4.5 stars. Really touching stories of Gottlieb's patients, and Gottlieb's own story was just incredibly full of vulnerability. I learned a bit about the process of therapy, and a bit about myself. Fascinating.
emotional funny hopeful sad medium-paced
challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced
emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

If I didn’t have such a strict rating scale this would be up there but a 3 is pretty good for my rating. Smart, funny, superb interweaving of personal life and (consented) patient stories. Super read, highly recommend, especially if you’re in therapy or considering it — at the end, we’re all human trying our best.
dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

Slow at times but really enjoyable! Fascinating seeing the therapist’s perspective on sessions and their relationships with patients.
emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

This was a wonderfully written book. It is a non-fiction book, but reads like a novel. The concept of a therapist and her journey with her own therapy helps take away the stigma of therapy. I got quite a few nuggets that I will keep with me, like the importance of the difference between privacy and secrecy (which sounds simple, but is not) and this quote:
"We talk to ourselves more than we'll talk to any other person over the course of our lives but our words aren't always kind or true or helpful - or even respectful. Most of what we say to ourselves we'd never say to people we love or care about, like our friends or children. In therapy we learn to pay close attention to those voices in our heads so that we can learn a better way to communicate with ourselves."
emotional informative inspiring slow-paced