Couples Therapist Esther Perel Surrounds Herself With Other People

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Esther Perel, a renowned couples therapist, bestselling author, and podcast host. Perel lives in New York City and travels the world for speaking engagements. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

I have been interested in psychology since I was about 14. I wanted to understand myself, my family, and my surroundings. So, becoming a therapist was quite an obvious choice for me.

I started working with large groups, then moved to families, then couples. In particular, I was interested in interracial, intercultural, inter-religious couples and families — families in cultural transition. What is sexuality in the culture, and how does it enter into the family culture and the couple’s relationship?

I spent 35 years in my therapy office, alone. At one point, I started to feel that the office was getting small. Therapy is not democratic; it’s not accessible to many people who need it.

I wrote “Mating in Captivity” (2006) and “The State of Affairs” (2017). Then, I started bringing people into the sessions, and that’s the podcast. “Where Should We Begin?” was doing live anonymous couples therapy sessions at scale, all over the world, for free.

It’s not therapy, but a way to bring the insights that happen in the office into the public square. Then I decided to step out of the office myself and go onstage to recreate the experience at scale with thousands of people.

I created a card game during the pandemic because I wanted to give people something playful that helps them connect. I recorded courses on conflict and desire because for every book I wrote, people would then say, “And then what do I do?”

Right now, I am working on a new tour and a few other projects that I’m keeping to myself until they happen. Although I live primarily in New York and spend a few months a year in Europe, I travel in bursts, and always with either a family member or friend. I mix pleasure and purpose, work and personal. I’m going on an adventure with someone.

I still have a therapy practice, one or two days a week. I’ve never stopped because I think it’s very important to keep close to the craft, and not just to become a storyteller.

Here’s a day in my life.

Mornings start with group yoga

I get up around 7 to 7:30 a.m. As soon as I wake up, I need to move to feel calm. It’s a bit of a paradox.

I do yoga four times a week. I’m part of a group of friends who started practicing together during the pandemic. For six years, we’ve never missed a class. We do it in person and on Zoom, so wherever one is, one can join. It’s very grounding and strengthening.

A bunch of us in the group happen to be teachers. I became one by default — I’ve never been trained as one, but I know how to repeat what my teachers have said to me.

On other days, I exercise, also with a friend. It motivates me and makes me accountable. Alone, I would be a lazy bum. I’d be getting ready, then spend the day futzing around and never get there.

I check international texts while I drink my coffee

I very rarely get a coffee outside. I like to make it, sit down, and look at who texted me in the middle of the night, since people in my life are in different time zones. Who am I waking up to this morning?

For breakfast, I eat grapefruit, yogurt, and berries, and on occasion, eggs.

My team helps me balance therapy, podcast, and meeting days

I don’t start work before 10 a.m. so that I have time to do what I like to do in the morning. I work partly at home and partly at Magnificent Noise’s podcast studio.

My work days are nicely segmented:

• Mondays are for therapy patients.
• Tuesdays are for recording the podcast.
• Wednesdays are for internal meetings.

I try to create a focus for the day so that I don’t have to see patients and go to meetings when I’m in clinical mode. Still, I sometimes have to switch modes in such drastic ways that it’s a bit jarring.

It’s a lot to juggle. I have an amazing team of people that I work with, who are very knowledgeable about the different things that I do. I cannot do any of this alone.

When I was exclusively working as a clinician, I often would say, “I miss working with others.” Now, I’m never just doing one thing. It’s a very rich day, which I really missed back then.

I take some therapy patients on walks

Much changed after the pandemic. I don’t have a practice office anymore. I practice from my home or go to other people’s offices.

Sometimes, we meet outside, and we walk.

It’s fantastic. When you’re in motion, you experience your thoughts differently, and you respond differently to the person talking to you. You’re not face-to-face; you’re side-by-side, so the parallel position gives you a whole other interaction.

Sometimes, we stop, we sit down. We continue the session by the river. There’s water floating by. That too is very calming. There’s this intersection between beauty and calmness and motion and the depth of what you are reflecting upon at the same time.

What I like about clinical work is that every human being is a whole universe opening up to you. It’s an endless exploration. The psyche, the mind, the body, the painful and the joyful, the breaches and the connection, the people who suffered from too much attention, and the people who suffered from too little. I can’t think of a subject that would be more diverse in its interests.

I don’t prioritize lunch breaks

I don’t always take a lunch break. In general, I prefer to end the day earlier.

I have very few routines when it comes to food. Most of my meals are home-cooked. I eat lots of nuts and fruit. I’m a major bread-and-cheese person, and sometimes a slice of both is a good lunch, too.

Today, I cooked up a bunch of different vegetables. I made some chicken so it would last for two or three days. I am a big soup maker in the winter, and I like salads in the summer.

I stop work at 5 to go to the theater

I usually stop working around 5 p.m.

I love movies. I love theater. I go with friends into the world to see art — paintings and performances. Probably, I’m at a theater two or three times a week. I saw the Broadway production of “Oedipus” twice. I just thought it was pertinent, current, exquisitely well-acted, beautifully written.

I socialize, too. Meeting people for dinner, inviting them over. When I spend so much time on a screen, I like to see people in real life.

Book and movie clubs cut down on social scheduling

I’m in a movie and book club as well.

We recently read “Train Dreams” by Denis Johnson. We’ve read Roberto Bolaño, Rachel Cusk. We’re reading Muriel Spark for next month.

For the movie club, we just discussed “The Worst Person in the World” — I had just seen “Sentimental Value” by the same director, Joachim Trier. We’ve done the movie club every three weeks for the past six years — that’s a lot of movies with a great group of people who have a lot to say.

Plus, you have your homework, and you’re not just going to read articles and social stuff. These little structured pieces of my life that actually invite real exploration and connection.

I end the night with my husband — and almost no social media

At night, I talk to my husband. I also go to look at the messages that I didn’t catch for the day. I often spend the last half hour or hour on my phone. It’s not the best. I sit on the couch, and I look at my calendar for tomorrow and who I’m meant to connect with.

I rarely scroll through social media. I’m in a few different WhatsApp groups, so I see what’s happening in my social world. That’s how I unwind.

I’m quite relational. Fundamentally, if I want to do something, I instantly think, “Who do I want to do this with?” Then, I organize the activity with that sociability. They are completely intertwined.