Esther Perel practices psychotherapy in New York City and is on the faculty of the International Trauma Studies Program affiliated with Columbia University. She has appeared on several television programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Day New York, CBS This Morning and Women Aloud.
In Mating in Captivity Perel uses her twenty years of experience and a great deal of research to present a new take on intimacy and sex. Perel states in her introduction that she has inverted the usual therapeutic priorities wherein the usual norm is to inquire about the state of a couple’s union first and then inquire how this is manifested in the bedroom. In other words, as Perel affirms, “the underlying assumption is that if we can improve the relationship, the sex will follow.” However, Perel informs us that in her practice such is not the case.
Dividing her book into eleven chapters, Perel explores how couples can reconcile the domestic and the erotic, how to know your partner while recognizing his or her persistent mystery, how to create security while remaining open to the unknown cultivating intimacy that respects privacy. We learn how and why couples that settle in the comforts of love very often fan the flames of desire forgetting that fire needs air. In another chapter we are cautioned that if we value only what is disclosed through words, we do ourselves a disservice for nonverbal communication is extremely important as an alternative way to express our love such as minor tasks that we do for our lover.
Readers will also be shown how to uncover the dynamics of power wherein tensions are examined and inequities are addressed. However, as mentioned, not all inequities are a source of trouble as sometimes they form a couple’s basis of harmony. It is essential that we learn how to harness it and together to try to discover ways to express it safely, creatively, fearlessly, and sexually. Perel also examines the complaint made by too many couples that they have settled into a routine lifestyle where they just don’t have the time or patience for open-ended reflection. These couples don’t realize that eroticism challenges us to seek a different kind of resolution; one that will permit us to surrender to the unknown and breach the confines of the rational world, but in the process will make our lives more interesting and less mundane.
Another section delves into erotic intimacy and how they reveal our memories, wishes, fears, expectations, and struggles within our sexual relationships. Perel devotes considerable ink to examining how parenthood sometimes threatens a couple’s love life and how our inhibitions may also cause harm to our children if we should censor our sexuality, curb our desires or perhaps even renounce them altogether.
These are only some of the many topics that Perel examines wherein she provides some very interesting insights and a wealth of information. We are even provided with an extensive bibliography as well as a list of notes to back up some of her findings and assertions. One caveat, however, this is a book that you will not be able to gobble down so fast as there is a great deal to ponder. Perel is very well informed and she certainly has done her homework, however, I found that from time-to-time she has a tendency to ramble without getting to the point. Her combination of personal observation, research and professional experience is an information packed journey, however, to many readers this may prove too difficult to digest particularly where there is an absence of a synthesis of the major points at the end of each chapter.Nonetheless, the book is worthy of a read.
The abvoe review was contributed by: The Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com,Norm Goldman, B.A. LL.L,Retired Title Attorney: Norm is also a travel writer and together with his artist wife, Lily, the couple meld Norm's words with Lily's art. To check out their travel site click on Sketchandtravel.comClick here to view Norm’s Reviews & Interviews.
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Reviewer: N. Goldman
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