“The first line treatment for adolescents with anorexia now is family-based therapy which involves helping the parents facilitate the refeeding of the adolescent. I was working with patients in that way and found it to be helpful and useful but was consistently struck by the neglect of the patient’s inner life. Based on my experience…

“The ability to play means we can indulge in a kind of illusion, not delusion, and make a distinction. It always amazes me that when the patient arrives, they like the routine of an analysis; nobody breaks that, it’s an illusion; it is a piece of theater every time. We open the door to our…

“I was speaking to the tendency of the popular media to perceive narratives of Indian women’s sexuality via the lens of oppression. Now, of course, sexual violence against women is an important concern in India, as it is worldwide. But telling the story of violence against women misses the story of how women desire, which…

“The genetic asymmetry [with sperm donorship] will create issues and complications –  it puts a strain on the relationship, i.e. who is excluded; who has more rights to this product? In other words, if the sperm donor is from a stranger,  the father feels ‘am I really adequately or sufficiently related that I could claim…

“As I elaborate in the book, there was no physical contact or romantic engagement. The reason why I chose the ‘lover’ as the [psychoanalytic] analogy is, in the real world outside of psychoanalytic practice, where else do you have an interpersonal encounter that is so intensely engaging, attentive, respectful, and caring? That would be in…

“What’s the spiritual room? For me, it does tend to be a connection to something greater than just me; it is a contemplative space; it is getting to the core of who I am, allowing in some ways for the best of me to come to the fore; to have space for grace. I am…

“My analysis not only allowed me to grieve [my mother], with my analyst patiently pushing me in the direction of my feelings, but it radically transformed my life. I wouldn’t have had kids if I hadn’t had my analysis because I thought ‘I’m an ambitious person, I want a career, you can’t do everything’. I…

“The fact that music is so important for our constitution – that music is almost how we move in the world, that our own bodies are played through by musical forms, that the way we relate to our own way of being in the world is sort of mediated by music – this is powerful…

“Discrimination is something that is needed for the child to create himself as a person. You need to be discriminated from the other, and the other is useful for you, as Freud said, as a model, as a rival, as an enemy. There are different kinds of relationships with the other – you need the…

“The situation was that I went with my husband Danny, who is also a clinical psychologist, and we were  on the team that came and told people when family members were identified and that they had been murdered. There was one time when we went to two kids, telling them that their parents were murdered….