Schopenhauer’s Porcupines

Therapist Deborah Anna Luepnitz tells five true stories from her own practice, about patients ranging from the very rich to the homeless who struggle with marital despair, panic attacks, sexual recklessness and psychosomatic illness. The porcupines of the title stand for people caught between painful involvement and loveless isolation, and Luepnitz asks whether humans are destined to find perfect partners in love or are more like those creatures. People come to therapy, she observes, when their lives have gone badly wrong, yet what turns out to be at stake is always intimacy, with its endless dilemmas of loyalty and desire. Through these cases she sets out to show how talking helps.

Stephen Lew, director of The School of Positive Psychology, cited it in an interview when asked what he would recommend to young people interested in his professional path.