We Came to Desire a Job We Could Love
- 10. Why Work Is So Much Easier than Love
- 11. Work and Maturity
- 12. How Your Job Shapes Your Identity
- 13. Authentic Work
- 01. Using AI to Have Better Relationships
- 02. Do We Need to Read the News?
- 03. On Gossip
- 04. How the Media Damages Our Faith in Humanity
- 05. Why We Secretly Love Bad News
- 06. Celebrity Crushes
- 07. On Switching Off the News
- 08. We’ve Been Here Before
- 09. In Praise of Bias
- 10. The News from Without – and the News from Within
- 11. History as a Corrective to News
- 12. Emotional Technology
- 13. What’s Wrong with the Media
- 14. On the Dangers of the Internet
- 15. On Taking Digital Sabbaths
- 16. On the Role of Censorship
- 17. On the Role of Disasters
- 18. On the Role of Art in News
- 19. Tragedies and Ordinary Lives in the Media
- 20. On the Failures of Economic News
- 21. On Health News
- 22. What State Broadcasters Should Do
- 23. On the Role of Cheerful News
- 24. On News and Kindness
- 25. On Maniacs and Murderers
- 01. The United States and Happiness
- 02. Political Emotional Maturity
- 03. On Feeling Offended
- 04. A Guide to Good Nationalism
- 05. Why We Do – After All – Care about Politics
- 06. Why Socrates Hated Democracy
- 07. The Fragility of Good Government
- 08. Romantic vs. Classical Voters
- 09. Africa after Independence
- 01. Should I Follow My Dreams?
- 02. How to Retire Early
- 03. The Agonies of Choice
- 04. The Creative Itch
- 05. Broadening the Job Search
- 06. Our Families and Our Careers
- 07. The Challenges of Choosing a Career
- 08. On Career Crises
- 09. The Output/Input Confusion
- 10. Finding a Mission
- 11. How to Serve
- 12. Why Work-Life Balance is an Illusion
- 13. On Gratitude – and Motivation
- 14. How to Find Fulfilling Work
- 15. On the Origins of Motivation at Work
- 16. On Becoming an Entrepreneur
- 17. On Being an Unemployed Arts Graduate
- 01. On Small Talk at the Office
- 02. On Falling Apart at the Office
- 03. The Sorrows of Competition
- 04. What Is That Sunday Evening Feeling?
- 05. How Parents Get in the Way of Our Career Plans
- 06. Why Modern Work Is So Boring
- 07. Why Pessimism is the Key to Good Government
- 08. The Sorrows of Colleagues
- 09. The Sorrows of Commercialisation
- 10. The Sorrows of Standardisation
- 11. Confidence in the System
- 12. Job Monogamy
- 13. The Duty Trap
- 14. The Perfectionist Trap
- 15. On Professional Failure
- 16. Nasty Businesses
- 17. The Job Investment Trap
- 18. How Your Job Shapes Your Identity
- 19. The Pains of Leadership
- 20. Would It Be Better for Your Job If You Were Celibate?
- 21. On Stress and Inner Voices
- 22. On Being Wary of Simple-Looking Issues
- 23. On Commuting
- 24. On the Sorrows of Work
- 25. On Misemployment
- 26. On Guilt-trips and Charm
- 01. The Dangers of People Who Have Been to Boarding School
- 02. Giving Up on Being Special
- 03. The Problem with Individualism
- 04. Winners and Losers in the Race of Life
- 05. Being on the Receiving End of Pity
- 06. Shakespeare: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state…’
- 07. Overcoming the Need to Be Exceptional
- 08. On the Loss of Reputation
- 09. The Secret Sorrows of Over-Achievers
- 10. You Are Not What You Earn
- 11. Artistic Philanthropy
- 12. The Need to Keep Believing in Luck
- 13. On Glamour
- 14. The Incumbent Problem
- 15. How to Cope with Snobbery
- 16. On the Dangers of Success
- 17. On Doing Better Than Our Parents
- 18. Success at School vs. Success in Life
- 19. Why We Look Down on People Who Don’t Earn Very Much
- 20. What Is ‘Success’?
- 21. On Children and Power
- 22. On Pleasure in the Downfall of the Mighty
- 23. On Status and Democracy
- 24. On Failure and Success in the Game of Fame
- 25. On Envy
- 26. A Philosophical Exercise for Envy
- 27. On the Envy of Politicians
- 28. On Consumption and Status Anxiety
- 29. On the Desire for Fame
- 30. On Fame and Sibling Rivalry
- 01. Why Humanity Destroyed Itself
- 02. How Science Could – at Last – Properly Replace Religion
- 03. Our Forgotten Craving for Community
- 04. Why isn’t the Future here yet?
- 05. On Changing the World
- 06. What Community Centres Should Be Like
- 07. The Importance of Utopian Thinking
- 08. Art is Advertising for What We Really Need
- 09. Why the World Stands Ready to Be Changed
- 10. On the Desire to Change the World
- 11. Utopian Collective Pride
- 12. Envy of a Utopian Future
- 13. Utopian Artificial Intelligence
- 14. Utopian Education
- 15. Utopian Marriage
- 16. Utopian Film
- 17. Utopian Culture
- 18. Utopian Festivals
- 19. Utopian Business Consultancy
- 20. Utopian Capitalism
- 21. Utopian Government
- 22. Utopian Media
- 23. Utopian Tax
- 24. Utopian Celebrity Culture
- 25. The Future of the Banking Industry
- 26. The Future of the Communications Industry
- 27. The Future of the Hotel Industry
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An Interesting Life Rather Than a Happy One
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Is There Something Wrong – or Am I Just a Miserable Person?
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On Not Being Very Good at Love
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The Sorrows of Anxiously Attached People
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Five Ways to Handle an Avoidant Partner
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The Pleasures of Talking Nonsense With Someone We Love
People who know and love each other deeply do not sit together discussing philosophy or economics: rather, they talk nonsense.
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The 9 Most Common Mistakes We Make When Choosing a Partner
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How We Can Feel Misunderstood – Without Ever Explaining Who We Are
Did you ever explain yourself properly to the person who is meant to have ignored you? Did you work hard to make yourself known before surrendering to a sense of being unnoticed?
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The Challenges of Male Friendships
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What Does the Child in You Need Today?
We’ll accede to a fairer, kinder adulthood once we accept how close we remain always to the delicate, sensitive, tear-prone little person we once were.
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Why We Can so Quickly End up Feeling Hated
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Why We Sometimes Need to Be Tied to a Mast
There are situations in which we have to concede that only the blunt removal of temptation can save us.
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Good Endings in Love
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On Castration Anxiety
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How to Find Out What Might Happen With a New Partner
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Four Explanations for Self-Sabotage
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Relationships
A Chance to Be Bad in Relationships
It sounds odd to suggest that one of the things we may most long for, and in a sense even…
View
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Four Kinds of Sexual Deviancy and What They Really Mean
We don’t typically imagine that sexual deviants have very much to teach us about anything. We tend to read of…
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Giuseppe de Nittis, Winter Landscape, 1880 It’s early morning in the middle of winter and we’re in a northern suburb…
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When One Person Has to Be Needy so the Other Can Feel Invulnerable
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View
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Select themes
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A Chance to Be Bad in Relationships
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View
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Four Kinds of Sexual Deviancy and What They Really Mean
We don’t typically imagine that sexual deviants have very much to teach us about anything. We tend to read of…
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Giuseppe de Nittis, Winter Landscape, 1880 It’s early morning in the middle of winter and we’re in a northern suburb…
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