Schopenhauer’s Porcupines: Intimacy and Its Dilemmas

The classic compilation of psychological case studies from a master clinician and lyrical writer.

Each generation of therapists can boast of only a few writers like Deborah Luepnitz, whose sympathy and wit shine in her fine, luminous prose. In Schopenhauer’s Porcupines, she recounts five true stories from her practice, stories of patients who range from the super-rich to the destitute, who grapple with panic attacks, psychosomatic illness, marital despair, and sexual recklessness.

Intimate, original, and triumphantly funny, Schopenhauer’s Porcupines goes further than any other book in illuminating “how talking helps.”