Tell Me the Truth About Love: 13 Tales from the Therapist’s Couch

Love is what gives life meaning, but relationships also present us with the greatest emotional challenges of our lives.

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.