A review by wardenred
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb

challenging hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

 
What makes therapy challenging is that it requires people to see themselves in ways they normally choose not to. A therapist will hold up the mirror in the most compassionate way possible, but it’s up to the patient to take a good look at that reflection, to stare back at it and say, “Oh, isn’t that interesting! Now what?” instead of turning away.

This is definitely the sort of book that leaves a lasting impression. On one hand, I can't say I've learned anything profoundly new; I've been in therapy for a long time, and I've been interested in the matters of psychology and mental health since my late teens. On the other hand, there were plenty of little moments that made me reexamine the familiar things from brand-new angles and arrive to new conclusions. It was also really interesting to see therapy sessions unfold from the other side of the coach, and to see a therapist as a patient. 

I absolutely loved the way the narrative unfolded, too; how both Lori and her clients came in with relatively small-scale problems, for the most part, then dug deeper into the large-scale ones hiding underneath, and then arrived into proper existential crises—and figured out their paths through those, one way or another. The book is filled with relentless compassion, kindness, and humanity, and it left me with a strong reminder that if a problem doesn't seem solvable, perhaps you're solving the wrong problem. Or at the very least, perhaps there are other problems you can solve that will make the big central thing easier to live with and change your perception of it.

In a way, I picked up this book because I'm going through a hard time and I wanted more tools to figure out my pain and the methods of dealing with it. I can't say it worked—which isn't surprising, I was just reading a book about people whose problems aren't just like mine, I wasn't sitting in front of a therapist. But it definitely has given me more tools to poke at my pain with while I wait until I can afford therapy again. 
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