Deep Human Connection: Why We Need It More than Anything Else

“Lovingly crafted, deep, richly engaging, and wise.” —Jack Kornfield
“An important resource...for many years to come.” —Sharon Salzberg
“...brilliant and utterly engaging.” —Tara Brach

This “glorious book” explores the essence of connection through 5 essential types of relationships, “[guiding] us into the infinite mysteries of human attunement” (Bessel van der Kolk, New York Times–bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score).

Do you long to connect more deeply with other human beings? Do you wonder if you’re living up to your human potential to make these deep connections happen—and perhaps missing out on this most compelling aspect of a vital life?

In this groundbreaking book, bestselling author Stephen Cope invites us to explore the most important questions in this domain: What is the nature of human connection? Why, precisely, is a capacity to connect deeply so important to the development of our minds, bodies, and spirits? What are the actual mechanisms of connection that we must master during the course of life? How can our lack of connection inhibit our happiness and satisfaction in life? Can we learn to connect more wisely than we do?

Cope is well known as a master storyteller, and he seamlessly blends science, scholarship, and storytelling, drawing on poignant stories from his own life as well as the lives of famous figures—from E. M. Forster to Sigmund Freud to Queen Victoria—whose formative relationships shed light on the nature of connection itself. In the process, he lays out in stunning detail the precise mechanisms of human connection, which he distills into five helpful categories: containment, twinship, adversity, mirroring, and conscious partnership. Then he invites us into a remarkably practical reflection on how these forms of connection appear in our own lives, helping us work toward a fuller understanding of deep human connection—and a more satisfying and fruitful life.
 
Deep Human Connection was originally published as Soul Friends.

Stephen Cope is Scholar Emeritus at the famed Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He is a Western-trained psychotherapist who writes and teaches about the relationship between Western psychological paradigms and the Eastern contemplative traditions, and is the best-selling and award-winning author of such books as The Great Work of Your Life and Yoga and the Quest for the True Self. In its 25th anniversary edition, Yoga Journal named him one of the most important innovators in the developing field of American yoga. He lives in Albany, New York.