'This book highlights the fact that women are brought up to understand men's emotional needs but men are not brought up to understand women's.' Woman Many women today feel that they pour love, commitment and understanding into their relationships, but that it is not returned in kind. He seems secure and independent, she feels insecure and clingy. The truth is that men and women are both dependent. But his needs are catered to so well - first by his mother, then by his girlfriend or wife - that he doesn't know he has them, while her needs for closeness and tenderness are constantly rebuffed as he retreats from intimacy. Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum set out to explore this crisis in the relationships of men and women. They explain how men have learned to 'manage' their dependency needs very differently to women, and why women feel dependent and hungry for love. Finally they show why dependency on both sides is the essential core of any successful relationship.

Susie Orbach is a psychotherapist arid writer. With Luise Eichenbaum she co-founded The Women's Therapy Centre in London in 1976 and in 1981 The Women's Therapy Centre Institute in New York. She lectures extensively in Europe and North America, is a visiting Professor at the London School of Economics, and has a practice seeing individuals and couples and consulting to organizations. She is a frequent contributor to newspapers and magazines, as well as to radio and television programmes. Her other books on eating problems are Fat is a Feminist Issue (1978), Fat is a Feminist Issue II (1982) and On Eating (2002). With Luise Eichenbaum she has written Understanding Women: A Feminist Psychoanalytic Account (1982), What do Women Want (1983) and Between Women (1988). She is also the author of What's Really Going on Here (1993), Towards Emotional Literacy (1999) and The Impossibility of Sex (1999).

'A smart and rich compendium of what is going on within and without our bodies today ... in this brave and significant book, Orbach does battle with a full quiver of her own fire-tipped arrows, her blazing firebrand levelled at self-hatred in all its forms.' the Times

In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Men are encouraged to surgically pump up their pecs, breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, and eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting children as young as six. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions.

In her years of practice as a psychoanalyst, Susie Orbach has come to realise that the way we view our bodies is the mirror of how we view ourselves: our body becomes the measure of our worth. In this updated edition of Bodies, she addresses the modern challenges to body-image, exposing how social media has exacerbated existing issues and creates new ways we relate to our bodies. In the past decade, despite campaigns promoting body positivity, often unproven and unregulated dietary products have proliferated throughout the world. Meanwhile, movements such as #MeToo have revealed what has changed in our attitudes to bodies and what has, unfortunately, remained the same.

In this book I have struggled with certain words without a satisfactory conclusion. I am unhappy about all the words used to describe the person who visits the therapist's consulting room. Is she or he a patient? Well, sometimes yes. Certain individuals like that word because it captures for them the sense that there is something wrong, an emotional illness. Is she or he a client? Again, sometimes yes. Certain individuals like that word because it connotes a kind of consultative process. Is she or he an analysand? Certain individuals like this word because it conveys something about the process of a therapy and it has a symmetry: analyst-analysand. I myself find that all these words capture something about the therapy and the therapy process but are considerably less than perfect. In what follows I have chosen to use the words interchangeably, as well as the words psychotherapist, therapist and analyst. In the text, in the musings in italics, I have usually referred to the primary carer in the person's early life as mother. I realize that this is not always the case. There are fathers who have primary responsibility for their children from birth and there are relatives and nannies who fulfil this role. Rarely in my clinical experience of seeing adults has this role been an enterprise between two people in the way that it is becoming for some couples with children today. We have yet to see the effects of joint child-rearing on adult psychologies so I have retained the notion of the mother or mother substitute, a notion which will have to be expanded as the generations now raising children make new arrangements between them. I have also chosen for simplicity's sake to use the word 'she' throughout for the personal pronoun rather than 'she or he'.

THE ORIGINAL ANTI-DIET BOOK IS BACK - in one volume together with its best-selling sequel. When it was first published, Fat Is A Feminist Issue became an instant classic and it is as relevant today as it was then. Updated throughout, it includes a frank new introduction by Susie Orbach that brings this book to a new generation of readers whilst offering a current perspective for its original fans. With an increasingly dominant diet industry, costing the consumer millions of pounds each year, Susie Orbach's best-selling classic is as important as ever in helping women to love their own body and face the demands of 21st-century living with confidence.

Worldwide, increasingly large numbers of people are seeing therapists on a regular basis. In the UK alone, 1.5 million people are in therapy. We go to address past traumas, to break patterns of behaviour, to confront eating disorders or addiction, to talk about relationships, or simply because we want to find out more about what makes us tick.

Susie Orbach, the bestselling author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and Bodies, has been a psychotherapist for over forty years. Here, she explores what goes on in the process of therapy - what she thinks, feels and believes about the people who seek her help - through five dramatised case studies. Originally broadcast as a Radio 4 series, here the improvised dialogue is replicated as a playscript, and Orbach offers us the experience of reading along with a session, while revealing what is going on behind each exchange between analyst and client.

Insightful and honest about a process often necessarily shrouded in secrecy, In Therapy is an essential read for those curious about, or considering entering, therapy.

The modern relationship is in crisis. Why? In this pioneering work, Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum pinpoint the deceptively simply question that lies at the root of all its problems and ask - what do women want? Torn between all the demands of today's society, many women feel that they pour love, commitment and understanding into their relationships, but that it is not returned in kind. He seems secure and independent, she feels insecure and needy. The truth is that both men and women are dependent... In crystal-clear prose, Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum explore the relationships of men and women, explaining how men have learned to "manage" their dependency needs very differently to women, and why women feel so dependent and hungry for love. They show conclusively why dependency on both sides is the essential core of any successful relationship and how it offers a new blueprint for the future. First published in 1983, this feminist classic has been thoroughly revised for today's audience. Its message is as relevant as ever.

The crucial struggle between connectedness and autonomy and its effect on friendships between women forms the heart of this brilliant and timely book. Helps develop a sense of self in order to enjoy richer friendships.

Understanding Women is a classic. Luise Eichenbaum & Susie Orbach, co-founders of The Women's Therapy Centre, showcase their understanding of women's psychology through case vignettes of the many women they have worked with. Their original and enlightening theory brings the mother-daughter relationship into the heart of a girl's developing self. They explain women's often troubled relationship to their bodies, the myths around emotional dependency and independence, the dilemmas of sexuality, and the need to re-theorise attachment and differentiation so that it speaks to women's experience. The book discusses the process of therapy and the challenges on the therapist to exemplify a new way of working with women in psychotherapy.

Esteemed Psychotherapist and writer Susie Orbach diagnoses the crisis in our relationship to our bodies and points the way toward a process of healing.

Throughout the Western world, people have come to believe that general dissatisfaction can be relieved by some change in their bodies. Here Susie Orbach explains the origins of this condition, and examines its implications for all of us. Challenging the Freudian view that bodily disorders originate and progress in the mind, Orbach argues that we should look at self-mutilation, obesity, anorexia, and plastic surgery on their own terms, through a reading of the body itself. Incorporating the latest research from neuropsychology, as well as case studies from her own practice, she traces many of these fixations back to the relationship between mothers and babies, to anxieties that are transferred unconsciously, at a very deep level, between the two. Orbach reveals how vulnerable our bodies are, how susceptible to every kind of negative stimulus--from a nursing infant sensing a mother's discomfort to a grown man or woman feeling inadequate because of a model on a billboard. That vulnerability makes the stakes right now tremendously high.

In the past several decades, a globalized media has overwhelmed us with images of an idealized, westernized body, and conditioned us to see any exception to that ideal as a problem. The body has become an object, a site of production and commerce in and of itself. Instead of our bodies making things, we now make our bodies. Susie Orbach reveals the true dimensions of the crisis, and points the way toward healing and acceptance.

'Eating is pleasurable, eating is delicious, eating is sensual' says Susie. But for so many of us eating is associated with anguish and abstinence.

Half a century after the publication of The Feminine Mystique, have women really exchanged purity and maternity to become desiring machines inspired only by variations of sex, shopping and masochism - all coloured a brilliant neuro-pink? In this volume, fifty women young and old - writers, politicians, actors, scientists, mothers - reflect on the shades that inspired them and what being woman means to them today. Contributors include: Margaret Atwood, Joan Bakewell, Bidisha, Lydia Cacho, Shami Chakrabarti, Lennie Goodings, Linda Grant, Natalie Haynes, Siri Hustvedt, Kathy Lette, Kate Mosse, Pussy Riot, Bee Rowlatt, Elif Shafak, Ahdaf Soueif, Sandi Toksvig, Natasha Walter, Timberlake Wertenbaker Jeanette Winterson - alongside the three editors.

In the past decades, the pressure to perfect and design our bodies has been unprecedented. Breast enhancement is a sweet sixteen birthday present in the suburbs of America, while eating problems - from bulimia to obesity - are growing daily, affecting girls as young as six. The body is no longer a given and to possess a flawless one has become the ambition of millions. In China, women are having their legs broken and extended by 5cms. In Iran, behind the Hijab there are 35,000 cosmetic nose reconstructions a year. In Brazil breasts and bottoms are reshaped along with the face so that women there, as in China and Iran (and pretty much everywhere else in reach of global media) can reflect western norms of beauty. In her years of practice as a psychoanalyst, Susie Orbach has come to realize that the way we view our bodies is the mirror of how we view ourselves: our body becomes the measure of our worth. In this book, she finally raises the fundamental questions about how we got there.

Children deserve to live a life that is safe from exploitation and harm, but are we failing in our duty to protect them? Childhood today is big business - it is impossible for any child growing up to avoid pervasive and intense marketing from companies. Whether it be for fatty foods resulting in childhood obesity, expensive franchised toys which encourage tension within families and stigma among friends, or 'pornified' role models who pervert children's ideas of sexuality, research clearly shows that commercial pressures are having a direct impact on children's psychological development and health. This book draws together a series of hard-hitting articles contributed by key thinkers on child welfare and child psychology including Oliver James, Susie Orbach and Gail Dines. Together they identify new and emerging forms of child exploitation, and editor Jim Wild constructs a powerful argument for why current child protection procedures designed to protect children from abuse are no longer adequate. Outspoken and challenging, this book invites us to consider our responsibility for preventing the harm children are experiencing, and is required reading for anyone concerned with the welfare of children.