Susie Orbach

Susie Orbach – Life, Work & Memorable Quotes


Discover the life and ideas of Susie Orbach—a pioneering English psychotherapist, feminist thinker, and cultural critic. Explore her biography, key works, famous quotes, and lessons we can draw from her insights.

Introduction

Susie Orbach (born November 6, 1946) is an English psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, author, and public intellectual. She is best known for her groundbreaking work on body image, eating, gender, the psychology of desire, and emotional life. Her voice has been central in feminist psychology and in cultural critiques of how societies treat bodies, emotions, and identity. Over decades, she has challenged dominant narratives about beauty, dieting, therapy, and what it means to inhabit one's self.

Orbach’s work remains deeply relevant today, in a world saturated by social media, body ideals, and emotional disconnection. Her insights offer a more humane, compassionate, and nuanced way of thinking about how we live in our bodies and in relation to others.

Early Life and Family

Susie Orbach was born in London into a Jewish family.

  • The personal is political
    Many inner struggles (shame, desire, body dissatisfaction) are shaped by cultural norms, power, and social narratives.

  • Therapy is relational, not neutral
    The therapist is part of the process, not a detached observer. Awareness of one’s feelings, biases, and responses matters.

  • Courage to question dominant narratives
    Challenging diet culture, beauty standards, and simplistic notions of mental health requires intellectual and moral bravery.

  • Integration of theory and practice
    Orbach shows that real impact comes when ideas traverse academic, clinical, and public spheres — writing, activism, therapy all informing each other.

    • Conclusion

    Susie Orbach is more than a psychologist or writer: she is a cultural force. She dares us to think differently about bodies, emotions, desire, and the structures that shape how we see ourselves and others. Her legacy lives in the therapists she trained, the readers she influenced, and the ongoing debates about shame, image, and emotional life.

    If you’d like, I can also gather her most cited works, timeline of publications, or dive deeper into a specific book by her.

    Articles by the author

    If you continually diet, you are putting your body in a quasi-famine situation. It slows your metabolism down and breaks the thermostat. Diets don't work. They don't help you understand why you're eating more than your body wanted in the first place.

    Susie Orbach

    Public intellectuals come from a range of areas and use their expertise to comment more widely than just their field. They want to make a contribution to public space, and they stick their necks out to do it.

    Susie Orbach