Of Grosz's first book, Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times, 'The Examined Life…shares the best literary qualities of Freud's most persuasive work… It is…an insightful and beautifully written book…a series of slim, piercing chapters that read like a combination of Chekhov and Oliver Sacks.' Alexander Linklater in The Observer wrote that Grosz's case histories, 'are shaped like short stories, but true and moving in ways that fiction cannot be… Gradually accumulating through his book, Grosz provides, not a definition, but an enactment of the purpose of psychoanalysis, which is both modest and profound.' An international bestseller, The Examined Life has been translated into over thirty languages, read on radio, and adapted for stage.

Grosz's conceptualisation of psychoanalysis is of a process in which a patient tells and re-tells a story about their life, working with the psychoanalyst to change that story where it has become a trap: 'When we cannot find a way to tell our story, our story tells us.' His alertness to the central place of narrative in psychoanalysis links him to its origins in the work of Sigmund Freud. Indeed, Grosz was initially gripped, not only by Freud's model of the mind, but by his storytelling. In deploying a narrative, rather than a theoretical argument, to communicate the understanding which he has gathered in his clinical work, he aims to offer both fellow clinicians a way of thinking about similar situations with their patients, and general readers a sense of the delicate, difficult, creative work of psychoanalysis.

For ten years, between 1999 and 2009, Grosz taught 'The Case History' seminar course on the MSc in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies at University College London, in which he encouraged students to explore what case histories are for, and the issues involved in writing them. The 'Case History' seminars were characteristic of Grosz' approach, in that they focused on clinical papers alongside literature, philosophy and literary theory.

Born in Indiana in 1952, Grosz studied Politics and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. He later studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He first entered psychoanalysis in the United States, then later began his training analysis in London with Amadeo Limentani. His clinical approach has also been shaped by his engagement with – amongst others – Hanna Segal, Ignês Sodré, and Anne-Marie Sandler. He is a training and supervising analyst in the British Psychoanalytical Society.

About one aspect of psychoanalytic work, Grosz is certain: the psychoanalyst is not a sage imparting wisdom to the patient. Indeed, far from the analyst knowing the answers to the patient's problems, he sees psychoanalysis as two people 'not knowing together.' He goes on, 'the process of psychoanalysis is to think together, find meaning together.'

In his writing, he frequently points to the humility and vulnerability at the heart of analytic work – for both patient and analyst – which, if authentic, can make no claims to certainty. In making interpretations, Grosz, the clinician and Grosz, the writer, meet, both keenly aware that timing, tone of voice, and phrasing all contribute to how a story is told and understood.
 

Eleanor Sawbridge Burton 2017, updated May 2025

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