Animals Teach Us with Jeffrey Masson

Gentle Finds

Jeffrey Masson is the author of dozens of books, 12 of which have been bestsellers. He is a well known voice in the worlds of animal rights and veganism. In this episode we discuss his most recent book, Lost Companions:Reflections on the Death of Pets, as well as some of his other books on animal behavior and emotions including, When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals, The Pig Who Sang To the Moon, Raising the Peaceable Kingdom, and The Face On Your Plate.
With a history in psychoanalysis, Jeffrey has a way of chipping away at things to explore what's going on beneath the surface, and shows us through his research that animals have so much to teach us, if we would only take the time to open our eyes and hearts. Jeffrey pioneered the idea that animals are sentient beings. His scholarly approach to a subject which was for so long disregarded, helped to bring animal rights into the limelight. For any animal lover, Jeffrey's books are a comfort to read. In him, we can all find a kindred spirit.
While many of us know him for his work with animals, Jeffrey lived an entirely other life before entering the animal kingdom. Before his work with animals, Jeffrey received a PhD in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University, and then went on to complete a full clinical training program at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute. He became friends with Kurt Eissler, and Freud's daughter, Anna Freud, and was invited to be the Director of the Freud Archives. There, he discovered unpublished personal letters belonging to Freud, which stirred up a huge controversy in the psychoanalytic world. This portion of the interview has been removed from the audio version of the podcast but can be found at gentlefinds.com. For anyone interested in Freud, the women's MeToo movement, and the evolution of therapy, you don't want to miss Jeffrey's whole story.
You can find him at jeffreymasson.com

• The Freud backstory (available on the video interview at Gentlefinds.com)
• Deciding to study animals
• Animals and their capacity for emotions
• Born a vegetarian, now an 80 year old vegan
• Charlie Russell befriending wild bears
• Cesar Chavez and veganism
• Animals open our hearts
• Jimmy Stewart's poem: A dog named Bo
• Thoughts on hierarchy
• Raising the peaceable kingdom
• The pig who sang to the moon
• Eating animals
• Pigs are like dogs
• Lilou the therapy pig at SFO
• Christian the Lion
• Battle at Kruger

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