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A review by miak2
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Our training has taught us theories and tools and techniques, but whirring beneath our hard-earned expertise is the fact that we know just how hard it is to be a person. p. 7
As a psychology nerd (and also a human being), this book was a delight. That isn't to say that it was fun necessarily, because a lot of it was emotional and challenging. But Gottlieb mixed nerdy psych principles with touching stories and powerful takeaways. However, as helpful as these wisdoms were (the most powerful for me being that there's meaning even in things that I might prescribe as pointless, if those things bring me joy), the biggest takeaway is definitely that every can and would benefit from therapy. Because, after all, we're all dealing with things and there's no threshold of suffering that makes it acceptable to go to therapy.
Gottlieb's stories about her patients were really powerful. It was really special to see their individual growth as they progressed through therapy, and how, while their problems might not have been 'solved' (because many things in life can't be), they developed the tools to handle life's complications. I felt like I was developing relationships with them too - getting frustrated when they engaged in self-destructive habits, and cheering for them as they made positive changes or learned to accept what they couldn't change. Gottlieb's own experience with therapy was also insightful. It was comforting to peel back the curtain and see how an accomplished therapist also struggles with the experience of being human - how she was also irrational and angry and deflective at times. And how she, too, developed ways to cope with the help of her own therapist.
Overall, this was a really memorable book, and I know that many of her wisdoms will absolutely stick with me as I struggle through my own life.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Cancer, and Child death