Esther Perel

The famed psychotherapist on the importance of language, the efficacy of play, and the role of plant medicine in relationships.

AS TOLD TO GOSSAMER

This Conversation is featured in Gossamer Volume Seven: Touch, which you can order here.

Officially, I am a psychotherapist, primarily a systemic couples and family therapist. I’m also an author, a speaker, and a podcaster.

But if I go to a second level, I would say I am a connector. I’m a relationship philosopher, or some people refer to me as such, and I’m deeply interested in the intersection between culture and mental health. I’m a traveler. I am voraciously curious. And I think that one of the pieces that really defines me is that I’m multilingual. The fact that I speak nine languages facilitates my curiosity, and my traveler spirit.

 

At the moment when you have the most freedom, people are craving certainty.