Psychotherapist, best-selling author, and award-winning podcast host Esther Perel is recognized today as one of the most insightful and revered voices on modern relationships. She spent over two decades as a “cross-cultural psychologist” before being propelled into the business of intimacy and desire. She is well-known for encouraging forgiveness in the aftermath of adultery and advocating for empathy in place of anger.
Born in 1958 to two Polish-born Holocaust survivors, she grew up in Antwerp, Belgium, and studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where she earned bachelor’s degrees in educational psychology and French literature, and later a master’s degree in expressive arts therapy from Lesley University.
She helms a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Indeed jealousy and frustration can be experienced at home, but conflict and the need for resolution also exist in the workplace.
Perel has written two bestselling books about relationships: Mating in Captivity, published in 2006, and The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity in 2017, which further explores monogamy and adultery.
She also hosts two podcasts, “Where Should We Begin?” in which couples visit her for a one-time counseling session, and the “How’s Work?” podcast, focusing on workplace dynamics, connections, and how personal emotional patterns can spill over into work relationships.
Throughout the pandemic, special episodes of Perel’s “Where Should We Begin?” podcast were produced to explore the way couples around the world have navigated relationships during quarantine.
Esther Perel’s expertise and experience have turned her into a valued commodity, especially in an evolving, modern society where gender awareness, inclusivism, and diversity have become corporate watchwords. She has devoted her professional life to helping people, and fortunately has no plans to stop.