The Kitchen Shrink: How the food we eat reveals who we are – and how we love

by Dr Andrea Oskis

A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

Did you know that the food we eat says a lot about how we love?

Psychologist Dr Andrea Oskis shows us how we connect with each other and how we can change our personal 'recipes' to have better relationships.

Along the way, she also reveals her own food story about love and loss. Inviting us into her therapy room with her patients, she tells

the real reason why comfort food comforts
why dessert isn't a good idea when you're stressed
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.

Genres: Nonfiction

300 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 30, 2025

Reviews

[Etta]

the kitchen shrink
No star rating as this is a non-fiction book

💭”I also remember reading about a study during my PhD that showed how tea helped to speed up recovery from stressful experience by bringing cortisol levels back to normal. So tea really can soothe stress away.” ☕️

Let’s be real: I didn’t need any further encouragement about tea, but that quote cements what I have known in my gut for a long time: Tea fixes most problems.

I am on a roll with my nonfiction reads this year, and this is no exception! I love food, sharing food with people I love, and learning about how the food I eat can reveal who I am and how I love.

The concepts of mum food and comfort food resonated with me as I think this is where my cooking excels. The foundations of this started with family dinners and I now understand that this was built on a secure foundation by both my parents. What I didn’t expect to learn and found genuinely fascinating is that given personal events that have happened over the last couple of years, loss and maybe mixed with grief, has stopped me from cooking one recipe in particular.

There are recipes at the end of each chapter that I am looking forward to trying, especially the apple pie.

Thank you Dr Andrea for more reasons to love tea and food!
Thank you @bloomsburypublishing for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This book is out now!

🛍 Buy/Borrow? BUY - if you love food and learning about attachment styles then this book is definitely going to hit some big ticks! It is so insightful and the recipes are like a reward at the end of each chapter.

[Ruby Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟
It is so moving that the author dedicated this book to her own therapist. The chapters follow the same structure: a patient and their attachment style, a food that plays a significant part in both the patient’s and author’s life, and how the significance of it stemmed from the patient’s childhood relationships and surroundings. The author connecting the patient’s current adult problem to how they lived as a child felt repetitive to me.
It’s so fun how there is a recipe at the end of every chapter!

[Zee Monodee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather fascinating how food can be used as a means to explain, show, and teach about behaviour and people and why we are how we are... It's really interesting how the author relates food to each of the patient stories she explores in the book, in a language and manner that is easy to 'get' for the layperson. Therapy has never been debunked this way, and that's a novel approach to be lauded.

[Nicola Washington · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the mix of anecdote, psychological insights and recipes in this book. I don't like cooking but the meaning given to food was so touching that even I have tried out some of the recipes!

[Adam Maher · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75
Really good, wasn’t what I was expecting.
All about attachment theory and our relationship with food - recommend but can be a bit same-y in parts

[Katie Lawlor · Rating 4 out of 5]

*proof copy*

this was a fun read that mixed my two favourite things - psychology & food. some interesting parallels were drawn between these two, and i loved the anecdotes about individual patients!