Love’s Labour review: What can psychoanalysis teach us about love and heartbreak?

Love work
Stephen Grosz (United Kingdom: Chatto & Windus, Out Now; US: Random House, February 10, 2026)

With their expert knowledge of the human mind and its desires, you could expect the relationships of psychoanalysts to be free from chaos that characterizes most of our romantic lives.

But halfway through his convincing memories Love workA reflection on more than 40 years of conversations on love with his patients, Stephen Grosz observes a quadrilateral of love in disorder involving four of his colleagues. Apparently, Susan and Paul are happy; Cora and Martin too. Grosz regularly meets couples during academic lectures, until it advances that Paul and Cora have been affected for two years.

Subsequent recriminations somehow goes to the very heart of their domain. “I’m sorry you’ve never learned what a psychoanalyst is,” Susan told Cora. “Having empathy. Take care of others. Repair of borders. See reality. Do not steal a friend’s husband. ” For Susan, psychoanalysis seems to be a question of responsibility and self -control. Cora replies that she does what was necessary to “become herself”. In his opinion, the objective of psychoanalysis is aware and deliberate by self-realization.

Grosz meditates on these contradictions, and his conclusion is enigmatic. Psychoanalysis, he says, can achieve these two objectives, but that should not aim to do it either. “Helping the patient, improving her well-being-these objectives can mask an unconscious wish to limit the freedom of the patient,” he wrote. The psychoanalyst allows the patient to better know his own mind – but what he does with this information is their choice.

Skeptics can say that psychoanalysis is intrinsically non -scientific. After all, how can we test an intervention without firm outcome in mind? Developed for the first time by Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis uses unstructured conversations to reveal the unconscious driving processes, exchanges that can last years and can include long analyzes of childhood. It is very different from cognitivo-behavioral therapy, which uses exercises designed to change someone’s immediate thoughts and actions, such as strategies to “crop” events more positively.

TCC now tends to be the first line of treatment for many mental health problems, but clinical trials suggest that psychoanalysis is effective in improving people ‘well -being – even if it should not, as big, claims, be its main objective. And Love work Provides a fascinating examination of this process in action, through sorrow and Grosz knowledge.

Consider Sophie. When Grosz the meeting, she is engaged but cannot resolve to send marriage invitations, despite the fact that marriage continues. She also has terrible dreams that her parents die. Together, they end up connecting this to his parents losing a baby before Sophie’s birth. She is afraid of any change that could keep her away from them.

Often, a person’s problems arise from a fear of losing their sense of self. “There is a vital distinction to give up on something (or someone) and to submit to them,” writes Grosz. Although the submission is transactional and implies a loss of control, when two people go to each other, “they feel alive, authorized, accepted. They feel love. “

You will not find simple means to achieve it Love work. As the title suggests, love requires constant work, while we strive to understand both ourselves and the object of our affection.

Grosz is a captivating writer whose discreet vignettes often capture the complexities of the human condition. A criticism of his first book, The life examinedCompared it to Anton Chekhov and Oliver Sacks, which seems just as justified here. His narration is his best when he describes the tangles of his colleagues psychoanalysts. Paul and Cora stay together until Cora’s death after a fall. Grosz visit the family home while they are sitting in Shiva, a week of mourning. There he found Susan, comforting Paul.

It was an emblematic moment, written Grosz, revealing all the contradictions that love implies. “Susan and Paul had loved, hated, married and divorced. But even at this difficult moment, they were still a couple. Always doing the job of Love. “

David Robson is the author of the laws of connection: 13 social strategies that will transform your life

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