Writer producer of long-running TV series, Hollywood bigshot John cannot sleep through the night. Demeaning, pompous and mostly obnoxious, John believes, “Everyone is an idiot.” Though married with two children John sees his mistress once a week, a secret he, keeps from his wife.
Sixty-nine year old Rita is on the verge of suicide. None of her four children speak to her. Desperately lonely, Rita makes weekly appointments with her pedicurist for only one reason: “to have human touch.”
Julie is an upbeat, genial, young married woman. A cashier at Trader Joe’s, Julie has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Julie has begun to plan a party for friends to celebrate her life after her funeral.
Serendipitously all find some relief for their emotional anxiety with highly successful, seasoned psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb. Lauri treats each of her patients, “not as cases but as people.” Compassionate, empathetic, sensitive to their vulnerabilities, Gottlieb uses upbeat humor, professional savvy and full throttle support to guide her patients through dark moments.
But what happens when Gottlieb’s live in “Boyfriend” the man she hopes to marry boldly declares ‘I don’t want to live with a kid” and calls it quits. He doesn’t want to commit to raising Gottlieb’s eight-year-old son. Gottlieb, the confident therapist crumbles in pieces.
Blindsided by her boyfriend’s “bizarre, unethical, sociopathic” declaration, shatters her psychological strategy and demolishes every therapeutic tactic Lauri has employed with her clients. Discombobulated, feeling like a failure and “grieving” over her own breakup, Gottlieb avoids the well intentioned advice --- “you should sleep with somebody”--- as a sure fire cure for her depression.
Nor does stalking “Boyfriend” on the internet unspool her emotional tangles. When Gottlieb continues to experience distress over her breakup, and further overwhelmed by a “mysterious undiagnosed physical illness” her closest friend suggests, Maybe You Should Talk To Someone, the title of a fascinating memoir that brings into focus the personal journey into the heart and mind of a therapist who becomes a patient.
Gottlieb unabashedly describes her struggles to empower and control her life with the help of “old school” therapist Wendel. Lori moves beyond “self-defeating habits” and “blind spots” restoring her vitality where her future is not predicated on the past. Incisive, lucid illuminating and simultaneously humorous and humane, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is an unredacted plunge into the maelstrom of psychotherapy along with the thirty million Americans locked in the “emotional prison bars” of mental turmoil.
The memoir is a positive path that unravels difficult emotional knots --the loss of a child, the diagnosis of a terminal illness, an unexpected dissolution of a long relationship or how to cope with a pandemic. It provides hope, serenity a generous dollop of humor with useful information and guidance for the perplexed.
