Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: a look inside a therapy session and the emotional issues we all face

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb is the story of a therapist, her therapist and the answers we all look for in our lives are revealed. Ms. Gottlieb, a psychotherapist and national advice columnist, takes the readers into therapy sessions as she helps her patients find the reasons why when she realizes she needs those answers herself. After a devastating break-up, Gottlieb finds herself in the office of Wendell, a quirky but well-seasoned therapist, dressed in a cardigan and khakis; he seems to be the stereotypical therapist; she soon learns that he is anything but typical. Gottlieb opens the therapy doors and invites the readers into her world as a clinician and a patient, examining the truths and lies we tell ourselves and others as we walk the tightrope called Life. Battling questions of love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage and finally finding hope and change. What lessons can we learn from Ms. Gottlieb’s patients and her own experience in therapy? 

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone was highly recommended to me as a witty and honest look into the human experience. As Ms. Gottlieb presents her journey with patients and the road that leads her into therapy herself; it was easy to see people we have encountered in ourselves as well as our own questions and struggles. I enjoyed Ms. Gottlieb’s candor and openness when discussing the mental health of her patients and herself. There is a stigma around our emotional struggles. She makes the observation that we can easily talk about physical health, our sex lives (“or the lack thereof”), but we actively and purposefully avoid talking about mental health. Throughout each patient’s story, we learn the universality of what it means to be human as well as the power to transform our lives lies within each of us. I recommend Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. 

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is available in hardcover, paperback, eBook and audiobook