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Susan Baur, Ph.D., psychologist, author, speaker
Author of seven books and a practicing
psychotherapist, I am available to speak on various
aspects of love, a topic that has been at the center
of my writing for the past fifteen years. My interest
started during my training as a clinical psychologist
when I met a schizophrenic who believed he and I were
man and wife dinosaurs. This became The Dinosaur
Man: Tales of Madness and Enchantment from the
Back Ward (HarperCollins, 1991). (The book was optioned
by Jodie Foster at Paramount.) Confiding: A Therapist
and Her Patients Search for Stories to Live By (HarperCollins,
1993) focused on more conventional memories of love,
forbidden love was the topic of The Intimate Hour:
Love and Sex in Psychotherapy (Houghton Mifflin, 1996),
and most recently, The Love of Your Life (Sourcebooks,
2002) explored grand passions.
After interviewing 200 women and men on this topic
over the course of five years, I learned that although
our culture insists that only loves that lead to marriage
really count, what we call the love of our lives changes
us in lasting ways whether it is happy, sad, long,
short, sustainable, or impossible. When such a love
hits us, it blasts away the innocent picture we have
of ourselves and reveals a passionate, complex person
hungry for life. Whether it arrives when we are fifteen
or fifty, it is an experience we never forget. I am
currently using the feedback received from this book
to write Shaken Up & Swept Away: Women in Search
of Transformation and also Haunting Memories and the
Vital Life. I
have been profiled in People Magazine, U. S. News
and World Report, Psychology Today, Rocky Mountain
News, The Boston Phoenix, and others. I have appeared
on The Today Show, Joan River’s Show, PBS Seattle,
Love Chronicles, and smaller shows including my own
monthly TV show on Cape Cod, “Art & Inspiration.”
I have been keynote speaker at organizations such
as Vassar College, the Episcopal Divinity School,
the Women’s Club of Cape Cod, GRA Productions’ Empowering
Women series on Long Island, the Boston Public Library,
and other libraries and bookstores across the country.
Most of my books have been reviewed in the Sunday
New York Times Book Review.
My most popular presentation is “The Love of YourLife:
What We Learn from Living in the Grip of Passion”
which describes my personal interest in this topic,
what people mean by the phrase, how many people find
one, when it hits, and what it does. This talk elicits
stories and memories from the audience and is particularly
appreciated by women. I also speak on “Women and Men
at mid-life: Why the Need for Passion?” This presentation
draws stories and psychological developmental theory
together to explain why becoming truly passionate
about something is essential for maturity. I also
speak on “The Intimate Hour,” which describes how
psychotherapists have managed romantic feelings for
their patients from Freud’s time to the present.
For speaking engagements or further information,
call
(508) 564-5727 or e-mail sbaur@cape.com.
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