Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
Lori Gottlieb
Mariner Books, 432 pages
In an effort to resist the stigma attached to mental health and counseling and therapy services, I will tell you that I’ve been seeing therapists off and on for the last six years. I am not embarrassed to admit my ongoing relationship with therapy; rather, I am proud of the steps I have taken to be the healthiest version of myself. Therapy has helped me to uncover false narratives that I’ve embraced over the years. These lies have worn away at my joy, my confidence, and my ability to fully embrace the people and world around me.
More than 30 million Americans partake in therapy sessions each year. Therapy has been a game-changer, even a life-changer, for many people. But why? Why is therapy so helpful to so many? Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, a mix of memoir, self-help, and more, addresses that question. Gottlieb is a therapist who guides us through the psychotherapeutic process, sharing insights from her own sessions with her therapist, as well as insights she’s gained from four clients. This warm, inspiring, vulnerable, and laugh-out-loud funny book demonstrates just how alike we all are, sharing joys and hardships with the rest of humanity. In fact, many of the questions and issues the author raises with her own therapist are the same ones she hears from her clients.
Throughout the book, Gottlieb chronicles the mysteries of being human, personal growth, and talk therapy from both sides of the chair (patient and therapist). She writes, “Therapists don’t perform personality transplants; they just help to take the sharp edges off. A patient may become less reactive or critical, more open and able to let people in. In other words, therapy is about understanding the self that you are. But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.”
So life is hard, but reflection and growth can make it easier. Human frailty and brokenness is a guarantee, but also guaranteed is that we can find beauty when we face that brokenness with courage and a willingness to grow. We are not powerless to change our lives. While Gottlieb does not write from a faith perspective, this book shows us what it looks like when we are receptive to the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.
Who is this book for? Well, everyone, to be honest. If you’ve felt emotions, experienced relationships, or wondered what’s wrong with you or how you can grow, this book is for you. This book will change how you view therapy and how you understand humanity.
As someone who has been deeply changed for the better by therapy, I can attest that the truths Gottlieb shares are just that: truths. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone will remind you that we are all humans afflicted by the problems of being human, namely pain, love, joy, and growth. We all want to be seen and understood, both by others and by ourselves, and whether we can admit it or not, we all ache for the wholeness God intended for us.
