Emmy van Deurzen

This highly accessible book is a rich synthesis of 50 years of van Deurzen’s knowledge and insight developed as a practising existential therapist. It focuses on how we might live our lives with enthusiasm and courage in the face of the existential givens of shared human experience, such as death, connection, aloneness and our desire for meaning. Her “Four Worlds” structure, which considers the physical, social, individual, and spiritual dimensions of life, provides a framework for utilising our senses, emotions, cognitions, and capacity for meaning-making to craft rich lives for ourselves. Van Deurzen’s concept of the “Emotional Compass”, a way of conceiving the cyclic rise and fall of our moods in response to the feedback loop between our goals and circumstances, normalises the full spectrum of feeling. As in all her writings, Emmy is alive to the fundamental paradoxes that make up the human experience, sagely urging us to grapple with contrasting ideas rather than settle for partial certainties. Van Deurzen’s tone of deep common sense and honouring of complexity and nuance sits apart from contemporary tendencies to oversimplify or to make solid identities from human characteristics that are often more plastic than we acknowledge.

Dr Emily Musgrove

You may be familiar with Dr Em through her regular appearances on “The Imperfects” podcast. Her warm, down-to-earth tone offers gentle encouragement to meet life's challenges with greater psychological flexibility. This book draws heavily on the principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Many people are familiar with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), but ACT is its lesser-known relative. Where CBT asks us to notice how we interpret life events and consider how these interpretations affect our feelings and behaviours (with the goal of developing more helpful interpretations), ACT encourages us to notice our responses to events and “let them be” without striving to change them; to accept them. Accepting uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, memories and sensations by taking them as experiences that we have, rather than elements of identity, frees up the energy that combating them would take to put towards values-led actions.

James Hollis

As a contemporary Jungian therapist, James Hollis is particularly interested in the richness of midlife and beyond as a time to really dig into the project of one's meaning and purpose. He challenges us to get clear on what it really means to “grow up” and offers practical ways to revisit aspects of ourselves that we may have left unattended and/or underdeveloped.

Robert A. Johnson

Jungian Analyst Robert Johnson offers the reader a brief yet rich exploration of the darker side of human nature. He makes a case for the importance of acknowledging, accepting and tending to these often rejected parts of ourselves and finding ways to integrate them with the “lighter” side of ourselves (our public-facing personality).

Hosted by Tom Rosenthal

This simple podcast formula results in beautifully candid conversations with everyday people that traverse territory from charming to deeply moving. Each episode begins with Tom approaching a stranger sitting alone in a public space. After gaining their consent to a recorded chat, he kicks off the conversation with a seemingly banal question: “What’s your favourite day of the week?” This unassuming question reliably opens the door to a fascinating look into the unexpected lives of everyday people. Utilising his skills as a singer-songwriter, Tom closes each episode with an original song: an ode to the interviewee. I love this podcast for its ability to continually reopen my eyes to the noble struggles and quiet strengths that live behind the faces of people we consider strangers. Each episode feels like a reminder of my place among all others in the great flow of human experience.

Sue Marriott & Ann Kelley

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Hosted by Hugh van Cuylenburg, Ryan Shelton & Jash van Cuylenburg

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Hosted by Esther Perel