Susanna Abse

Susanna Abse is a psychoanalytic therapist who has worked in private practice with couples, individuals and parents since 1991. She is the former chair of The British Psychoanalytic Council and was CEO of the charity Tavistock Relationships from 2006 until 2016. She has also recently been presenting Britain on the Couch for Channel 4 News. She has published widely on couple therapy, parenting, and family policy and how these areas need to be at the heart of progressive welfare provision, a subject on which she lectures and teaches.

Susanna is a Senior Fellow of the Tavistock Institute for Medical Psychology, a fellow of the Centre for Social Policy at Dartington; a previous Leadership Fellow at St George's House, Windsor Castle, as well as a Member of the Advisory Board of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis. She is also Co-Editor of The Library of Couple and Family Psychoanalysis for Routledge Books. Between 2016-18, she was a member of the University of Birmingham mental health policy commission, "Investing in a Resilient Generation".

 

 

TELL ME THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE: 13 Tales From the Therapist's Couch - Ebury - 19th May 2022

 

Tell Me the Truth About Love takes us on a journey into one of the most fascinating realms there is: other people's relationships. Drawing on over 30 years of working closely with ordinary people who have encountered hurdles in their love lives, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and former chair of the British Psychoanalytic Council Susanna Abse takes us deep inside one of the most fascinating realms there is: other people's relationships.

Candid, captivating and full of wisdom, each chapter is inspired by a classic, timeless story. Prodigal sons return and rupture a fragile peace; Rapunzel yearns for companionship but remains trapped in her castle; Don Juan has a change of heart. Couples strive to navigate falling from Eden, poison apples, kissing frogs, wicked stepmothers, houses made of straw and strangers sleeping in their beds. The result is a book of solace, wisdom, and unparalleled insight into how, and why, we love.

Whether it's knowing when to call time versus when to persevere, or how to navigate our changing roles within a single relationship over the course of our lives, Tell Me the Truth About Love sheds new light on the human heart, and the strange ways it tries to both protect itself and embrace life's greatest mystery.

 

 

'A must-read for everyone wanting to understand more about what makes us fall in - and out - of love' ― Philippa Perry

'A charming, useful, kind book about the pains and hopes of relationship' ― Alain de Botton

'This wonderfully wise book would give anyone reading it insight and inspiration on the importance and complexity of our love relationships. Susanna writes with clarity and warmth in a voice that is steeped in decades of experience and means we trust her. Her gentle humour is also a joy.' ― Julia Samuel

'Powerful, masterful, insightful. With every turn of the page I learnt more about people and their relationships and, ultimately, about myself' ― Annalisa Barbieri

'Tell Me the Truth about Love is a compelling and thoughtful book which anyone who is interested in the dynamics of romantic relationships should read. Abse is a psychoanalyst so her approach is reflexive, and the complex learnings that couples make during therapy with her seem to unfold in real time. This is not a book about quick fixes. It is a book that demonstrates that no couple is "able to meet each other's desires completely, but the relationship exists in the trying.' ― Suzi Godson