How To Fail With Elizabeth Day

Stephen Grosz - ‘Real love is going to hurt’

15 snips
Oct 8, 2025
Guest
Stephen Grosz
In this engaging conversation, Stephen Grosz, a seasoned psychoanalyst and author, discusses the intricacies of love and loss after nearly fifty years in practice. He explores how early family experiences shape our attachments and the role of denial in relationships. Grosz delves into the painful yet essential nature of real love and how failed marriages can lead to deeper connections. His insights into surrender versus submission reveal how intimacy can flourish or falter. Listeners will gain a profound understanding of grief as a catalyst for desire.
Ask episode
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
INSIGHT

Attachment To Familiar Suffering

  • Early family patterns can create an 'attachment to suffering' that feels safer than happiness.
  • Stephen Grosz warns that unconscious familiarity can direct life choices unless made into a story.
ADVICE

See Your Part In Failure

  • Do try to see your own role in failures rather than placing blame externally.
  • Stephen Grosz says the aim of life is to see oneself and the world clearly, and denial blocks that.
ANECDOTE

Childhood Among Survivors

  • Grosz describes growing up with Holocaust survivors in his community and a cousin from Auschwitz.
  • He recalls a therapist who told her she met him not because she was mad but because she lived in a mad world.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Get the app