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Unsure if this counts as nonfic or memoir, so erring on the side of no rating for personal memoir-ish content!

Will say that this book wasn’t at all what I was expecting it to be. I didn’t have much background on the book or author, and went in expecting nonfic a la Malcolm Gladwell. I was pleasantly surprised that it was a deeply personal approach to talking about therapy, with Lori Gottlieb talking not only about her practice and her patients, but also her own personal life journey to get to where she is (both as a practitioner and a person) and her own experiences in therapy while still being a therapist. It was an incredibly insightful read, and one that made me reconsider how I was approaching therapy, and thinking about my own therapy process and relationship.

I think what makes this book so unique and compelling is Gottlieb’s writing style - it’s warm and direct, and has a real gift for capturing the various personalities of her patients, family and friends, and colleagues. Even though I wouldn’t have expected it, her prior experience as a journalist and a tv writer makes total sense in her scheme of things. John, for example, was someone that I didn’t think I would really come to root for - he would just be another patient anecdote. But John (and every other patient, including herself) are flawed and emotional and complicated, but they do want change and to be better. Maybe (always), it takes time, some acceptance, and some pondering.

That being said, I will say that this book reads really white. It’s not a bad thing! I think it’s important to speak with your own voice, and it’s something Gottlieb does so well. But I do feel like there wasn’t a reckoning with privilege within therapy, with who gets to go and who doesn’t, how she sees the people she does, the stereotypes and boundaries that form our human understanding. Maybe this isn’t the book for this? But while I really enjoyed this book and related to many parts of it, there was never a time while reading it that I felt seen in my experience.

I feel really grateful to have read this book at this particular time in my life. I wonder if it’s a necessary book for most people to read, as we try to grapple with the grief of the past year and make our way back to normal. If mental health and therapy is going to be more normalized, it’ll be in ways like this, I think.