How to be Real

From a leading psychoanalytic thinker, a profound, challenging and restorative book charting a path to a radical future for the self

In How to Be Real, leading psychosocial thinker Stephen Frosh tackles one of our most urgent questions: how can we thrive in a world so troubling and confusing? Despite constant exhortations to be ‘authentic’ and ‘real’, our sense of reality is undermined by the complexity of the modern world. Getting in touch with reality means facing up squarely to this complexity.

Drawing on thinkers such as Freud, Winnicott and Klein, Frosh argues that we must look to what connects us. Authenticity depends on the quality of our human relationships. Consequently, the question of ‘how to be real’ has political as well as psychological and ethical implications. What seems merely disruptive can be the wellspring from which human depth and relational integrity arise.

By exploring childhood and the development of the self, the whys and wherefores behind our defences against reality, and the meaning of hate, Frosh shows how we can turn the ghosts that trouble us into ancestors that enrich our lives. We must be brave enough to seek solidarity with others and, finally, to find the humanity in death. How to Be Real is a bold and necessary guide to finding your radical self in difficult times.

Stephen Frosh is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London. He is one of the founders of Psychosocial Studies in the UK, bringing together sociological and psychological (especially psychoanalytic) perspectives. He has published over twenty books as well as over 150 academic articles. He is co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Psychosocial Studies (2024) and the Routledge International Handbook of Psychoanalysis and Jewish Studies (2025).