ESTHER PEREL UNLOCKS EROTIC INTELLIGENCE

SUBJECT

Esther Perel

OCCUPATION

Relationship therapist

INTERVIEWER

Berry Liberman

PHOTOGRAPHER

Tawni Bannister

LOCATION

New York, US

DATE

November 2017

ANTIDOTE TO

Romantic consumerism

UNEXPECTED

Speaks nine languages

“We seek in romantic love what we used to look for in religion. Transcendence, meaning, belonging, ecstasy.”

Through her best-selling books, TED Talks and now famous podcast, Where Do We Begin?, Esther Perel, a Belgian-born, New York-based psychotherapist, has skillfully cracked open a public discourse on the nature of our sexual lives that, in her own words, has become “a public health campaign.” The realm of our bodies, our sexual lives and our inner worlds terrify and inspire us in equal measure. For Esther, it is the landscape of truth. Here, at our most vulnerable, we reveal our deepest hopes and greatest fears—both our need to connect and our need for freedom.

I first heard about Esther when I watched her TED Talk, “Rethinking Infidelity,” which has now been viewed over 11 million times. I was struck by her French accent, her stylish clothes, her warmth and humour, and above all, a feeling that she was vitality embodied—that she lived what she preached. This was a woman who has been behind closed doors with enough people to know something about humanity, who has sat in the place where vulnerability lives and has wisdom worth listening to.

Esther’s work breaks many traditional therapeutic models, from blindfolding patients in an effort to free their inhibitions to a radical openness which allows us to listen in. The sessions are like works of art in themselves. This highly-unusual approach comes from a deep distrust of orthodoxy, a passionate personal commitment to thinking and practicing outside the institutional norms. As the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, her experience growing up in Antwerp was steeped in tragedy and triumph. She observed two types of survivors: “Those who didn’t die, and those who came back to life… Those who didn’t die were afraid, untrusting. The world was dangerous and pleasure was not an option… Those who came back to life were those who understood eroticism as an antidote to death.”

With over 1.5 million downloads in the first week of launching, Esther’s podcast is shocking in its intimacy and profound in its lessons. She invites us into real one-on-one couples therapy sessions with patients from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. The moving stories of these couples feel so familiar, so beautiful and tender that you find yourself more forgiving, more compassionate and human with every minute that passes. How can I relate to a transgender, gay couple having marital difficulties? It is Esther’s warmth, her particular genius with holding space around our tender, broken, hurt and yearning selves, and genuine compassionate listening, that allows for something so private to find safe ground in a public forum. It turns out our stories aren’t so different after all.

BERRY LIBERMAN: So how has the reaction to the podcast been for you?

ESTHER PEREL: Look, it’s been something I could never have predicted. It’s become a kind of public health campaign for relationships. A few million people listened to it in the first week we went on iTunes. It stayed for seven weeks on the front page, and made it up to the number two spot in all podcasts. It’s actually quite amazing. And the way people are listening to it and how couples are listening to it together and then discussing it, it’s become kind of a catalyst for conversations that people want to have. And often, when you listen to the universality of other people’s stories, you realise that you’re in front of your own mirror.

Yes! I find that so moving that I could be listening to a