Lori Gottlieb

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.

A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

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)"--

Rutik 

In projection, a patient attributes his beliefs to another person; in projective identification, he sends them into another person. For instance, a man may feel angry at his boss at work, then come home and say to his spouse, “You seem angry.” He’s projecting, because the spouse isn’t angry. In projective identification, on the other hand, the man may feel angry at his boss, return home, and essentially insert his anger into his partner, actually making the partner feel angry. Projective identification is like tossing a hot potato to the other person. The man no longer has to feel his anger, since it’s now living inside his partner.

You take a risk, you fall down, and you get back up and do it all over again

We think we make bucket lists to ward off regret, but really they help us to ward off death. After all, the longer our bucket lists are, the more time we imagine we have left to accomplish everything on them. Cutting the list down, however, makes a tiny dent in our denial systems, forcing us to acknowledge a sobering truth: Life has a 100 percent mortality rate. Every single one of us will die, and most of us have no idea how or when that will happen. In fact, as each second passes, we’re all in the process of coming closer to our eventual deaths. As the saying goes, none of us will get out of here alive.

I hadn’t considered that if the only thing that keeps you going all day is knowing you’ll get to turn on the TV after dinner, you probably are depressed

Right now it’s all about one foot, then the other. That’s one thing I tell patients who are in the midst of crippling depression, the kind that makes them think, There’s the bathroom. It’s about five feet away. I see it, but I can’t get there. One foot, then the other. Don’t look at all five feet at once. Just take a step. And when you’ve taken that step, take one more. Eventually you’ll make it to the shower. And you’ll make it to tomorrow and next year too. One step. 

They may not be able to imagine their depression lifting anytime soon, but they don’t need to. Doing something prompts you to do something else, replacing a vicious cycle with a virtuous one. Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way. A lot can happen in the space of a step.

Kyler Phillips

You can have compassion without forgiving. There are many ways to move on, and pretending to feel a certain way isn’t one of them.

Steph Chez

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.

Grace Edwards

Therapy book recommended by my therapist roommate #amy

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

Macy

As a person who is currently going through her own struggles in what we call life, I didn't put this book down. I was able to ignore my own problems and submerge myself into other's peoples problems for once. But compared to other books is that you can actually learn and apply the thoughts into your own life struggles.

LOVE this book!! The perfect self-help book without really being a self-help book.

Okay… Taking my deep breathe since I wrote this right away after I finished the last chapter of this book. Huh, hah! I don’t know where I found this crossing on my page, I guess when I started to drown on memoir these days, so it suddenly was there and I immediately borrow the book. I am really into psychology book or simply, any media that can support and being a self-help for me and I assure you, this book is one of those God's little hand until I can feel safe all around.

I need help, I realized that I do, so I do many things in order to reach my peace. I believe in my head that no one can help and save me— no matter how our external circumstances, we only have choices about how to live our lives and that, regardless if what has happened, what we have lost, or how old we are. And this book… surprisingly was being the whole light to help me to save myself. I literally need to talk to someone, and I feel like Lori really talked with me throughout these pages. I keep reminding myself that to learn, learn, and learn.. Because no matter how small or big people’s experience, we wouldn’t be there unless them who have been through that situation until they can stand on their ground. She didn’t sugarcoat her words— this is one of the amazing thing I found in this book, it’s not a merely support system, but she guided us to find a inner string of the problem and how we overcome it. Maybe that’s how psychiatrists was taught and learnt for. 

Among all the patients or people that came across her life, I can very relate to Charlotte and Julie's situation. I keep finding myself that pathetically giggling, like, oh, it was literally a conversation of me and my therapist! Not forget to mention I eventually learned some of new psychology phrases and phases, my file was full of annotations and highlights. It is really informative for my own health— wether I can adapt it for myself, or helping people around me to come across all the same. Until I started to wonder that when I was almost on the last chapter of this book, I will definitely feel something lose in me.. I don’t want it end.. Just! Yet! I decided to find more memoir books right after since maybe this is what I need right now. I, genuinely, wish Lori Gottlieb a long live. 

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is a based different point of view you might see behind that closed doors. But what thing I amazed in here that— she wrote it accordingly and didn’t put any weigh in each words, so it didn’t affect the readers mood sour. If you need friends or simply, someone to read your unspoken thoughts without the need of revealing or peeling that layer of yours, this book was really made for you.

I try to wrap around this paradox: self-sabotage as a form of control. If I screw up my life, I can engineer my own death rather than have it to me. If I hide in fear instead of facing what’s wrong with my body, I can create a living death— but one where I call it the shots. 
A total solid 5 of 5 ⭐️

indri

just putting this here:

"Often, though, people carry around the belief that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational—which is to say, external. And if the problems are caused by everyone and everything else, by stuff out there, why should they bother to change themselves? Even if they decide to do things differently, won’t the rest of the world still be the same? It’s a reasonable argument. 

But that’s not how life generally works. Remember Sartre’s famous line “Hell is other people”? It’s true—the world is filled with difficult people (or, as John would have it, “idiots”). I’ll bet you could name five truly difficult people off the top of your head right now—some you assiduously avoid, others you would assiduously avoid if they didn’t share your last name. 

But sometimes—more often than we tend to realize—those difficult people are us. 

That’s right—sometimes hell is us. Sometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens.”

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.

Denaiir

This one was a mixed bag for me: overall I would say it was a good book, but it was waaaay too long and didn't get to the point, some parts seemed quite redundant. 
The parts with Lori Gootlieb's pateints were quite interesting to me, Julie being my favorite Sweet Baby Angel patient, and John my favorite Diamond in the Ruff, that you can't believe is such an asshole but then get quite attached to. I loved how the author took us readers on that journey. 

As for the parts where Gottlieb was talking about her, I was not that interested. Her career choices were quite original and it was actually quite uplifting to see that your calling can come to you later in life, which is always reassuring to us having a mind-numbing job. 

However, I am childfree and have strong feelings about children, and since I didn't agree with some of her life choices, I couldn't really be on board with the full story. I was so on the boyfriend's "side" from the start that the cards were stacked against her, so it was difficult to hear about her and her life choices. It wasn't that I wasn't interested, it was that I *really* didn't want to hear about that, because I don't give a shit at best, and I'm completely against her choices at worst. So basically, just know that a lot of this book is about being accomplished through your kids, so you might want to skip a few sections if you also don't care. 

Overall I would say an ok memoir but that needs some editing out, I actually got way better self-care or understanding of therapy through other memoirs by people who are not at all therapists, but just recounted their personal experience (among other things).

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

Sarah Schumacher

Couldn’t put this one down. Nonfiction that reads like fiction, with stories of several of her clients/composites she weaves in throughout her own story, her relationship with her own therapist, and occasional low key education on therapeutic practice here and there. For jumping around as much as it did, it flowed really well, but it’s definitely more of a memoir than I expected. That surprised me, because I saw it on so many recommended lists that tend toward the pop science self-help kind of stuff I tend to read, but I like memoirs so I was ok with that. This isn’t what you want if you’re looking for something practical.

I think it’s the title... it sounds like maybe you, the reader, should talk to someone, and here’s why therapy matters. In reality, she goes through a breakup and her friend says maybe she should talk to someone. Definitely memoir.

Even therapists need therapy, this book is very relatable as you’re taken on a journey of a therapist who’s just gone through a breakup and whilst trying to deal with her own health issues starts seeing a therapist too and sees life from the other side of the chair, all whilst she’s treating her own patients and trying to do her day job. 

This book pulls back the curtain of the commonly held belief that therapy is for weak or struggling people, but the truth is that we can all benefit from talking to someone that’s outside our life circle and that can be completely neutral. In a way, this book is a form of therapy.

We really connect with not only Lori but her patients and their stories and their lives, some heartbreaking, some funny and every emotion in between. 

My takeaways were that, often times we go to therapy seeking forgiveness and compassion from others whom have wronged us in the past but actually that comes from a place of self gratification, and rather the place where we should look is to forgive ourselves. Through good and bad experiences in life, experiencing a range of emotions and people and relationships helps to create something inside you that lives on.

In places, it’s slightly longwinded and could be shortened but overall I felt connected with the author and her stories, so 4.5 for me.

Even therapists need therapy, this book is very relatable as you’re taken on a journey of a therapist who’s just gone through a breakup and whilst trying to deal with her own health issues starts seeing a therapist too and sees life from the other side of the chair, all whilst she’s treating her own patients and trying to do her day job. 

This book pulls back the curtain of the commonly held belief that therapy is for weak or struggling people, but the truth is that we can all benefit from talking to someone that’s outside our life circle and that can be completely neutral. In a way, this book is a form of therapy.

We really connect with not only Lori but her patients and their stories and their lives, some heartbreaking, some funny and every emotion in between. 

My takeaways were that, often times we go to therapy seeking forgiveness and compassion from others whom have wronged us in the past but actually that comes from a place of self gratification, and rather the place where we should look is to forgive ourselves. Through good and bad experiences in life, experiencing a range of emotions and people and relationships helps to create something inside you that lives on.

In places, it’s slightly longwinded and could be shortened but overall I felt connected with the author and her stories, so 4.5 for me.

"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.

chloe ✩‧₊˚✧｡*ﾟ

✨human beings✨

3.5 stars not because it was bad but because it isn't something I would normally read (I'm a fiction kinda gal)

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.

Savindi Jinasena

The nature of life is change and the nature of people is to resist change.

In some ways I feel like I devoured this book and in some ways I feel like I need to go re-read some of the chapters to grasp them emotionally. I honestly cannot remember how I stumbled upon this book or Lori Gottlieb's "Dear Therapist" column in The Atlantic, which I'm a huge fan of. Either way I'm so glad I found this book. It's a book that is so human if that makes sense. The way we come to hate and love the stories of the people, how our hearts break as we see what happens to some of the people in this book. I didn't outright bawl, but there were times where I just had to put the book down because I could feel myself going into an emotional turmoil on behalf of the people in this book. 

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is a beautiful book, in it's execution and honesty. I appreciate the vulnerability Gottlieb displays, which are not only her own, but also her patients'. In some ways it helped to understand the human condition, how we can also be infuriating and loving to those around us, but how all of us carry baggage around and how it can spill intentionally or unintentionally into our lives outside a Therapy room. It also helped me understand my own patterns in therapy. The incorporation of psychological theory and insight into how therapy works, made me appreciate the process. But I really value how Gottlieb made therapists humans too, how they too encounter so many obstacles and triumphs in their own lives. I never left like I was being lectured to in this book and I liked that about it. I was a big fan of Lori's therapist Wendell. His insight, humility and sense of humour made me laugh, but it was also easy to appreciate how he helped Lori too. 

I really can't recommend this book enough. I don't think you need to go to Therapy to appreciate this book. I think the insight into how Therapy functions is extremely useful and it may help to understand ourselves better.

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.

celene

im not into non fiction but like,,,,, i enjoyed reading this memoir ab a therapist and her therapy sessions w her clients & and her therapy sessions w her therapist 😭,,,,, (my fave chaps were ab julie, john, & w her therapist 😭) the laughing-sobbing moments were worth the read,,,,

Midori Kobayashi

4/5 stars


There’s no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn’t be ranked, because pain is not a contest.

Non-fiction books are generally a miss for me but this book hit all the right spots. I know this was like the author's journal which they published later in life, but the stories are so poignant and I feel so invested plus I went through it as an audiobook [CANNOT RECOMMEND IT ENOUGH!!] the narrator has done a fantastic job in this one. It's almost like you are talking to the therapist face-to-face. In this book, the author explains and verbalizes what their thought process is, how they think and feel. And it resonated a lot with me. Some of the examples the narrator gives just gave me a reality check I didn't know I needed. 


Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.


I did take my sweet time reading this book because I didn't want to fly through it just for the sake of it. I enjoyed each and every chapter and almost treated it as a weekly session (haha). This part memoir, part self-help wisdom, and part psychotherapy primer is something I would suggest everyone give a go because you might end up realizing a lot of things about yourself/your behavior which you didn't know up until then. There are a few weak spots obviously, the author's personal storyline was not as strong (view spoiler)[(it felt absurd the sudden breakup and the likes) (hide spoiler)] but the other aspects more than made up for it. Highly recommend it, especially the audiobook!!



  Book Trigger Warnings- Alcoholism, Cancer, Car accident (past), Child death (past), Death of parent (past), Domestic violence (mentioned), Grief, Mental health, Miscarriage (mentioned), Profanity, Suicidal ideation

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

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