Stories of Love and Psychotherapy

Carl Jung said, "Life addresses questions to us, and we ourselves are a question." These seven stories are about how people psychologically live their lives, how they yearn, sacrifice and love. Psychotherapists have a bird's eye view of the human condition and what makes people tick. When therapists write stories, they often anonymize their patients and the situations of those patients' lives. But this is different: fiction that allowed the author to follow his invented characters into their private worlds and thoughts. So as much as the seven stories are about what happens in these characters' therapies, they are poignant renditions of people trying and, often, getting it right in their day-to-day lives. 

-A man and his wife wrestle with his desire to influence her choice of lovers after he's gone.

-An American and his long-distance French lover each fantasize, in their own way, about her life in the South of France.

-An architect's breakup with his husband leads his therapist to confront a loss of his own.

Kenneth Jedding is a psychotherapist in Greenwich Village, in Manhattan. Over the years, his patients have included mothers, fathers, film directors, TV actors, musicians, dancers, investment bankers, consultants, NFL players, NBA wives, doctors, lawyers, bakers covered in flour, robot designers, people having difficulties in relationships, people needing to break up, people divorcing, people meeting someone new, and people falling in love.