Name: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Rating: 4.425925925925926 (351 reviews)
ISBN: 9781799700562

Lori Gottlieb

Brittany Pressley

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

"From a New York Timesbest-selling writer, psychotherapist, and advice columnist, a brilliant and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world--where her patients are in crisis (and so is she)"--

A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Kinanti Desyanandini

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Having been in therapy myself for a few years, I loved the touching insights sprinkled amongst the anecdotes. <br /><br />I enjoyed the character progressions as they (including Lori herself) grew in therapy, facing beautifully, universally human issues.<br /><br />I took one star off only because the book was a tad longer than I expected — I inhaled the first half or so, but nonetheless, it’s still a great book and a lovely read.

Did not finish,,,,found this boring I wasn’t very interested in the author’s breakup (sorry) and it didn’t scratch the rare non-fiction itch I had.

Xiang

An honest and possibly awkward mirror of ourselves and loved ones. It encompasses a spectrum of emotions and guides our attention to ask the meaningful “para san ka bumabangon?” or in a language most will understand “what do you want to do with your one finite life?” 

Beautiful and brilliant. Highly recommend for all ages (and all stages of life.) 

pauline 

An honest and possibly awkward mirror of ourselves and loved ones. It encompasses a spectrum of emotions and guides our attention to ask the meaningful “para san ka bumabangon?” or in a language most will understand “what do you want to do with your one finite life?” 

Beautiful and brilliant. Highly recommend for all ages (and all stages of life.) 

Gelaine Trinidad

A psychotherapist who seeks therapy; this may seem like an oxymoron but Lori Gottlieb makes the argument that therapists are humans too so they should be allowed to show their humanity. "Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch." - James Baldwin.  Gottlieb finds herself battling an existential crisis triggered by a sudden breakup from a long-time boyfriend. Throughout the book, she slowly breaks down the layers of her problems to truly understand the root of it all ("The self-presenting problem isn’t the real problem"). There were many insights about why people seek therapy and how patients approach therapy from a clinician's perspective. 

Although therapists are one to vouch for "self-care", they also do the strenuous job of providing wise compassion—not idiot compassion—by allowing patients to break through those defense mechanisms and unravel hard truths about themselves for the sake of inner freedom/peace and deeper self-awareness. I was so glad when she discussed the stages of change and stressed the fact that it is a cyclic pattern. "Change and loss travel together. We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same." Moreover, "doing something prompts you to do something else, replacing a vicious cycle with a virtuous one. Most big transformations come about from hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible steps we can take along the way. A lot can happen in the space of a step."

She also talks about feelings versus numbness. People may be so overwhelmed with their feelings that they end up numbing themselves in the process. I found this quote so meaningful in how I approach those moments in my life: "between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." On the other hand, she makes the crucial contrast between pain and suffering. It is true that many individuals self-sabotage and use avoidance as a result of past traumas. In other cases, people continue to be in misery when they stop living in the present; instead, they mourn a future that has gone off-course or regret a past filled with mistakes. Gottlieb's experience with loss, mortality, and raison d'être is accompanied by stories of her patients' journeys. She trusts us with her patients' hidden lives and gives us the gift of knowledge and wisdom which her patients are lucky enough to experience first-hand.

the first half of the book was so good i had to return my e-copy and buy a physical one to annotate. a very helpful read for anyone who wants to understand themselves and the people around them. but this book has also convinced me that i could never be a therapist LOL. i think this could have been a few chapters shorter but overall a great reflective read

Ianna Chia

Aamna

Unsure if I would have appreciated this book as much had I read it 6 months ago. But I sure do appreciate it now.

Sveinbjörn Pálsson

An entertaining read, with helpful insights for anyone who’s ever sat on that couch, or may one day do so.

Ashley McFarland

"it's not that people want to get hurt again. it's that they want to master a situation in which they felt helpless as children." eye-opening read.

Joana da Silva

This is a book with a great meaning, and it's the only say I'll say about it. (If you read it, you'll understand.)

AN AMAZON BOOK OF THE YEAR Ever wonder what your therapist is really thinking? Now you can find out … Meet Lori Gottlieb, an insightful and compassionate therapist whose clients present with all kinds of problems. There’s the struggling new parents; the older woman who feels she has nothing to live for; the self-destructive young alcoholic; and the terminally ill 35-year-old newlywed. And there’s John, a narcissistic television producer, who frankly just seems to be a bit of a jerk. Over the course of a year, they all make progress. But Gottlieb is not just a therapist — she’s also a patient who's on a journey of her own. Interspersed with the stories of her clients are her own therapy sessions, as Gottlieb goes in search of the hidden roots of a devastating and life-changing event. Personal, revealing, funny, and wise, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone opens a rare window onto a world that is most often bound by secrecy, offering an illuminating tour of a profoundly private process.

the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist

This is a bit difficult for me. On one hand, this really is not my type of book. On another, it is clear that Gottlieb is both a very talented author and a very competent therapist. As she delved deeper into her own struggles and those of her patients, I found myself connecting and relating to them in spite of myself. There were several instances, in particular in the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the book, where I found myself tearing up.

Gottlieb knows how to yield the narrative to its ultimate effect and manages to blend insights from her practice with the very real examples of her patients' lives and emotional growth. Such insights sound not like platitudes - though a number of them are not uncommon - but instead wise and truthful. Her authorial voice is just that compassionate, the reader cannot help but respond empathetically.

As for myself, I found a bizarre comfort in her struggle with a conversion disorder. I have been going through a myriad of health issues for close to a year now and no test or examination has been able to find anything. It seems it is all stress-based and triggered by several extremely stressful situations I have been through this period. Hearing that I am not alone in this and that it is not debilitating was very encouraging for me.

This is, of course, only one small example of the many instances of guidance and advice to be found within the book. It is worth giving a chance.

This is a bit difficult for me. On one hand, this really is not my type of book. On another, it is clear that Gottlieb is both a very talented author and a very competent therapist. As she delved deeper into her own struggles and those of her patients, I found myself connecting and relating to them in spite of myself. There were several instances, in particular in the last 1/3 or 1/4 of the book, where I found myself tearing up.

Gottlieb knows how to yield the narrative to its ultimate effect and manages to blend insights from her practice with the very real examples of her patients' lives and emotional growth. Such insights sound not like platitudes - though a number of them are not uncommon - but instead wise and truthful. Her authorial voice is just that compassionate, the reader cannot help but respond empathetically.

As for myself, I found a bizarre comfort in her struggle with a conversion disorder. I have been going through a myriad of health issues for close to a year now and no test or examination has been able to find anything. It seems it is all stress-based and triggered by several extremely stressful situations I have been through this period. Hearing that I am not alone in this and that it is not debilitating was very encouraging for me.

This is, of course, only one small example of the many instances of guidance and advice to be found within the book. It is worth giving a chance.

AN AMAZONBOOK OF THE YEAR Ever wonder what your therapist is thinking? Now you can find out, as therapist and New York Timesbestselling author Lori Gottlieb takes us behind the scenes of her practice -- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she). When a personal crisis causes her world to come crashing down, Lori Gottlieb -- an experienced therapist with a thriving practice in Los Angeles -- is suddenly adrift. Enter Wendell, himself a veteran therapist with an unconventional style, whose sessions with Gottlieb will prove transformative for her. As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her own patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen who feels she has nothing to live for, and a self-destructive twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very questions she is bringing to Wendell. Taking place over one year, and beginning with the devastating event that lands her in Wendell's office, Maybe You Should Talk to Someoneoffers a rare and candid insight into a profession that is conventionally bound with rules and secrecy. Told with charm and compassion, vulnerability and humour, it's also the story of an incredible relationship between two therapists, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious inner lives, as well as our power to transform them.

Jamieson

I didn't really have many expectations going into this except that I had heard a few good things about it on Booktube. But it's a book I ended up telling everyone I know about as I was reading it. 

This follows Lori, a therapist who goes to therapy herself after her boyfriend breaks up with her and she finds herself unable to cope with it. What was supposed to be one or two emergency sessions leads into Lori discovering her grief over the break-up might have more root issues than she expected. Told partly as Lori goes through her therapy, and partly through the therapy of her own patients, this was a really unique and human memoir. 

I saw a few reviews saying they didn't get the point of this memoir but I think it didn't necessarily need a point. For me, it was just a really nice book that demystified therapy and attempted to show how every person has similar issues, struggles and fears and how even the most difficult of clients can find something of value in therapy. I thought it was a book about humanity and all the different shades of people, but how we are all connected to eachother through human relationships and interactions. The way the experiences of Lori's clients are mirrored with her own in therapy really drove home this idea for me. I also thought this was just a really interesting book about a therapy and how it actually works and some of the psychology behind it, and utilised by, therapists.

Anyway, overall I really liked this. I found myself super attached and invested in the stories of Lori's clients and I would genuinely describe this as illuminating. Both in how it illuminated the inner lives of people and the things all people have in common, but also in showing the process of therapy from a personal and meaningful standpoint.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Reviews

Highlights