The key ideas

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori Gottlieb, 2019

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist who listens to other people's pain every day. Then, out of nowhere, her boyfriend leaves her, and she ends up in the client's chair herself, across from a therapist named Wendell. This is an honest memoir told from both sides of the chair: we see her clients, and we see her own confusion. It is a book about how almost all of us carry pain we have never worked through, often without even noticing.

Who it is for

For anyone carrying something unspoken who is ready, at last, to look at it honestly. And for anyone curious about what happens on the other side of the therapist's chair.

By its nature, life is change, but by their nature, people resist change.

What the book is about

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist. Every day she listens to other people's pain. Then, out of nowhere, her boyfriend leaves her, and in tears she books a session with a therapist named Wendell. The expert on the human heart suddenly finds herself in the client's chair, just as lost as the people who come to her.

This memoir is told from both sides of the chair: psychotherapy seen through the eyes of the therapist and through the eyes of a bewildered client. While Gottlieb untangles her own life, the stories of her clients run alongside. John is a TV producer who thinks everyone around him is an idiot. Julie is a young woman who receives a grave diagnosis. Rita is nearly seventy and has given herself a deadline to change everything. Charlotte is tangled up in her relationships. The book shows something simple and uncomfortable: almost all of us walk through life carrying pain we have never worked through, often without even noticing. If you have opened it, you are ready to look at yourself honestly, and that is a rare kind of courage.

Idea 1. What we complain about is not what really hurts

People come into the office with a specific complaint: my partner doesn't listen, my boss picks on me, my son never calls. But Gottlieb notices that the real pain almost always hides deeper than the one spoken out loud. The complaint is what feels safe to say. The real thing is what is hard to admit even to yourself.

This happens because the surface problem is safer: you can talk about it without risking anything. Underneath it there is often the same feeling: nobody sees me, I don't matter, I am alone. The real pain usually hides deeper than the complaint.

The mistake is fixing the surface and getting angry that nothing changes. We do the dishes, we change jobs, and inside everything stays the same. How to use this: in Gottlieb's work, the first question is not “what happened” but “what is behind this”. Try asking it of yourself the next time something small gets under your skin.

Someone argues for the hundredth time about an unwashed mug. It looks like the mug is the problem. But listen closely and they are saying something else: I'm just as tired as you are, and you don't seem to notice. The mug is an excuse. The pain is that their effort seems to go unseen.

A complaint is a door, not a room. What matters is not what is said out loud, but what stands behind the words.

Read in Livria

About the author

Lori Gottlieb is an American psychotherapist and journalist who writes an advice column for The Atlantic. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone became an international bestseller and has been translated into dozens of languages.

All books by this author: Lori Gottlieb

Terms from the book

  • John
  • Freud
  • Resistance
  • remission
  • Insight
  • Charlotte
  • Memoir
  • Psychotherapy
  • Psychotherapist: A professional who helps a person make sense of their feelings, relationships and struggles through regular conversation.
  • Wendell: The therapist Gottlieb herself goes to as a client after her breakup.
  • Julie: Gottlieb's young client, a teacher who is diagnosed with an incurable illness.
  • Rita: Gottlieb's client, nearly seventy, who has given herself a deadline to change her life.
  • Repetition compulsion: Freud's idea: the pull to return again and again to what hurts us.
  • Existential: To do with the biggest questions of existence: the meaning of life, freedom, loneliness and death.
  • Idiot compassion: A Buddhist expression: a softness that spares a person instead of telling them the truth. It is an image from the book, not a scientific term.

All terms

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