THE EQ CERTIFICATE PROGR AMME
emotional education how to spend time alone
how to find a job you love
how to understand love
how to how to move communicate on from a better at relationship work
how to retire well
how to balance work with life
how to worry less about money
work
love
how to communicate better in love
how to make love last
how to realise your potential
how to think like an entrepreneur how to relate to your family
how to stay calm
mind
how to grow up
how to make a home
how to be confident
home
how to be a good parent
how to have better conversations how to be a better friend
how to connect with nature
how to make your mind up
how to be resilient how to make sense of politics
how to live in the city
how to make sense of the economy
how to make a difference
body how to sleep
how to exercise
travel as therapy
how to be good
meaning
how to dress
how to eat
community
how to face death
how to be creative
how to be a good leader
how to be successful
how to choose a partner
how to make sense of the media
gardening as therapy
art as therapy
culture
how to fill the god-shaped hole
philosophy as therapy
emotional intelligence
literature as therapy
ENROL AT THE SCHOOL OF LIFE
The School of Life is devoted to developing emotional intelligence with the help of culture. We address such issues as how to find fulfilling work, how to master the art of relationships, how to understand one’s past, how to achieve calm and how better to understand and, where necessary, change the world.
OUR EQ CERTIFICATE PROGRAMME INCLUDES:
It is a place to step back and think intelligently about central emotional concerns. You will never be cornered by dogma, but we will direct you towards a variety of ideas from the humanities – from philosophy to literature, psychology to the visual arts – ideas that will exercise, stimulate and expand your mind. You will meet other curious, sociable and open-minded people in an atmosphere of exploration and enjoyment.
A Career MOT session with a Career Consultant
Our headquarters are on Marchmont Street in central London, but we have Schools around the globe, from Amsterdam to Melbourne. Everything we do at The School of Life is dedicated to shedding light and wisdom on the challenges of everyday life: our relationships, our careers, our families, our societies and our search for meaning and purpose.
A starter pack including products from our Tools for Thinking range An unlimited number of classes from our Core Curriculum for 12 months
A session with a Bibliotherapist Exclusive invitations to select Special Events and Sunday Sermons Structured reading lists, exercises and activities to take home for further study Membership of our Friends Programme including discounts on our Tools for Thinking and invitations to social events At the end, you will be awarded The School of Life’s Certificate of Emotional Intelligence in recognition of the journey you have undertaken. The complete learning package costs £1500.
By enrolling in our twelve-month EQ Certificate Programme, you will take a structured journey through rich, enlightening and transformative material. You will be looked after by your personal Life Coach, guided through areas most appropriate to your needs, and given a chance to navigate through seven subject areas which touch on the most important aspects of modern life: Work, Love, Self, and Culture. You’ll undertake a highly flexible journey which allows you to book sessions at any time within a 12-month period to fit around your existing commitments. As well as members of our expert Faculty, you will have the opportunity to meet other students in the programme.
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ABOUT CLASSES
Our classes have been designed to give useful insights around the big themes in life. You’ll be challenged to think deeply about the issues that matter most, and provided with a space to share your thoughts, ideas and experiences with other curious individuals who are on the same journey. These sessions are designed by experts and taught by members of our faculty. They include a mix of lecture and group activity and conversation. Optional homework is provided for those interested in further study.
AVAILABLE PROGRAMME Work
How to Find a Job You Love How to Worry Less about Money How to Balance Work with Life Develop an Authentic Leadership Style Communicate Better at Work Cultivate Resilience Think like an Entrepreneur Be More Effective love
How Necessary is a Relationship How to Choose a Partner How to Make Love Last How to Communicate Better in Love How to Move on from a Relationship How to Spend Time Alone Why You Are Who You Are Self
How to Realise Your Potential How to Be Creative How to Stay Calm How to Be Confident How to Make Your Mind Up How to Have Better Conversations How to Change the World How to Fill the God-shaped Hole How to Face Death How to Connect with Nature How to Cope with Imperfection How to Deal with Conflict How to Manage Stress CULTURE
What is Art For? What is Philosophy For? What is Literature For? What is Psychotherapy For?
New classes may be added throughout the year.
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CLASS SYNOPSIS:
WORK
How to Find a Job You Love
How to Worry Less About Money
We all know what the perfect job looks like – well-paid, high-profile, intellectually stimulating and emotionally rewarding. No wonder our actual jobs have trouble measuring up.
Financial psychologists maintain that many of us are prone to money disorders. So, with a good dash of humour, this class invites us to diagnose our particular financial pathology and develop a healthier relationship with money.
This class is designed to help us think about what we really seek from our working lives. We start by looking at the factors that shape our career choices – from family background to personality tests – and whether these help or hinder our search for optimal opportunities. We explore what a meaningful job would really look like; and take apart the word ‘meaning’ to discover the hopes we invest in this concept. We tackle a range of career dilemmas: should we be pursuing money and status? How important is it to have a job that embodies personal values, or that fully harnesses our talents? Is it better to be a generalist or a specialist – a wide achiever or a high achiever? Are ‘dream jobs’ actually attainable? This class is a humane, culturally rich occasion for a full audit of our career hopes and opportunities.
We’ll consider our conflicting feelings about consumer objects we desire and our envy for those possessing them. We’ll ask how we can get so worked up about tax avoiders when we continue to exploit loopholes for our own gain. And we’ll probe our financial habits within the wider perspective of our hidden wealth – those deeper values that can often be explored at precious little cost. This class is not a lesson in bulking up your bank balance but an adventurous investigation into one of your most cherished and intimate relationships. Come prepared to laugh at your financial neuroses, bust the conversation taboo of cash, and develop some finer money wisdom for life.
Develop an Authentic Leadership Style
This class is CPD accredited.
How to Balance Work with Life Our grandparents lived with the promise of a future golden age of leisure, but today we are more shackled to our work than ever before. It’s hard enough to find time to eat in peace, let alone see our partners and families, go to the gym and enjoy our hobbies. What gets in the way of re-designing our lives? Must work be an albatross around our necks? Or can we negotiate a finer marriage not only with work but with time itself? This class explores the current landscape of work, as well as the art of play, promising relief from the pressures of the dominant work ethic and our relentless drive to succeed. We look at how difficulties in our working lives can be symptomatic of neurotic attachments to being busy, probe what lies behind our assumptions about leisure, and practice reversing our thinking about free time, making it ‘time on’ rather than ‘time off’.
If our careers develop well, sooner or later we will be thrust into leadership roles. When this happens, it is easy to feel intimidated, and then to adopt a style that is not our own, mimicking second or third-hand ideas of what it means to be authoritative and strong. Leadership amplifies our weaknesses and insecurities as well as our strengths. An authentic leadership style is crucial to inspiring commitment and getting results. In this session, we reflect on what makes a good leader. We see how our personal histories have shaped our assumptions. We consider our strengths and blind spots in order to understand our effect on others. We address key leadership challenges, from creating a compelling vision to empowering others.
This class is CPD accredited.
This class is CPD accredited.
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Communicate Better at Work
Think Like an Entrepreneur
Good communication is now a requirement for almost any professional role. We are increasingly reliant on others to progress our careers and succeeds at tasks, which means building good relationships with employers, co-workers, clients and customers.
Entrepreneurship is a major fascination of our times. Even if we don’t want to work for ourselves, we need to learn how to think like an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is about much more than just the pursuit of profit. It is a way of thinking that hopes to make the world a better place through innovation and commercial discipline.
However, many things stand in the way of effective communication: we know what we want to say, but we get misunderstood; our minds go blank at crucial moments; we bite our tongue rather than risk getting it wrong; or we make a rash comment which we later regret.
Entrepreneurs are skilled at spotting possibilities and unmet needs, turning everyday frustrations into opportunities. And of course entrepreneurs do more than mull: they make things happen.
This session addresses the masks we wear at work, and how to find the closest fit with our true selves. We slow things down, enabling us to override the autopilot that governs so much communication, and giving us time to reflect on the messages that we may be sending out despite ourselves. We also consider why we need to be more ‘other-aware’, recognize our dependence on others and become genuinely curious about their point of view.
In this workshop, we learn to become a blue-sky thinker, a hard-headed pragmatist and a rigorous critic. We come up with, and test, new ideas with real-world applications. We cultivate an ability to see opportunities. We engage in critical self-reflection, learning about strengths and weaknesses in our own natures. We also look at ways of dealing with the things that get in the way of action, not least our ideas about failure and risk.
This class is CPD accredited.
This class is CPD accredited.
Cultivate Resilience
Be MORE EFFECTIVE
Today, more than ever before, we are flattered into thinking that we’re in control of our lives; technology, globalisation, scientific and medical progress contribute to this illusion. But life rarely goes entirely according to plan; adversity is a constant.
Effectiveness leads to extraordinary differences between what different nations and individuals can do with the same amount of that always-finite resource: time.
What we call ‘resilience’ is the ability to withstand or recover from difficult situations. Knowing we won’t be destroyed means we’re more comfortable with risk and uncertainty, meaning we’re likely to be more effective, and can live life with energy, despite the reversals we will encounter. The good news is that resilience is a skill we can learn. In this session, we consider where our ideas about resilience come from, and explore ways of re-framing our attitudes to failure. We explore the complexity of emotions, and how we can work with them. Finally, we learn to incorporate a story of resilience into every situation we face.
The consequence of an absence of effectiveness isn’t just ineffectiveness. It is, to put it bluntly, regret. Yet the never-ending to do list and multiple demands from others can make it surprisingly difficult to sort the urgent tasks from the merely important, let alone get them done. This class explores how to pick the right approach for any given task; when to make space for reflection and when to trust your instincts; when to go for the magic shortcut, and when to slog out the details. We’ll also explore practical tips for dealing with procrastination and discretion, and learn to accept regret and inefficiency when they are necessary.
This class is CPD accredited.
This class is CPD accredited.
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LOVE
How Necessary is a Relationship?
How to Choose a Partner
Most of us would agree that while love can make us happier, it can also make us more miserable than almost anything else. Is it really worth it? Do we need romantic relationships in order to lead happy and fulfilled lives? Are there times when it’s better for us to be on our own? There are arguments that strongly favour a single lifestyle: fewer sacrifices, an absence of compromise, a capacity to explore hedonistic urges to the full. However, others would counter that there are fundamental lessons in maturity to be learnt from adjusting ourselves to the distinctive individuality of another person. For its part, society is unhelpful in this area, rigidly equating normality with a pattern of marriage and children.
Looks, humour, kindness, reliability, intelligence; these are some of the qualities that we instinctively search for in a partner. The modern age promises us limitless possibilities. But in reality our choices are often heavily restricted, and far less under our conscious control than we might like to think.
This class travels across the wisdom of centuries to uncover what ideas philosophy, psychoanalysis, literature and art might be able to offer us in deciding for ourselves how we might best resolve the dilemmas of our emotional attachments.
This class explores the key influences that affect the decisions we make about love. Placing partner choice in its cultural context, we trace our personal histories, and discover how our attachment styles determine who we’re attracted to - and who we attract. We also consider what we are looking for in a partner, the crucial steps we need to take to make our search more effective, and ways to move towards commitment – or not. The class helps us to be clearer about our emotional options and the reasons why we might have made less than satisfactory choices in the past.
How to Make Love Last
How to Communicate Better in Love
The arts heavily promote the idea that romantic love is time-limited; that it must naturally and inevitably end. We are often left wondering whether love is something we’re destined to fall out of or whether it could indeed be sustained over time.
We invest so much in our intimate relationships, yet all too often find ourselves feeling unheard or misunderstood by those we love most. Traditional advice has centred on skills such as negotiation and diplomacy, but this approach alone may not be enough.
This class suggests that long-term love is not an accident. It is the result of skills that can be learnt and practiced, rather than an emotional enthusiasm that spontaneously arises (and might then disappear) at the sight of another person. We examine skills around communication, compromise, tolerance, self-understanding and humour.
This class considers our individual ‘communication styles’, asks where they come from and analyses their successes and failures. We look at why we argue and how we can argue better, which means not necessarily ‘winning’ (relationships aren’t games of chess), but gaining understanding and trust. We ask just how honest we should be with our partners, and how we can put more humanity into our interactions.
We consider how partners can learn to be together yet separate, and question whether we should seek to know our lover fully, or cultivate an appreciation of their occasional mystery and right to privacy. We practice the skills required to deepen connections, and look at ways to deal with conflict when communication breaks down. Finally, we study the art of intelligent disappointment, and consider how dreams of bliss can in fact be the enemies of long-term love.
Whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, this session will reveal the importance of what is said and unsaid in any intimate exchange. From everyday interactions that mask our deeper needs to the most intractable disagreements, the class offers ideas on how to say what we truly mean, hear what’s really being said, and defuse resentments before they become catastrophic.
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How to Move On from a Relationship
Why You Are Who You Are
Breaking up has always been ‘hard to do’, but there are particular challenges in our own times. Unlike previous generations, most of us will see the end of three or four highly significant relationships over our lifetimes. So whether we’re doing the leaving or being left, we will repeatedly experience a rollercoaster of painful and perhaps shameful emotions.
We assume our identities first and foremost because of our families. Family is what confers our sense of self, gives us our first idea of belonging, and tutors us – for good or ill – in how to relate to others. We are meant to love our families and be loved by them, but the reality is, of course, a great deal more complicated.
Psychotherapy and culture have given us a great deal of knowledge and insight into the process of breaking up. We offer a proper understanding of the process, its impact, its significance and the ways in which endings can lead to new and hopeful beginnings, rather than to despair and bitterness.
This is a class that teaches us to understand what emotional baggage we have inherited from our families, what patterns of love we have learnt from them, and what ideas about self-expression, sex or happiness we may have unwittingly picked up. Growing up properly involves fathoming where we have come from, in order that we can then decide what parts of our emotional legacy we’d like to accept or move on from.
This course helps participants navigate the emotional journey around separation. We consider the best way to end a relationship, to hear the news of a break-up, to find support, and to discover ways of reinterpreting and reviewing the past as a step towards the future.
The class helps us to probe our own family’s distinctive eccentricities and to see family life as a script which we can re-write in fresher and more liberating ways.
The class is not an occasion for practical (or indeed legal) advice. It is therapeutic forum for meaningful reflection and enlightened consolation.
How to Spend Time Alone Our societies are confused about solitude. The images of happiness conveyed by television and advertising often feature merry groups of friends, while being alone and being lonely are considered almost synonymous. But one in three of us in the OECD countries now lives alone, and this number is set to rise. We explore the distinction between solitude and loneliness. We ask just why being alone can sometimes feel so frightening, and what benefits there might be to overcoming these fears. We consider what we can learn from hermits and those who have actively retreated from the world. Above all, we ask if it’s really possible to be happy in partnerships, in friendships, at work or with family – if we can’t, first, also be happy by ourselves. This is a class about the lost, and yet highly valuable, art of solitude.
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SELF
How to Realise Your Potential
How to Stay Calm
We are, most of us, aware that not all of our potential is currently being mined. We have intuitions of possibilities – in our love lives, our careers and our ways of living – that we have yet to explore.
No one is calm all the time. Nor should we be; a touch of fear and adrenaline can be critical to our survival and effective performance. However, many of us will at times experience debilitating anxiety, or have a tendency to lose composure entirely.
This class looks into what potential really is: where and when our intuitions are correct, and where perhaps we should exercise greater caution in following sudden new ideas. We will consider how we might listen to what we could call our ‘deep selves’ in order to turn confused messages of ambition and distress into a plan for a more coherent and satisfying future. We explore blocks to creativity and our unconscious bias towards suffering. We learn that greater satisfaction is an aspiration that must be handled with immense patience, but that most of us truly do have enormous reserves of untapped possibilities, a realisation that is at once a little scary and properly exciting.
This class aims to help us achieve a state of calm that fits our lives and challenges. We begin with the writings of theologians and philosophers (Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich among them), who argued that anxiety is intrinsic to our existence, a natural response to freedom and the inevitability of death. We then explore two key relationships that it is within our power to improve – our relationship with the world, and our relationship with ourselves. We ask how we can achieve emotional well-being and overall calm in a world of insecurity and doubt. We follow Michel de Montaigne in his quest to learn how to ‘sleep on the pillow of doubt’. Above all, we discover how accepting the intrinsic role of anxiety in our lives can be a source of liberation and equanimity.
This class is CPD accredited.
How to Be Confident
How to Be Creative Einstein said that we’re all born geniuses – gently suggesting that a lot of us must therefore have been educated into mediocrity. We know from small children that there does indeed appear to be a native spark in them which too often dies out in adults. We are not naive about some of the good reasons why this is: adult responsibilities and duties are crucial. However, too often something of genuine importance has been lost, which can be usefully captured by the word ‘creativity.’ In this class, we wonder where creativity goes once childhood ends, and what we might do to recover the best and most useful aspects of it. The class employs a range of experiments to help us gain practical access to our latent creative selves. We discover how to boost a key ingredient of creativity: confidence. We explore why intuition, play and daydreaming are essential to innovation. We take an honest look at what motivation we need to sustain us, and examine ancient and modern wisdom on how to handle failure and setbacks – all in the name of unearthing our intelligent and mature creative potential.
The difference between success and failure often hangs on an almost humiliatingly small and elusive concept that standard education never touches: confidence. Confidence is the capacity to trust ourselves, others and the world – despite uncertainty and the presence of challenge. Importantly, our level of confidence is not impossible to shift, it is a skill that can be developed. We can all become more confident. This class takes a close look at confidence and asks us to nurture it over time. Drawing on psychology, philosophy, music and anthropology, we learn to identify when and why we lack confidence, and how to overcome moments of paralysis and acute anxiety. We ask what the difference is between confidence and arrogance, we find ways of handling the transition to being a more confident person, and reflect on how making ourselves more confident can be an enormous gift to others around us.
This class is CPD accredited.
This class is CPD accredited.
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How to Make Your Mind Up
How to Change the World
Life is full of decisions – what to eat, who to marry, which sofa, where to live... How can we distinguish the major from the minor? Or rather, can we be more honest with ourselves about how much control we really have? Can we ever know whether we’ve got it right? Or is thinking in terms of wrong and right part of the problem?
It is normal to harbour a wish to lead a meaningful life which has a beneficial impact on those around us. However grand it might sound, wanting to ‘change the world’ is a proper and mature ambition.
Whether you find yourself dithering in a romantic situation, or know you’re putting off an important choice at work, this class tackles the matter of making your mind up. When should you take your time, and when should you stop procrastinating and act? When should you seize control, and when should you acknowledge your anxiety and lean into discomfort? This is a class that takes apart our often unconscious decision-making styles and allows us to come to a clearer view of the biases in our minds that interfere with our ability to make optimal choices.
However, by a dispiriting law of inertia, we tend to remain passive, assuming that change cannot take place, or that we are not really the ones to instigate it. This cannot in reality be true; there are simply too many examples of everyday initiative to the contrary. Much has to do with learning where our own particular passion may lie – and how we might marry it to the needs of the world. In this class, we examine the psychological, cultural and social resistances we may encounter as we look to make a change. The class aims to provide inspiration, a healthy dose of realism, and the practical tools to make a realistic difference.
How to Fill the God-Shaped Hole
How to Have Better Conversations Good conversations are often slightly mysterious. When they happen, we find it hard to say quite how we got into them, and are left regretting the number of times in which we didn’t succeed in getting to the core of things with those around us. This is a class that asks what a good conversation is, and offers ideas on how to plot to get into them more reliably. We investigate the psychology and philosophy of conversation – what works and what often doesn’t – as well as the assumptions we make about other people that stifle mutual understanding and curiosity. We put the ideas we explore into practice, testing as we learn. The class constitutes an intelligent guide to how to move on from idle banter to emotionally and intellectually ambitious dialogues.
We live during a period of human history in which, perhaps for the first time, no single religion or philosophy dominates. It’s a plural world - and increasingly, in the OECD countries, also a secular one. We now have great freedom around religious practice, but while many of us feel little or no inclination to follow a particular religion, we are nonetheless conscious of what might be called ‘the God-shaped hole’. We are aware of gaps in our lives and societies that have been created by the absence of religions – without having any particular wish to return to religion in its traditional form. In this class, we consider our predicament, how thinkers have tried to fill the gap, and what lessons we might take from the faiths in order to live richer, more aware secular lives. We learn that not believing does not mean having no relationship with the fascinating and worthwhile aspects of religion.
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SELF
How to Face Death
How to Deal with Conflict
The Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus believed that the first task of philosophy is to help us to die. Montaigne agreed: ‘To philosophise is to learn to die’, he noted lyrically in his Essays.
We live in a world saturated with conflict. People are at odds about pretty much everything from when to order a taxi to the airport to whether there should there be a caliphate to the right way to cook lasagne. While disagreement can be civilised, interesting and productive, too often it is a source of misery.
Modern science has made extraordinary breakthroughs in extending life and reducing mortality. Nevertheless, death remains a certainty for all of us - one with which the medical profession is remarkably inept at dealing. The discourse around us death tends to focus always on prolonging life - but the real challenge is to learn to face the certain end with equanimity and calm. The earlier we start to practice for death – our own and those of our loved ones – the better. In this class, we guide you towards a wisdom around the inevitability of your death, distilled from the very best cultural ideas. We promote the notion of a good death and acquire ideas on how to mourn the loss of others with resilience and emotional strength.
How to Cope with Imperfection A little perfectionism can be a good thing, driving us to aim high and to get things just right. But too much perfectionism and we quickly become overwhelmed and lose confidence. So it’s crucial to be able to tolerate and even embrace imperfection at work, at home, and in relationships. This class focuses on finding the correct balance. We discuss what it feels like to suffer from the ills of perfectionism, and how counter-productive this impulse can be. We consider the causes of perfectionism in the modern world and in our personal histories. Then, we investigate how to be better, more effective perfectionists where it counts, and when to wisely surrender to imperfection.
This session helps us to disagree better. This doesn’t mean being right more often, rather having a better understanding of why we disagree, what’s at stake and how we can find ways to move forward. You’ll have the chance to interrogate your own beliefs and consider how to change your own mind. You’ll also explore other people’s perspectives. You’ll learn to be more persuasive, when to speak out and when to hold back with wisdom.
How to Connect with Nature For the first time ever, more than half of the world’s population live in cities. For the vast majority of human history, our environment has been predominantly natural, but now it is urban, and increasingly virtual. As we spend more and more of our lives interacting with technology, this class asks what nature means, why we need it, and how reclaiming our place in the natural world might help us be more fully human. Connecting with nature means more than simply getting a little fresh air. Rather, it entails reconsidering our individuality, and recalibrating our wider human and ecological relationships. We believe that a fuller connection with nature is an essential part of a good life, allowing us to temper envy and see ourselves from a proper perspective. This class traces the history of the separation between humans and nature and considers how reconnecting with the natural can provide a vital path to emotional health.
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How to Manage Stress At the level of our organs, we are creatures predisposed to stress. That we can’t sleep, feel weary, crazy or burdened by strange thoughts is not unusual or motive-less. It’s a logical outcome of, and a heavy price we all have to pay for, our astonishing psychological capacities. We tend to think of stress as originating in external factors. We have too much to do; not enough money; conflicting demands; time constraints and lack of control. In fact, the problem is larger and a great deal more fundamental. Beyond any specific thing we happen to be worrying about, we simply are anxious, in the basic makeup of our being. This doesn’t mean we can’t manage stress better. In this class you’ll learn to shun false cures for stress. You’ll become accurate in pinpointing the causes of your anxiety. You’ll tame your unhelpful inner voices – and internalise better alternatives. And you’ll discover how to spend time worrying about the things that really matter, rather than those that don’t.
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CULTURE
What is Art For?
What is Psychotherapy For?
When it comes to art, many people are strangely afraid to ask too directly what it might all be for. We flock to museums and galleries like never before, and art’s cultural – and monetary – value has never been higher. Why then does it often leave us cold, baffled, disappointed, or just not knowing where or how to start? We fear not understanding what it’s about, or being found wanting when so many people seem ‘in the know.’
Being human isn’t easy. We have only flawed role models, our defence mechanisms prevent us from dealing with reality, and the relationships that matter are the ones most likely to hurt us.
In this class, we learn how to use art as it should be used: as a source of support and encouragement for our better selves. We approach art through a profoundly utilitarian lens, exploring the ways art can speak to the human condition, and go beyond entertainment to offer us consolation and nourishment through the real challenges of our lives.
Psychotherapy is too often considered the preserve of the depressed or mentally unwell. In fact, it is the study of the vulnerabilities and irrational urges that are common to us all. In this class, we explore five key thinkers and how their ideas have shaped the field of psychotherapy. We put some of their ideas into practice in a range of interactive exercises, and explore how their wisdom can help us with our most tenacious sorrows.
What is Literature For?
What is Philosophy For? From a distance, philosophy seems weird, irrelevant, boring – and yet also a little intriguing. But what are philosophers really for? The answer is contained in the word ‘philosophy’ itself: in Ancient Greek, philo means love and sophia means wisdom. Philosophers are people who are devoted to wisdom, and being wise means attempting to live – and die – well. In the pursuit of wisdom, philosophers have developed a very specific skill set: they have over the centuries become experts in many of the things that make people not very wise. This class leads you through five key philosophers and movements. Each offers advice to help us to target the points in our lives where unwisdom bites. From how to ask the right questions, to how to deal with frustration, to how to be free, we look at Western philosophy from an appropriately practical point of view.
Why should we spend our time shut away reading novels and poems when, out there in the world, big things are going on? We tend to treat literature as a distraction, an entertainment, as something to pass time on the beach. But it’s far more than that: literature deserves its prestige for one reason above all others: because it’s a tool to help us live and die with a little more wisdom, goodness and sanity. This session will lead you through five key writers from across the ages, and consider how their ideas can help us to pay attention, be nicer, endure loneliness and embrace failure. We consider which books have provided consolation or inspiration in the past, and which we can turn to in our own times of need.
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OTHER OFFERINGS
bIBLIOTHERAPY
SPECIAL EVENTS
Life’s too short for bad books – but with a new book published every 30 seconds, it can be hard to know where to start.
Each term The School of Life invite special guest speakers to deliver talks and sermons on the most pressing issues of our age, from the shape of the world to come to cultivating your own character.
In a consultation with one of our bibliotherapists, you’ll explore your relationship with books so far and be asked to explore new literary directions. Perhaps you’re looking for an author whose style you love so much you will want to devour every word they’ve ever written. Perhaps you’re about to trek across China and need to find ideal travel companions to download onto your kindle. Or you’re seeking a change in your life and want to hold the hand of people who’ve been there and done that already. You will be asked to complete a questionnaire in advance of the session. You’ll be given an instant prescription to take away and your full prescription will follow within a couple of days.
Ella Berthoud started reading on a journey from Tehran to London, on the parcel shelf of a Wolsey 1300 when she was five. She spent the next thirteen years reading books in inappropriate places. Ella first started talking about bibliotherapy with Susan Elderkin when they were at Cambridge together. Over the ensuing years they prescribed literature to their friends and family, while Ella worked as an artist and Susan wrote her own novels.
Our programme brings together leading writers, economists, historians, philosophers, psychologists and artists to offer provocation, inspiration, and consolation in the form of advice for living better. You will be invited to join us at a variety of locations across central London to hear from the great thinkers of our time.
FRIENDSHIP Lovers may come and go, work may carry us half way around the world, but friendship tends to be a point of stability in an otherwise changing world. As a Friend of The School of Life, you’ll nurture relationships with your fellow students outside the classroom at social events led by our own faculty and a host of special guests. You’ll also be entitled to a 10% discount on classes outside of the Core Curriculum.
Simona Lyons joined the team in 2010. She has spent as long as she can remember with her head in a book and spent over a decade running an independent bookshop in North London before becoming a bibliotherapist. She loves nothing more than matching the right book to the right person.
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HOW TO BOOK
CLASSES
VENUE
You can book onto the events that suit you via The Classroom section of our website or by contacting us at enrolment@theschooloflife.com or on +44 (0)207 833 1010.
All tutor consultations, cultural therapy sessions and Classes will take place at our London HQ at:
CONSULTATIONS Your one-to-one Life Coaching and Bibliotherapy sessions will be arranged with the individual therapist or tutor at a time that fits both your schedules. We can accommodate early morning sessions or evenings as well as weekend appointments.
The School of Life 70 Marchmont St London WC1N1AB
SHOP HOURS To take advantage of the Friends discount in our Marchmont Street shop, please visit between:
To book your consultations contact us at enrolment@theschooloflife.com or call +44 (0)207 833 1010.
Monday – Saturday 10.00 - 18.00
CERTIFICATES
The complete learning package costs ÂŁ1500.
When you have completed 15 classes within the 12 months you will be awarded our Certificate of Emotional Intelligence.
REFUNDS
PRICES
Please note that we are unable to offer refunds for this service.
the school of life
emotional education how to spend time alone
how to find a job you love
how to understand love
how to how to move communicate on from a better at relationship work
how to retire well
how to balance work with life
how to worry less about money
work
love
how to communicate better in love
how to make love last
how to realise your potential
how to think like an entrepreneur how to relate to your family
how to stay calm
mind
how to grow up
how to make a home
how to be confident
home
how to be a good parent
how to have better conversations how to be a better friend
how to connect with nature
how to make your mind up
how to be resilient how to make sense of politics
how to live in the city
how to make sense of the economy
how to make a difference
body how to sleep
how to exercise
travel as therapy
how to be good
meaning
how to dress
how to eat
community
how to face death
how to be creative
how to be a good leader
how to be successful
how to choose a partner
how to make sense of the media
gardening as therapy
art as therapy
culture
how to fill the god-shaped hole
philosophy as therapy
emotional intelligence the school of life
literature as therapy
YOUR EQ CERTIFICATE PROGRAMME JOURNEY work completed
How to Find a Job You Love How to Worry Less about Money How to Balance Work with Life Develop an Authentic Leadership Style Communicate Better at Work Cultivate Resilience Think like an Entrepreneur Be More Effective love
How Necessary is a Relationship How to Choose a Partner How to Make Love Last How to Communicate Better in Love How to Move on from a Relationship How to Spend Time Alone Why You Are Who You Are Self
How to Realise Your Potential How to Be Creative How to Stay Calm How to Be Confident How to Make Your Mind Up How to Have Better Conversations How to Change the World How to Fill the God-shaped Hole How to Face Death How to Connect with Nature How to Cope with Imperfection How to Deal with Conflict How to Manage Stress CULTURE
What is Art For? What is Philosophy For? What is Literature For? What is Psychotherapy For?
Certificate of Emotional IntelligencE
Congratulations! You have completed your programme and can now be awarded a Certificate of Emotional Intelligence.
This list is not exhaustive as new classes will be added throughout the year.
theschooloflife.com @theschooloflife