Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

The “presenting problem” for the patient is a breakup. The man she was going to marry has suddenly announced that he does not see a future together, especially not one that includes the patient's 10 year old son. Patient is incredulous considering her son has always been a part of the relationship. Patient has a hard time focusing at work, has resorted to Google stalking her ex, and is eager to be validated in her opinion that said boyfriend is a world-class jerk.

Patient is also practicing psychotherapist and author Lori Gottlieb.

Finding herself sitting on “both sides” of the couch as a psychotherapist and patient she is given the opportunity to see how we can often sabotage our way to understanding and find ourselves locked into a path with no good options.

While dealing with her breakup she is also counselling a newlywed with cancer with little time left on the clock to an older retiree, divorced 3 times and estranged from her kids who is determined to end her life on her upcoming 70th birthday. There's the anxious 20 something that probably drinks too much and dates the wrong type of guys to the self-absorbed Hollywood asshole who is, in his own estimation, surrounded by idiots.

Gottlieb isn't trying to convince the masses that psychotherapy is the answer, she's not looking to make converts here. She's a natural storyteller and this is a lesson on hope, suffused with warmth and humour. How we all want so badly to be heard and to be liked by others but sometimes we need someone to help us reframe our story so that we can do the same for ourselves.