Love wins would be a better title for Lori Gottlieb’s fine memoir about her life and work as a therapist. Of course, the title of the book is less important than what's inside and this memoir that tells the story of Lori Gottleib and her patients holds our attention from beginning to end. One of Lori’s patients, Julie, is dying of cancer. Each week Julie comes for therapy to help her come to terms with her death. We follow Julie in therapy from her first diagnosis of cancer to her quiet death and few readers will not take a few moments to sit back and think about loved ones they have lost and then cry with Lori and Julie. When Lori talks with Julie about what matters most she says to Julie, “Love wins.” This is exactly what Julie’s dad had said to her when discussing how families overcome the many problems that come along and how they survive them. Her dad says to his daughters, “Because at the end of the day, love wins. Always remember that girls.”
Love wins is at the center of everything Lori does. No, she’s not perfect and her memoir does not try to hide her own inadequacy as she faces the trials and tribulations of her own life. But Lori’s heart is in the right place and she knows that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eyes.” With one of her difficult patients, John, the award winning screen writer who thinks that everyone is an idiot, Lori is patient and loving and love wins. Lori listens to John with her heart and sees in the depths of his being the love that is hidden there that only needs someone like Lori to recognize and then help John find his way home to the person he was meant to be. With John we laugh at his outrageous banter, which Lori captures perfectly, but then cry when the banter is replaced by the truth of John’s inability to cope with the death of his beloved young son Gabe in an auto accident.
Now as I sit back for a moment and think about it, that’s what Lori’s book is about – laughter and tears, for that is what our life is – ups and downs, sickness and health, laughter and tears, and Lori has captured it all remarkably well. She is so skilled as a writer that we feel like she is talking to us and we can make conversation with her. I have written many reviews of English writer Anthony Trollope’s novels and I have said that Trollope, like Lori, draws us in to his world as he tells us about the predicaments his characters find themselves emeshed in, that “sweet flypaper of life” that Lori is caught in, but with help from her own therapist, Wendell, she extricates herself only to be caught again. But Lori has learned not to take herself too seriously. In her book we see her come to terms with her humanity. She knows that like her patients she often takes one step forward and two steps back. She says “all of us are trying our best to get out of our own way.”
Lori’s memoir is meant to be read slowly and savored, sitting back from time to time as we examine our own lives and try to figure out how to get out of our own way. Lori tells us what we already know, that no easy answers exist for anyone. Long ago the Buddha gave us his First Noble Truth: Suffering – life is full of suffering. But the Buddha, Jesus, and all the great teachers know what Lori has shown so well in her memoir, that in the end, love wins. If we hold on to that great truth we will have the strength to face the challenges that are a part of all our lives.
I wish Lori were here at my desk so that I could thank her in person for her wonderful book, but this review will have to do instead.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
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Customer reviews
An interesting journey with great advice
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2019
What happens when a therapist suffers a crisis she can't get past? She goes to a therapist herself of course – and just maybe finds a way to turn the ordeal into a bestseller.Gottlieb's wonderful relationship with her boyfriend came to an abrupt end when he announced he didn't want to spend the next 10 years with a kid under his roof (his kids had just left home, her son was 8, and they had plans to move in together). It rocked her world and she couldn't get past it.So she found a therapist, and slowly came to realize and work through some underlying issues triggered by the breakup. She takes us on that journey, and it's fascinating to watch how the layers peel back as she unravels the real problems and how she dealt with them.She alternates her story with that of four of her patients. For anyone who's gone to therapy or merely finds it fascinating, you'll relish this glimpse behind the curtain. You may even relate to some of the issues her patients confront and find it helpful to see how she guides them to a better place.Throughout it all, we also get a look at the typical kinds of problems people often experience, what therapists frequently encounter, and sometimes insight into how those issues are – or aren't – usually resolved.These stories at times are moving, heartbreaking, and even beautiful. This book is definitely worth a read – and worth spending some time reflecting on it's lessons once you finish.
Reviewed in the United States on October 6, 2019
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Top reviews from other countries
Surbhi Sinha
This is not a self help book, it's even better!
Reviewed in India on May 21, 2020
This is not a self help book, it's even better!
Reviewed in India on May 21, 2020
I started reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone to be a part of a read-along and participate in it’s discussions. Here’s a thing I've realized about read-along’s – while they’re really good for you to read through a book quickly and have in-depth conversations about them, sometimes it may pull you out of your depth and turns out that this one was a bit too ambitious for me. As I read the book it occurred to me that that's okay and I’m quite glad to have finished the book at my own pace. It’s also the first time that I was reading two books simultaneously and now I have come to know myself better and also understood why I am a mono-reader – it’s because I enjoy savoring the story of an entire book before I move on to the next.Reviewed in India on May 21, 2020
Despite what the title may suggest, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is NOT a self-help book. It isn’t a book where the author imposes their idea of something on you AND it definitely is NOT a book asking you to go see a therapist! It’s rather a memoir of the author and therapist – Lori Gottlieb. It’s a narrative about her sessions with her therapist along with the journey of some of her patient’s – an obnoxious TV show writer, an alcoholic, a dying newly wed and a 70 year old depressed artist.
This week is mental health awareness week and the title of the book subtly addresses the stigma around mental health, subtly suggesting that if you feel like you need help, there’s nothing wrong in asking for it. Who you ask that help from is entirely up to you.
There were many enlightening moments in the book for me. The emotions that one faces in life are quite similar to those faced by many other’s as well. We're different people but all human, different OS on similar hardware. At times, the questions and feelings expressed by each patient and Lori had me subconsciously acknowledging that emotion too or it had me asking the same questions to myself. Some times it would also feel as if the author was calling me out on some of my toxic behaviors too.
In my opinion, the book is not to convince anyone to go see a therapist; rather it’s to help us question and understand our own entire humanity through the author’s journey. As the patient’s progressed in their journey’s I too became more affirmed that whenever I do need help, I will always have an option, and more importantly the choice, to to ask for it – which to me seems like the secondary intent of this memoir. I could be wrong about all of this but what I really want to say is that after quite a prolonged period, I’ve found a profound read and I am giving it nothing less than 5 bookmarks!
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Anukriti chaturvedi
Engaging & Insightful. A must read to understand therapy better.
Reviewed in India on February 3, 2021
Engaging & Insightful. A must read to understand therapy better.
Reviewed in India on February 3, 2021
"Besides, aren't therapists, of all people, supposed to have their lives together?”Reviewed in India on February 3, 2021
As I turn the last page of the book, there's this sort of lightness in my chest and dampness on my face. I can't help smiling and ruminate about what a therapeutic experienced l'd.
As opposed to what pop culture might make us believe, therapy is not about just lying on the couch, spilling out everything to a therapist. Therapy is a process, an arduous journey. There needs to be an establishment of some sort of trust first and a therapist is not a vending machine, that they give an answer on the platter on Day 1.
Why are we so scared of discussing our mental state of mind, the invisible storm brewing in our heads but are quick to divulge our physical health issues and even sex lives? is what Lori starts of with.
Through the medium of her 4 clients, their lives and painful experiences, along with her own experience with therapy, Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist, weaves an utterly human narrative, peeling back layers in order to help her patients reach the deepest and darkest parts of themselves and the deep rooted insecurities, which they are too afraid to confront. She gently steers them in the right direction, making them make sense of their jumbled up thought processes, helping them overcome the obstacles and convincing them that their worth is not associated with the choices they've made. In this manner, she compels the readers to the same.
She gives us a glimpse into the nature of a therapist's workings, as well as what people perceive of her, teaching us a lot about compassion and empathy, not only with others but also ourselves, and making us understand our relationship with others around us. She also touches upon the topic of seeking therapy on the basis of gender, in a patriarchal society like ours.
It's an absolutely riveting and intimate book, eloquently put together, relatable and hilarious, making you either laugh out loud or chuckling ever so often and making you feel all sorts of emotions as you cheer for everyone in the book and is not at all preachy. She even touches upon a few disorders and common terms in therapy, explaining them quite succinctly and theories by certain scholars.
"As I heal inside, I'm also becoming more adept at healing others.”
In the end I would just like to say
You are valid
You matter
You are enough
You are appreciated and loved.
Whatever you are going through right now, will pass soon so just hang in there and keep fighting and going after things you want.
Please do seek help if you feel like.
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Sarah
Terrific read. Thought provoking. Humorous.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 11, 2019
