Stephen Grosz has been a psychoanalyst for the past 30 years and spent more than 60,000 hours with patients spanning children, adolescents, adults and the elderly. In his book The Examined Life Grosz draws short, vivid stories from his 30-year practice in order to track the collaborative journey of therapist and patient as they uncover the hidden feelings behind ordinary behavior.
I talked to him about the right time to change: How do we know when is the right time to make a change – in a career, in relationship…?
Usually it's our unhappiness. We're unhappy, we're motivated by pain. The people who come to my office for my help are suffering usually. No one brings up because they just want to have a chat or so. People come because they are so unhappy in their marriage that they want to get a divorce but they love their children, they feel they shouldn't get a divorce. Or they feel they would want to leave their job but they can't leave their job because what are they going to do - they have to support their family or their children or look after an elderly parent or something. Or they in a conflict about their sexuality or they're in a conflict about something that they've done perhaps in the world, that they are ashamed of something criminal. And so people come because they're in pain.   That motivates people: our pain, our suffering makes us want to change and it drives us forward.

More on why all change involves pain here, on why change is so difficult here, on the "tyranny of should" here, on the digital distraction against feelings here, on the most often emotional pain we are suffering nowadays here , on the the feelings that we hide mostly from ourselves here Buy me a coffee