Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Every year, nearly 30 million Americans sit on a therapist’s couch—and some of these patients are therapists. In her warm, wise, and boldly revealing new book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed, psychotherapist, national advice columnist, and bestselling author Lori Gottlieb, MA, tells us that her most significant credential is not her license or rigorous training, but that she knows what it’s like to be a person. With disarming candor, she welcomes us into her world, just as crisis has catapulted her into the office of a quirky but more seasoned psychologist. Ms. Gottlieb takes us on a journey from her therapist’s consultation room– where she struggles to uncover her blind spots–to her own, where her patients include a narcissistic Hollywood producer; a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness; a senior citizen threatening to end her life in a year if nothing changes; and a 20-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys, including one from the waiting room. Along the way, Ms. Gottlieb examines the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we find our path between desire and need, emptiness and meaning, guilt and redemption, loneliness and love.

Ms. Gottlieb interviewed by Alexandra Solomon, Ph.D., clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University and a licensed clinical psychologist at The Family Institute at Northwestern University.