Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I started listening with cynicism. 10-15 minutes into that first episode, I realized I was no longer raking leaves; I was standing stock still, drinking in every word. I am awed by the people in these sessions: the raw honesty and genuine decency is humbling and hopeful. Esther Perel strikes at the heart of things, but never, never does she disrespect her clients or their pain. This is the real deal. It has shown me different ways of approaching my own relationship problems, and has given me hope. It’s also forced me to confront, at least momentarily, my responsibilities within my own relationships. It’s not always comfortable, but she is so present, you feel supported, even as just a listener. Please do more of these; they’re practically a public service. Thank you for the privilege of entering this world.

As a clinician, I find Esther Perel informative, effective, and experienced. As a human being, I find her captivating and compelling. Listening to her conducting sessions is to be allowed into the room of the master. She is artful, and authoritative yet deeply compassionate. She gets to the heart of the couple’s issues based on their attachment style and history and can quickly summarize in depth the heart of what has happened, as well as suggest what needs to happen to improve or save the relationship. While some are not to be saved—Esther has no pretensions that any of them will, that is not her objective, as it should be for any couples therapist—she defines the dynamic to help couples understand. Esther often gives a summation monologue at the end of the show, at times indicating follow up with the couple, which is insightful and interesting.
I also enjoy that there are a large range of relationships featured; LGBTQ, races, ethnicities, cultures, married/unmarried, children/no children, yet any couple could have any of the issues involved. The choice of who is featured highlights the commonality of relationship dynamics rather than separate them. All in all, a unique and fantastic podcast!

With psychiatry being so stigmatized in our culture this show brings people into the room and helps to humanize the practice. You get to walk with people through the challenges of poor and uninformed perspectives, assumptive thoughts, implied communications, and childhood trauma. Esther does a brilliant job of unweaving where destructive thoughts and actions stem from to help not only the people on the podcasts but also those listening along who may have thought or done the same things. I can’t think of anything better to help people grow personally than to hear these types of challenges and problems be addressed in a coherent manner with a professional explaining along the process. It’s worth the listen and the self reflection, a truly powerful podcast. I don’t think there were many episodes that didn’t bring me to tears. I hope this podcast continues as long as possible.

I was introduced to this podcast an excerpt was featured on This American Life. Listening to this podcast has rescued my relationship. I lacked the ability to communicate my needs and that led to serious frustration and a breakup. I now have the language to communicate through it and the perspective to know where I have been neglectful of him. This podcast excites me. It really has changed my life. I am so grateful because I have the love of my life back! I’m definitely going to buy Esther’s books.

She is much more a self-help guru than a therapist. She is too much in the center of almost every interaction. She is overly directive and seems to have no sense of who she is for the couple (transference awareness). The danger is that the clients are compliant to her forceful interventions and framing. You wonder if those forced interventions will take hold. An indicator that this is not therapy is that the session is about how great Esther Perel is and not how much the couple is struggling and working through the issues.

As another therapist I genuinely enjoyed this podcast, but having an ad for beauty counter, an MLM pyramid scheme that specifically targets and takes advantage of individuals of immigrant backgrounds and lower socioeconomic status is vile. I'm out til that changes. Unconscionable.