Atlantic "Dear Therapist" advice columnist Gottlieb (Marry Him) draws on diverse experiences from her many years as a psychotherapist to offer a guided tour of the therapeutic process from the viewpoint of both therapist and patient. After experiencing an emotional crisis, Gottlieb struggles to come to terms with her own feelings, even as she continues working with long-term patients whose stories she blends into the narrative of her own; their questioning, search for meaning, and desires, guilt, and exploration of mortality all strike home as the author shares bravely open discussions with her therapist. ­Gottlieb finds herself learning powerful lessons from her patients as they untangle their emotional challenges while learning to understand her own self-image and what it genuinely means to be human. While this work nicely bridges the gap between patient and therapist, professionals in the field are advised to stick with the more solid substance found in the approaches of Victor Frankl, Carl Jung, Albert Camus, or Friedrich Nietzsche. ­VERDICT Written with grace, humor, wisdom, and compassion, this heartwarming journey of self-discovery should ­appeal to fans of Mitch Alborn and Nicholas Sparks. [See Prepub Alert, 10/29/18.]-Dale Farris, Groves, TX © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Gottlieb (Marry Him) provides a sparkling and sometimes moving account of her work as a psychotherapist, with the twist that she is in therapy herself. Interspersing chapters about her experiences as a patient with others about her work, she explains, "We are mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting mirrors, showing one another what we can't yet see." By exploring her own struggles alongside those of her patients, Gottlieb simultaneously illuminates what it's like to be in and to give therapy. As she observes, "Everything we therapists do or say or feel as we sit with our patients is mediated by our histories; everything I've experienced will influence how I am in any given session at any given hour." From "John," a successful TV producer who has walled himself away from other people, to "Julie," who has a terminal illness and is struggling to find her way through her life's closing chapters, Gottlieb portrays her patients, as well as herself as a patient, with compassion, humor, and grace. For someone considering but hesitant to enter therapy, Gottlieb's thoughtful and compassionate work will calm anxieties about the process; for experienced therapists, it will provide an abundance of insights into their own work. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Therapists' private lives tend to take a backseat to their patients', but here Gottlieb (Marry Him, 2010) lifts the therapeutic veil and invites readers into her personal struggles of having a mystifying "wandering uterus" and a boyfriend who unceremoniously declares that he doesn't want to help raise her young child, let alone any other possible children. This would be interesting fodder enough, but Gottlieb plunges further into the psychological depths as she discloses how therapists keep each other honest by discussing their cases in an almost AA-like fashion. Additionally, she shares some of her clients' stories (anonymously, of course), like that of "Julie," who is dying and won't live past 35, or "Rita," who regrets not protecting her children from their alcoholic father. The coup de grace, though, is Gottlieb's vulnerability when she tackles her emotional issues in sessions with her own therapist. Some readers will know Gottlieb from her many TV appearances or her Dear Therapist column, but even for the uninitiated-to-Gottlieb, it won't take long to settle in with this compelling read.--Joan Curbow Copyright 2019 Booklist

APART FROM A brief flirtation with psychotherapy in my late 20 s, I had never really experienced any kind of intense psychotherapeutic treatment. Then came 2018, which I can best describe as my own personal annus horribilis. First there was a marriage therapist, who allowed my husband to vent for the entirety of every session, despite me at one point even raising my hand for permission to speak. Who knew a man could go on for 50 minutes about how annoying it is that I occasionally (O.K., often) leave my mail unopened on the front hall table for two days? And that I have three subscriptions to The New Yorker? The next marriage therapist cleared our chakras with crystal samurai swords, waved tuning forks in our ears and had us write love poems to each other. Which is hard to do when your husband is mad at you about your mail and the fact that you are "personally financially supporting The New Yorker magazine!" Then there was the trauma therapist, who prescribed eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to get over a couple of disturbing past events (too much to go into there). And the Jungian therapist who urged me to write down my dreams and make them become reality. Miraculously, one night I had a dream about a red zebra-print jumpsuit and the next morning I got an email from Neiman Marcus reporting that a Dolce & Gabbana zebra print jumpsuit was on sale. In my size! So it was a perfect time for me to read Lori Gottlieb's "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone," an irresistibly candid and addicting memoir about psychotherapeutic practice as experienced by both the clinician and the patient. One day, Gottlieb is a perfectly happy psychotherapist in Los Angeles, the mother of a young son, madly in love with the man who wants to marry her. Who suddenly breaks things off because - out of nowhere - he has decided he doesn't want to spend the next 10 years with a child under his roof. (Specifically, he doesn't want to have to pay attention to her son's Lego creations. What a jerk.) And, voila, Gottlieb has what's known in the trade as her "presenting problem," the issue that gets you into therapy in the first place, but which is really just the touchstone for what are probably many more deeply embedded issues. Therapy, she writes, "elicits odd reactions because, in a way, it's like pornography. Both involve a kind of nudity. Both have the potential to thrill. And both have millions of users, most of whom keep their use private." Her book does feel deeply, almost creepily, voyeuristic. (In an author's note, she reports that she got written permission from her patients to write about them and went to great lengths to disguise their identities, sometimes conflating several individuals into one.) Gottlieb explores her patients' inner demons - a young newlywed diagnosed with terminal cancer, an older woman who finds life meaningless and intends to commit suicide on her next birthday, a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a woman stuck in a cycle of alcoholism and damaging relationships - and simultaneously peers into her own psyche with Wendell, a middle-aged, cardigan-sporting psychotherapist. John, the producer, comes in complaining that he's surrounded by idiots - at home, at work - but eventually reveals that he's still grieving over the death of his young son years ago. Julie, the dying young woman, chooses to spend her last months working as a cashier at Trader Joe's, where she feels more joy than at her tenure-track university job. Gottlieb herself reveals that she's Google-stalking her ex-boyfriend. "Therapists talk a lot about how the past informs the present," she writes, and changing your relationship to the past is "a staple of therapy. But we talk far less about how our relationship to the future informs the present too." But "when the present falls apart, so does the future we had associated with it. And having the future taken away is the mother of all plot twists." Gottlieb knows her plot twists. Before she trained as a therapist, she worked as a writer for TV shows like "ER." She's also the author of the Dear Therapist column in The Atlantic magazine. "I've always been drawn to stories," she confesses, "not just what happens but how the story is told." In showing us how patients reveal just a part of their selves, she gives us a dizzily satisfying collage of narratives, a kind of ensemble soap opera set in the already soap operatic world of Los Angeles. (The book is now being developed as a series with Eva Longoria for ABC.) Gottlieb can be judgmental and obsessive, but she's authentic, even raw, about herself and her patients. One young woman, Becca, complains about her lackluster social life, yet lacks any curiosity about herself - or even much willingness to think with any depth about why the people at work and her boyfriends eventually turn away from her. Gottlieb gets so bored and frustrated by their sessions she has to do jumping jacks and eat chocolate before each appointment to keep herself focused. And eventually Gottlieb "breaks up" with Becca. Poor Becca, rejected by all around her, including her therapist! That chapter sent me into a tailspin, worrying that the therapist I saw in my late 20s, who told me I was doing fine and probably didn't need to see her anymore, just found me too boring. After my traumatic year, I read Gottlieb's book with more than a critic's eye. At some point in our lives, we do have to let go of the fantasy of creating a better past, with the perpetual regret that brings, and forge on into the future. Memo to self: Cancel those two extra subscriptions to The New Yorker. ALEX KUCZYNSKI is the author of "Beauty Junkies."

A vivacious portrait of a therapist from both sides of the couch.With great empathy and compassion, psychotherapist and Atlantic columnist and contributing editor Gottlieb (Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough, 2010, etc.) chronicles the many problems facing the "struggling humans" in her stable of therapy patients. The intimate connection between patient and therapist established through the experience of psychic suffering forms the core of the memoir, as the author plumbs the multifaceted themes of belonging, emotional pain, and healing. "Therapistsdeal with the daily challenges of living just like everyone else.Our training has taught us theories and tools and techniques, but whirring beneath our hard-earned expertise is the fact that we know just how hard it is to be a person," she writes. Through Gottlieb's stories of her sessions with a wide array of clients, readers will identify with the author as both a mid-40s single mother and a perceptive, often humorous psychotherapist. In addition to its smooth, conversational tone and frank honesty, the book is also entertainingly voyeuristic, as readers get to eavesdrop on Gottlieb's therapy sessions with intriguing patients in all states of distress. She also includes tales of her appointments with her own therapist, whom she turned to in her time of personal crisis. Success stories sit alongside poignant profiles of a newly married cancer patient's desperation, a divorced woman with a stern ultimatum for her future, and women who seem stuck in a cycle of unchecked alcoholism or toxic relationships. These episodes afford Gottlieb time for insightful reflection and self-analysis, and she also imparts eye-opening insider details on how patients perceive their therapists and the many unscripted rules psychotherapists must live by, especially when spotted in public ("often when patients see our humanity, they leave us"). Throughout, the author puts a very human face on the delicate yet intensive process of psychotherapy while baring her own demons.Saturated with self-awareness and compassion, this is an irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.