Being able to provoke a different point of view to the standard current ideological or political perspective as played out in conventional newspaper or radio reportage is what a public intellectual does. But it's not merely about being oppositional, because that's too negative.

Susie Orbach

Categorized in : Views Political Perspective

I'd like to see much more understanding of emotional issues around hurt, abandonment, disappointment, longing, failure and shame, where they stem from and how they drive people and policies brought into public discourse.

Susie Orbach

emotional disappointment hurt

I wish we could treat our bodies as the place we live from, rather than regard it as a place to be worked on, as though it were a disagreeable old kitchen in need of renovation and update.

Susie Orbach

kitchen wish needs

Many young girls are constantly consumed by controlling and managing their body image to the extent that they are much more involved in the production of the self than in living.

Susie Orbach

women girl inspirational

Today, 'fat' has become not a description of size but a moral category tainted with criticism and contempt.

Susie Orbach

size criticism today

Emotional Literacy means being able to recognise what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking. It becomes another dimension to draw upon when making decisions or encountering situations. Emotional expression by contrast can mean being driven by emotions, so that it isn't possible to think. These two things are often confused, because we are still uncomfortable with the idea of the validity of feelings.

Susie Orbach

confused emotional mean

A wanted pregnancy as much as a dreaded pregnancy can play differently than all one's previous imaginings.

Susie Orbach

play wanted pregnancy

I thought of the analyst Winnicott's observation: 'It is a joy to be hidden but disaster not to be found'.

Susie Orbach

analysts disaster joy

Fat people are so rarely included in visual culture that fat is perceived as a blot on the landscape of sleek and slim.

Susie Orbach

landscape culture people

Fat is a social disease, and fat is a feminist issue.

Susie Orbach

issues feminist disease

No one likes to feel helpless. We find it psychologically unbearable and inside ourselves we may try to make ourselves part author of our misfortune rather than simply the recipient of it.

Susie Orbach

likes may trying

There are so many young women who tip over into being a facsimile: they don't really inhabit their lives or their bodies.

Susie Orbach

young-women body young

Fat is a way of saying no to powerlessness and self-denial.

Susie Orbach

denial self way

Bodies are becoming our personal mission to tame, extend and perfect.

Susie Orbach

becoming body perfect

When they took TV to Fiji they found that after 3 years nearly 12 girls out of 100 were over the toilet bowls with bulimia because they felt inferior.

Susie Orbach

tvs girl years

Consumer society tantalises us. We then try within ourselves to control the needs that are being constantly stimulated.

Susie Orbach

consumers trying needs

There is no such thing as a neutral therapist.

Susie Orbach

therapists

Beauty has been democratised. No longer the preserve of movie stars and models but available to all. But while the invitation to beauty is welcomed, it has become not so much an option as an imperative.

Susie Orbach

invitations movie-star stars

Not that it was Twiggy's fault, but the ubiquity of her image created a sense in young women that to be stylish meant to be skinny, flat-chested with an ingenue face and straight hair.

Susie Orbach

ubiquity faces hair

We know that ever woman wants to be thin. Our images of womanhood are almost synonymous with thinness.

Susie Orbach

thinness want food

No one leaves a long-term relationship scot-free or without conflict.

Susie Orbach

scots conflict long