Review: Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

Depending on who you ask, therapy can have a bad rap. People may tend to think that if you are “going to therapy”, you must have “major problems” or are depressed. The reality, as shown by Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, by Lori Gottlieb, is that therapy is not only hard on the therapists, but also an opportunity for the people going to therapy to dig into their psyche and do some work to help themselves.

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I bought this book because someone in my Facebook feed (thank you, Lucy!) posted a quote that hooked me as soon as I saw it. I came across this actual quote on page 6, and from that point on I couldn’t put the book down.

…change and loss travel together. We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change, but nonetheless stay exactly the same.

Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

It struck me hard: in the times in my life where I found change to be most challenging was because I was losing something. Whether it was the loss of my comfort zone, something I prided myself in being good at, the loss of my self-image, or the loss of something I was holding on to in order to make myself feel better. Loss doesn’t have to be something physical! Fear of loss is, at least in my case, what I find many times holding me back when it comes to accepting change wholeheartedly.

As I read through it, I found so many examples she discussed that seemed lifted right out of my own life. I was also excited to find parallels between what she wrote and some what I’ve posted about before, such as how to fail.

About the Author

In Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Lori Gottlieb shares a lot about her background. She started in the world of television production and went from there to med school to journalism. After which, she went back to school for clinical psychology and finally ended up in psychotherapy. She is fascinated with people’s stories – and it comes out in this book, where she uses her own thought-provoking story plus those of some of her patients. She draws a picture of human foibles and failings, successes, and not everything being a happy ending. In her own words, it’s about “how revising our well-worn stories helps us to move forward and heal.”

You can learn more about Ms. Gottlieb on her website.

The Use of Case Studies

You’ll find that Ms. Gottlieb uses case studies (both of her own situation and her patients’) to make her points. I found this fascinating, because I am always interested in having a sort of “sneak peek” into other peoples’ lives. Some of the characters in her story I railed against in my head (“what a jerk! How did she even put up with him?!). Some made me cry. Some made me wonder if she was actually peeking into my own head as she was writing.

As you can probably tell by now, she shares her own story with therapy in a way that inspired me. If you think therapy is only for people that are messed up or have major problems, this may change your mind. A therapist going to see another therapist? What business do they have providing therapy to someone else? The reality, as I came to learn through this book, is that therapy is not just for people with obvious problems. It’s for anyone that is maybe a little stuck. Maybe needs just a little help in getting over something, or digging deeper into why something is affecting them the way that it is.

More Quotes

My ebook copy of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is covered in highlights. Get ready, because I found major inspiration for posts! Here are some of my highlights that I found most impactful:

• “Will you see the human in my being?”
• “Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way.”
• “People often mistake numbness for nothingness, but numbness isn’t the absence of feelings; it’s a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings.”
• “But if I have to live in the present, I’ll have to accept the loss of my future.”
• “You can’t get through your pain by diminishing it.”
• “We talk to ourselves more than we’ll talk to any other person over the course of our lives but [those] 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.”

Wrap Up

I hope you take a chance and read this book, if you haven’t already. You can buy it at the affiliate link below. Alternatively, if you’d like to try winning a copy, Heather is kicking off a free giveaway today! You have from today through 9/4 to enter.

The link below allows you to purchase Maybe You’d Like to Talk to Someone on Amazon. Have a wonderful week!

Click here [affiliate link] to purchase a copy of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb!

Have you read “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone”? What did you think? Any additional findings or impressions? I’d love to hear your opinions. Share in comments!