A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR The Kitchen Shrink

'Poignant and often sad, the stories of Oskis's patients peel back the layers of the human mind and our attachment to people and things... What becomes clear as consommé is that food is humanity's original and universal love language' The Mail on Sunday
'Dr Oskis shows us that what's on our plate speaks volumes about our hearts' Suzy Walker, Muddy Stilettos
There is no better way to understand ourselves and our relationships with others than through what we eat.
Me: 'When did you know he didn't love you anymore?'
My patient: 'It wasn't when we stopped having sex. No, it was when he stopped eating dinner with me.'
That was the lightbulb moment. That was when I discovered there is no better way to get inside people's lives than through their stories about food.
Did you know that the food we eat reveals a lot about how we love?
Psychologist Dr Andrea Oskis shows us how we connect with each other and how we can change our relationship 'recipes' for the better. Along the way, she also reveals her own food story about love and loss.
Inviting us into her therapy room, she tells us:
the real reason why comfort food comforts
why dessert isn't a good idea when you're stressed
what makes children feel obliged to eat their greens
why you should never give a bottle of hot sauce to someone who has been rejected
Be prepared to never look at your plate in the same way again.

Andrea Oskis is a psychologist, a food writer and a professional cook. She is interested in the two things that are crucial for human survival: relationships and food. Her academic expertise is human relationships; how we connect, love and attach in couples and communities, and she has researched, taught and written about this for more than twenty years. Andrea is Greek Cypriot and so, perhaps not unsurprisingly, the kitchen has always had a natural pull. In 2018 she took an intensive course in classic cookery at Leiths School of Food and Wine. Andrea's food writing has been published in Vittles, Pit Magazine and Gastronomica, The Journal for Food Studies. She is a member of the Guild of Food Writers. In 2022, Andrea was shortlisted for Moniack Mohr's Emerging Writer of the Year and a Guild of Food Writers Award. In 2023, she won the MFK Fisher Last House Writing Contest. She is also a Fellow of the British Psychological Society.