An Inside look at the therapeutic relationship Maybe you Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Maybe you Should Talk to Someone 

A Therapist, her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Lori Gottlieb

source: Libby app on Kindle

I found this memoir to be endearing, charming, and actually riveting. It kind of reminds me of my girl Liz. (Gilbert author of Eat, Pray, Love) in the style and in her humor. 

Reading this made me feel like I was having coffee with a best girlfriend and she was sharing funny anecdotes about her own life (and if a therapist could disclose info about her therapy sessions) which she does with caution (see initial disclaimer about her process in carefully selecting stories for this book.) Lori talks about her own life: from her decision to conceive a child by selecting a sperm donor, her sudden breakup with a fiancee, her early adulthood career explorations, and her quirky therapist who helped her through her grief. She offers snapshots of her work with several clients: a short-tempered tv producer who lost a child, a woman navigating cancer, and an older woman deciding if she wants to continue to live. The chapters kind of bounce back and forth between all these different stories which was pretty fun actually. 

There's nothing that fascinates me more than human beings which is I've concluded why I've always loved books, literature, analyzing myself, my family, history, anthropology, and of course psychology!

I've also experienced therapy (although not much.) I found it very fascinating to read this book which clues you in to the way a therapist thinks, the processes, some of the patterns that occur. It kind of reminded me of my years as a massage therapist in that you try to be really present with your client, and make sure that you're making the session about them (ie not talking about yourself too much or usually talking at all, steering conversations away from oneself, sharing personal information that might detract from the therapeutic relationship.) Also, it reminded me of how a one hour therapy session (massage or in this case psychology) can feel like a magical time capsule where you're in a liminal space that's not work, family, or some other compartment. If done well, it can feel liberating to take breaks from the roles that enjoyable as they are, can be taxing. 

Lori is extremely wise, so wise! Oh, can I say it's definitely also a midlife re-alignment book, because duh all the wisdom we older women accrue through all these bumps, bruises, and stuuufffff.... So I related to her in that sense. Also she had a circuitous route to her eventual career choice and reading that also connected with me. She was a journalist, a medical school student, eventually a psychologist, and still a writer, and not least of all a mother. 

She touches on the artistic process and how for her, it needed to be authentic and not just something that would sell or "make sense." 

There were a lot of moments in the book, where I would feel like "yes!" that resonates so deeply. One was when she talks about the hierarchy of pain and how it isn't really helpful. I actually undermine my own grief and pain constantly by comparing it to what I think are greater degrees of suffering and pain than what I experience. 

"Lori emphasizes that "there is no hierarchy of pain," meaning suffering should not be ranked or compared because it is not a contest. She argues that minimizing one's own, or others', emotional pain is destructive, as everyone’s experiences are valid and worthy of compassion.