Product Description

What happens when we lose someone we love? A death, a separation or the break-up of a relationship are some of the hardest times we have to live through. We may fall into a nightmare of depression, lose the will to live and see no hope for the future. What matters at this crucial point is whether or not we are able to mourn. In this important and groundbreaking book, acclaimed psychoanalyst and writer Darian Leader urges us to look beyond the catch-all concept of depression to explore the deeper, unconscious ways in which we respond to the experience of loss. In so doing, we can loosen the grip it may have upon our lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #29926 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
Compelling and important . . . An engrossing and wise book (Hanif Kureishi )

Rigorous and engaging . . . a rich, cogently argued and very timely book (Irish Times Weekend Review )

His orthodox, psychoanalytical approach, produces an unpredictable, occasionally brilliant book. The New Black is a mixture of Freudian text, clinical assessments and Leader's own brand of gentle wisdom (Herald )

Hanif Kureishi, New Statesman
"Compelling and important...An engrossing and wise book, The New Black is not only an illuminating read. It convinces us that this level of intelligence and ideas is essential today, otherwise the general public is left with only the feeblest guides to life, self-help books, "cheer-up" manuals and the fatuous notion that our conflicts are caused by something we can only describe as brain chemistry"

Daily Telegraph
"The New Black should be essential reading for a society in which, not so long ago, a massive unprecedented display of grief for a dead princess revealed, not group hysteria or sentimentality, but a deep and abiding lack of spiritual nourishment"

Customer Reviews

Perhaps a Masterpiece
This is a comprehensive, poetic and beautifully written account of how loss affects us and and what the job of mourning entails. Drawing on clinical findings, popular culture and the literature of grief, Leader's investigation into this subject is always sensitive and intelligent and often startling. His insights and wisdom both delight and console.
On a personal level I have been thinking about my own losses for the best part of my life, yet Leader's book made me see important parallels and distinctions that would never otherwise have occurred to me.
This book not only revives important and neglected dialogues, reinforcing and reinterpreting Freud's famous treatise on this subject, it actually makes you feel better! The New Black is a book that needed to be written, for in the prevalent culture, I believe, we feel even more uncertain about how to position ourselves in relation to our losses than ever before. This is a distinguished work, and a lovely one, which people will be reading for many many years to come.

Thank you very much, Darian Leader
I've never typed a review on Amazon before but I have to give my support to this book. It is so important. Death and loss are around us every day and yet their existence is denied. In this book Darian Leader writes clearly, intelligently, concisely and thoughtfully about loss and about the process of grieving. This book explained so many things to me that I could never have worked out for myself. It may not be designed as a self help book but it is a book which does help. If people listend to Darian Leader we would have very much less depression and unhappiness in our society. Yes, you should definitely read this book. I'm about to read it for a second time because there is so much in it that I couldn't take it all in the first time around.

NHS psychotherapist
I greatly enjoyed this book. What is most outstanding us how Darian Leader brings very complex ideas alive through examples from his clinic. A welcome anecdote to the simplistic ideas that often predominate depression discourse in such times.