Sometimes chocolate is better than a therapist.
28
@Dalgliesh
Seriously. A day without chocolate is, well, just a day.
21
I don't understand why it's not a violation of patient confidentiality to use patients' lives and stories in a book and especially in a TV series likely to be seen by far more people than will see the book. Even though the names have presumably been changed and the stories reworked, whatever was quirky or interesting enough about them to make them worth including in the book may well be recognizable by those people and by people who know them. There is something unacceptable about this.
73
A therapist writing about her patients for profit is nauseating. She should be censured. Saying she obtained approvals from her patients counts for jack since she is in a privileged position to request this. See Matt Lauer for reference—consent doesn’t make it right.
This will only keep those who need help from seeking it.
50
Psychotherapists bring their own baggage to the sessions. They control you with subtle remarks or grunts. People go into the field to figure out why they have issues. Rehashing issues for years is going to deplete your bank account, but little else. The patient who was dismissed because the therapist was bored was lucky. She didn't have to spend more money on a self centered therapist who wan't going to help her anyway.
31
I’m almost finished with this book. It is quite well written and very insightful.
I can’t say the same for this review. It is lacking in attention to detail in some ways and provides too much in others.
The book clearly explains that the author’s partner did not just decide out of nowhere that he did not want to raise another children. The message was there all along but neither party paid any attention until the point of the breakup. The author’s journey into therapy clearly shows this.
Why would this reviewer tell us what happened with each patient in the book? This is the same as blurting out movie spoilers. Each of the author’s client stories are an important part of the book and she builds them up as she goes along - deliberately not telling the end until, well, the end. There is a reason for that.
Even with the stories revealed in this review, I still highly recommend this book.
72
Probably should ignore the entertainment write as a therapist. Treat the book as fiction or perhaps just as voyeurism....not as anything substantial. Really, could it get much shallower?
15
Therapist here. I can totally relate to the chocolates and jumping jacks. This sounds like a refreshingly honest take on my world, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
18
@Raechel McGhee, several years ago I attended a presentation by a very well-known therapist (and book author) who specialized in (and wrote about) marriage relationships. He was still a practicing marriage therapist at the time, but was very bitter, and he seemed to be deeply burned out on people and their trivial or neurotic problems. He admitted to wanting to tell clients to stop picking at each other endlessly and let each other go so at least one of the two might find love with someone else.
Anyone who feels that way should not be a practicing therapist, in my opinion. They aren’t helping anyone. Just making money from the pain of others.
The most effective therapy I have found for my own marriage and personal issues is to listen to the problems of other people. Sometimes it’s good to remind myself that everyone has problems in their lives, and many have far more to deal with than I do. I try to be grateful for the good stuff. Not quite the “glad game,” but I think it’s healthier than being self absorbed.
37
Have to say that the best session in my therapy (kind of forced on me due to the EAP program I was in if I wanted to remain in compliance and the continued union backing) was when my therapist told me the reason for my being so mean towards those closes to me. It helps me cognitively today, and I feel encouraged to not align myself too closely with folks anymore, even though the philospher Cicero said a friend is like a second self. I tend to personalize big time. Because I could very well be the victim of their actions, which only causes me resentment(s) and retailiation. One thing though. I have a spouse, and brother can we go at it. But I like I say the cognitive nature of why I react the way I do in some situations is something I discovered in therapy.
8
Oh, I completely understand.
In my early thirties, I visited several times with a therapist.
But I never felt comfortable because I felt I had a duty to entertain, and make my problems as funny as possible.
If I didn't make my therapist laugh, during our session, I failed as a patient.
Needless to say, I am still neurotic and still with OCD.
36
The reviewer’s funny lead-in to this made me laugh, but it was not a happy laugh. I cannot count how many times I have have been told of marriage therapists who encourage the husband in a heterosexual marriage (often a charming narcissist, which is why the marriage is crumbling) to dominate and manipulate the sessions! This even happened to one of my relatives. Surely it is unprofessional for a therapist to take sides?
I read somewhere about an historic version of marriage therapy that must have been very effective. The couple was locked up together for a long period of time, and they either came out of the experience resolved to work things out together, or...not.
16
Why would anyone have three subscriptions to The New Yorker? One subscription for three people would be plenty.
6
@S. B., I take that as an example of a spouse weaponizing an example of his wife’s (minor, otherwise meaningless) flakiness or forgetfulness. The unopened mail is a similar theme. In spousal bickering the complaint is often not really about the thing being complained about. Maybe he was saying that her mind isn’t sufficiently centered on her marriage and home, and him?
It’s easier to nag at one’s spouse or partner about an inconsequential habit — leaving toothpaste globs in the sink, for instance — than it is to tell him to his face that he or she is falling short as a person.
20
Not wanting to raise another's child does not make you a jerk.
Good he figured that out before they married.
65
@Lisa, I think the “jerk” assessment had to do with the coldness and pettiness of the Lego comment. I agree with her on that. But as for a guy who gets deep into a serious relationship with a woman who has a child, and then decides he doesn’t want to marry a woman with a child? I have a few stinger words to describe that guy.
37