Come Closer: Childhood Wounds, Adult Love, and the Secrets of Emotional Intimacy

For readers of Irvin D. Yalom, Esther Perel, and Oliver Sacks, a profound and "deeply humane" (Meghan O'Rourke, bestselling author of The Invisible Kingdom) book by psychoanalyst and internationally bestselling author of Emotional Inheritance Dr. Galit Atlas that reveals how our childhood wounds hold the key to understanding our adult relationships.

What is the secret of emotional intimacy? How can understanding our childhood experiences give us the insights we need to be close to others in a truly satisfying, longer-lasting, and more meaningful way?

In Come Closer, Galit Atlas invites us inside the private lives of her patients--and into her own--to offer new, life-changing answers to these important questions. Atlas has identified six child archetypes--the frightened child, the melancholic child, the ashamed child, the invisible child, the guilty child, and the chosen child--and in these pages, she shows how each childhood wound plays out in our adult relationships.

In remarkably compelling and dramatic stories of both therapist and patient, Atlas illustrates how the child within us drives our love lives, forming patterns we repeat without awareness. Each narrative will have you on the edge of your seat, living the mystery alongside Atlas and her patients, uncovering roots, drawing parallels, and reaching insights and revelations, just as they do.

No one who reads this eye-opening and "stunning" (Ramani Durvasula, psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of It's Not You) book will ever see their relationships--or themselves--the same way again.

Author: Galit Atlas
Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Published: 09/29/2026
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.89lbs
Size: 8.46h x 5.77w x 1.15d
ISBN: 9781668067147


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 06/29/2026

About the Author
Dr. Galit Atlas is an internationally renowned psychoanalyst recognized for her rethinking of the place of sexuality and desire in contemporary theory and practice. She is on the faculty of the New York University postdoctoral program in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, and teaches at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. A leader in the field of relational psychoanalysis, Atlas teaches and lectures throughout the United States and internationally and is a recipient of the Gradiva Award, the Nautilus Book Award, and the NADTA Research Award. She is the author of Emotional Inheritance--an international bestseller--and Come Closer. Her work has been translated into twenty-nine languages.