Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Every Monday morning step into the office of iconic psychotherapist Esther Perel and listen in as real people in search of insight bare the raw, intimate, and profound details of their stories. From breakups and open relationships to workplace conflicts and fractures in the family, it’s a place to hear our own stories reflected in the lives of others. So…where should we begin? Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Episodes
October 7, 2024 • 45 mins
They have been best friends for years. He opened a book store and she was his first employee. Things were great until they weren't. She left to preserve the friendship- but a year later they still haven’t talked about what went wrong with them professionally. Esther talks to her about how to start a different kind of business relationship if they were willing to give this another go.
This is a special episode of How's Work?, a one...
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October 2, 2024 • 55 mins
This is a classic session, from the first season of How's Work? They were mates in university before co-founding a successful communications company. They still work together from different coasts, but they barely speak. One wants to move on; the other is grasping for his former friend. Neither can find the words to talk about it.
Esther’s two new courses on desire are now available inside The Desire Bundle. Go to https://www.esth...
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September 23, 2024 • 55 mins
This week, Esther is in a borrowed bedroom in Los Angeles, the perfect place to talk about desire and the novel on every bedside table, All Fours. The writer, director, and artist, Miranda July, joins Esther to examine the erotic and to explore how love and desire relate and how they conflict in modern relationships. They discuss the tension between the domestic and erotic through the lens of Esther's new desire course, which Miran...
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September 16, 2024 • 40 mins
Esther speaks to a woman who feels frustrated and stuck in her dating patterns. She loves going on dates, regularly meets people out and about, and feels open to having multiple forms of a relationship. And still…she gets to one or two or three dates before the relationship fizzles out. Esther gives her a new way to think about it and reframes her frustrations.
Esther's has two new courses out. If you are interested in Bringing De...
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September 9, 2024 • 66 mins
They were in a consensual, non-monogamous relationship and happily growing their family. But he broke the first rule of their relationship, and it resulted in a major crisis—an unplanned pregnancy involving another woman. They are committed to each other, but this unforeseen transformation of their family has many unexpected consequences that involve their entire world—family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. Will their relation...
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August 26, 2024 • 61 mins
They're amicably divorced divorce lawyers, carving out a new kind of relationship after the end of their marriage. Esther reframes their situation and proposes a radical solution.
What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, repair and rupture, polyamory or monogamy. The epis...
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August 19, 2024 • 53 mins
Often when a relationship ends, we're left with regrets, questions, and conversations we wish we could have had. Esther helps a woman process the things she left unsaid including the sexual grief and loss she feels after her husband unexpectedly died.
What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, clo...
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August 12, 2024 • 52 mins
This episode contains discussions of a death by suicide. Please take care listening. The suicide of his first wife left four traumatized children in its wake; she's spent six years putting the pieces back together. They're both ready to experience joy in their marriage, but can't quite figure out how. Esther coaches them through the difference between survival vs. revival, and how to live after loss.
What you are about to hear is ...
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August 5, 2024 • 53 mins
Ten years and two kids later, a wife comes to Esther looking for answers: does she want to explore her attraction to women because she's bisexual, or because she no longer wants to be married to her husband?
What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, repair and rupture, pol...
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July 29, 2024 • 51 mins
Join Esther for a dinner table conversation on the topic of polyamory. The dinner was held to mark the anniversary of a panel discussion Esther was part of on the same topic ten years earlier. Together the original panel and a few new friends explore what has changed in the last decade as consensual non-monogamy has become more mainstream, why some advocate for their choices, and what consequences and challenges they still face as ...
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July 22, 2024 • 50 mins
It began as a passionate affair and ended two marriages. Now, they're struggling as they try to build trust. Esther encourages them to be brutally honest--with themselves.
What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, repair and rupture, polyamory or monogamy. The episodes can...
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July 15, 2024 • 50 mins
They met in college; he's a U.S. citizen and she's trapped in a cross-border limbo. Their young love complicated by immigration status and politics, Esther helps them appreciate each other's sacrifices as they contemplate marriage.
What you are about to hear is a series Esther calls The Arc of Love. Each session centers around a couple’s story. Whether it’s issues of trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance,...
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July 8, 2024 • 54 mins
The Arc of Love is my gift to you as your summer beach listen of 2024. A curated collection of stories about trust and betrayal, care and aggression, closeness and distance, attraction and disgust, rupture and repair. As the stories mirror and amplify our own experiences, they help us grapple with the parts of ourselves that hold the same emotions, conflicts, and forbidden truths. Inevitably, one of these episodes will resonate wit...
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July 1, 2024 • 47 mins
This is a classic session, from the first season of Where Should We Begin? A husband hasn’t had an erection in 12 years and struggles with acknowledging it openly. His wife, in despair over her feelings of hopelessness in the bedroom, seeks relief from her sexual frustration and feelings of resentment. Esther reinforces to both of them that defining him as “impotent” is only making things worse.
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June 24, 2024 • 51 mins
They met as community organizers in their neighborhood. She had just gotten out of a multi-year marriage to her ex-wife and began to forge new friendships. After about a year, something shifted for her and she began to develop feelings for him, sending her seemingly solid identity into a tailspin. After 15 years of identifying as a lesbian, she was in her first straight relationship. Now, he is beginning to question what he wants o...
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June 17, 2024 • 51 mins
Four affairs and four divorces later, she is searching for answers as to why she can’t stop leaving in such an abrupt way. Despite longing for a life partner, she questions her ability to maintain a healthy and stable relationship. Esther seeks to uncover the root of these issues and help her forge a new path forward as she embarks on what she hopes is her final relationship.
Esther Callings are a one-time, 45-60 minute interventi...
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June 10, 2024 • 40 mins
This is a classic session, from the first season of Where Should We Begin? A newly married couple comes to Esther for guidance on how to create a space of safety and physical intimacy while also giving voice to past trauma. One partner is working to overcome an aversion to physical touch due to abuse from his past while the other is learning to ask for more without triggering painful memories for his husband. From this starting poi...
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June 3, 2024 • 49 mins
Esther takes a question from a young woman struggling with her relationship with her father. A recent divorce and the slow reveal of an affair on the part of her father has ruptured the family- and leaves her questioning whether or not her father should continue to have a role in her life.
Esther Callings are a one time, 45-60 minute interventional phone call with Esther. They are edited for time, clarity, and anonymity. If you ha...
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May 20, 2024 • 37 mins
In this Esther Calling, Esther speaks to a young woman grappling with the burden of caring for her ailing parents and the feelings of resentment she feels towards her older siblings. But the true cause of this family conflict goes much deeper than who is showing up and who is not.
Esther Callings are a one time, 45-60 minute interventional phone call with Esther. They are edited for time, clarity, and anonymity. If you have a ques...
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May 13, 2024 • 63 mins
They grew up together and now run a production company. They are contending with the growing pains of transitioning from best friends to coworkers and the challenges of running, essentially, a family business. Esther helps them find the complementarity in their roles and see their story as growing and developing even in the face of challenges.
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