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Belgian psychotherapist, author, and podcaster Esther Perel discusses desire’s role as an organising principle and explains the concept of ambiguous loss.
Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel is an expert on modern relationships. The daughter of Nazi concentration camp survivors, she spent much of her adolescence following in her parent’s footsteps of wanting to charge at life with a vengeance, making the most of everyday by embracing her vitality. Esther grew up in Antwerp, and went to the US for graduate school, where she currently resides after falling in love with New York (and her now husband).
She has always maintained an interest in identity and culture, and the first twenty years of her career were focused on couples and families in cultural transition. She worked with refugees and families all over the world, and became curious about the intersection of religion, politics, and family life. This led her to work with intercultural, interracial and interreligious families, with a focus on how such forces affect gender roles and children.
After having two sons of her own, she wrote an article inspired by the Clinton-Lewinsky affair: ‘In Search of Erotic Intelligence’, about couples and American sexuality from the eyes of a foreigner. This led to a book contract, and the publication of ‘Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence’ in 2007. The book holds a conversation on relationships and sexuality, provokes self-questioning, grapples with tension, and is entirely unafraid of taboo. Through her studies of human sexuality she has explored the intersection of the most traditional and most progressive parts of culture, and how those it has inspired history, sociology, religion, and so on. Her book became an international bestseller now been translated into over 30 languages.
Esther is fluent in nine languages, and has a therapy practice in New York. She TED Talks have garnered over 30 million views, and hosts her own podcast, Where Should We Begin? In her ‘Moments That Made Me’ episode, she goes into her feelings about the role of desire as an organising principle in life, and explains the concept of ambiguous loss.
