Reader Score
93%
93% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Good
Based on 8 reviews on
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
"Rarely have I read a book that challenged me to see myself in an entirely new light, and was at the same time laugh-out-loud funny and utterly absorbing."--Katie Couric
"This is a daring, delightful, and transformative book."--Arianna Huffington, Founder, Huffington Post and Founder & CEO, Thrive Global
"Wise, warm, smart, and funny. You must read this book."--Susan Cain, New York Times best-selling author of Quiet
From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world--where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose of-fice she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients' lives -- a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can't stop hooking up with the wrong guys -- she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is rev-olutionary in its candor, offering a deeply per-sonal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly reveal-ing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.
Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, which has sold over one million copies and is currently being adapted as a television series. In addition to her clinical practice, she is co-host of the popular "Dear Therapists" podcast and writes The Atlantic's "Dear Therapist" advice column. She is a sought-after expert in media such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, and NPR's "Fresh Air" and her TED Talk was one of the Top 10 Most Watched of the Year. She is the creator of the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Workbook: A Toolkit for Editing Your Story and Changing Your Life and the Maybe You Should Talk To Someone Journal: 52 Weekly Sessions to Transform Your Life. Learn more at LoriGottlieb.com or by following her on Instagram @lorigottlieb_author and Twitter @LoriGottlieb1.
"Authentic . . . raw . . . an irresistibly candid and addicting memoir about psychotherapeutic practice as experienced by both the clinician and the patient." -- New York Times
"[In the end, Gottlieb and her patients] are more aware--of themselves as people, of the choices they've made, and of the choices they could go on to make . . . It's exploration--genuinely wanting to learn answers to the question Why am I like this?, so that maybe, through better understanding of what you're doing, you figure out how to be who you want to become." -- Slate
"A no-holds-barred look at how therapy works." -- Parade
"Who could resist watching a therapist grapple with the same questions her patients have been asking her for years? Gottlieb, who writes the Atlantic's "Dear Therapist" column, brings searing honesty to her search for answers." -- Washington Post
"Reading it is like one long therapy session--and may be the gentle nudge you need to start seeing a therapist again IRL." -- Hello Giggles
"In her memoir, bestselling author, columnist, and therapist Lori Gottlieb explores her own issues -- and discovers just how similar they are to the problems of her clients." -- Bustle
"In prose that's conversational and funny yet deeply insightful, psychologist Lori Gottlieb is here to remind us that our therapists are people, too." -- Refinery 29
"The Atlantic's 'Dear Therapist' columnist offers a startlingly revealing tour of the therapist's life, examining her relationships with her patients, her own therapist, and various figures in her personal life." -- Entertainment Weekly, 20 New Books to Read in April
"Reads like a novel and reveals what really happens on both sides of the couch." -- Men's Health
"A most satisfying and illuminating read for psychotherapy patients, their therapists, and all the rest of us." -- New York Journal of Books
"[Maybe You Should Talk to Someone] explores the ups and downs of life with humor and grace." -- BookBub.com
"Both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, [Gottlieb] reveals how our stories form the core of our lives." -- Orange County Register
"In her compassionate and emotionally generous new book, Gottlieb . . . pulls back the curtain of a therapist's world....The result is a humane and empathetic exploration of six disparate characters struggling to take control of their lives as they journey back to happiness." -- ALA's Public Libraries Online
"[A] smart, hilarious, insightful book. Lori Gottlieb will have you laughing and crying as she breaks down the problems of her patients, her therapist and herself." -- Patch.com
"Saturated with self-awareness and compassion, this is an irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Written with grace, humor, wisdom, and compassion, this [is a] heartwarming journey of self-discovery." -- Library Journal
"The coup de grace is Gottlieb's vulnerability with her own therapist. Some readers will know Gottlieb from her many TV appearances or her 'Dear Therapist' column, but even for the uninitiated-to-Gottlieb, it won't take long to settle in with this compelling read." -- Booklist
"Sparkling . . . Gottlieb portrays her patients, as well as herself as a patient, with compassion, humor, and grace." -- Publishers Weekly