|
| pages = 415
| isbn = 978-1-328-66205-7
| goodreads_rating = 4.34
| goodreads_rating_date = 6 November 2025
| website = [https://lorigottlieb.com/books/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone/ lorigottlieb.com]
}}
📘 '''''Maybe You Should Talk to Someone''''' is a 2019 memoir by psychotherapist {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}}, published by {{Tooltip|Houghton Mifflin Harcourt}}. <ref name="OCLC1054264731" /> It follows Gottlieb both as a clinician and a patient, alternating her own therapy with anonymized casework to demystify what happens in the consulting room. <ref name="PWReview2019">{{cite web |title=Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781328662057 |website=Publishers Weekly |publisher=PWxyz, LLC |date=25 March 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> The narrative is divided into four parts. and comprises 58 brief chapters in a candid, conversational style.<ref name="SchlowTOC2019" />{{cite Itweb comprises|title=Table 58of briefContents: chaptersMaybe andyou usesshould atalk candid,to conversationalsomeone register[LP] to|url=https://search.schlowlibrary.org/Record/446417/TOC blend|website=Schlow humorCentre withRegion clinicalLibrary insight.|publisher=Schlow Centre Region Library |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="WaPo2019Sheehan">{{cite news |last=Sheehan |first=Susan |title=What does your therapist really think of you? One doc bares it all in a new book. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/what-does-your-therapist-really-think-of-you-one-doc-bares-it-all-in-a-new-book/2019/04/19/a7b127dc-50c1-11e9-8d28-f5149e5a2fda_story.html |work=The Washington Post |date=19 April 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> The book debuted at #9 on the {{Tooltip|Publishers Weekly}} Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction list for the week of 15 April 2019, with 9,055 first-week print units. <ref name="PWBestsellers20190415">{{cite web |title=Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction — April 15, 2019 |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/nielsen/hardcovernonfiction/20190415.html |website=Publishers Weekly |publisher=PWxyz, LLC |date=15 April 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> {{Tooltip|TIME}} later named it one of the “100 Must-Read Books of 2019,” and the author reports over three million copies sold in 30+ languages. <ref name="Time2019">{{cite web |title=Maybe You Should Talk to Someone |url=https://time.com/collection/must-read-books-2019/5724582/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone/ |website=Time |publisher=Time USA, LLC |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="AuthorBio">{{cite web |title=About Lori Gottlieb |url=https://lorigottlieb.com/about/ |website=LoriGottlieb.com |publisher=Lori Gottlieb |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref>
== Chapter summary ==
''This outline follows the Thorndike Press large-print edition (2019), reproducing the book’s four-part table of contents.''<ref name="SchlowTOC2019">{{cite(I, webII, |title=TableIII, of Contents: Maybe you should talk to someone [LP] |url=https://searchIV).schlowlibrary.org/Record/446417/TOC |website=Schlow Centre Region Library |publisher=Schlow Centre Region Library |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> ''First U.S. hardcover edition: {{Tooltip|Houghton Mifflin Harcourt}} (2 April 2019), xi, 415 pages, ISBN 978-1-328-66205-7.''<ref name="OCLC1054264731">{{cite web |title=Maybe you should talk to someone : a therapist, her therapist, and our lives revealed |url=https://searchwww.worldcat.org/title/Maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone-%3A-a-therapist-her-therapist-and-our-lives-revealed/oclc/1054264731 |website=WorldCat.org |publisher=OCLC |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="Harper2019LOC2018042562">{{cite web |title=Library of Congress Catalog Record: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone |url=https://wwwlccn.harpercollinsloc.comgov/products/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone-lori-gottlieb2018042562 |website=HarperCollinsLibrary of Congress Online Catalog |publisher=HarperCollinsLibrary |date=2of April 2019Congress |access-date=276 OctoberNovember 2025}}</ref><ref name="SchlowTOC2019" />
=== I ===
🎁 '''16 – The whole package.''' After a breakup in her late thirties, the narrator decides to try for a baby on her own and starts scrolling sperm-donor sites a friend has emailed. A clinic contact named {{Tooltip|Kathleen}} calls about a returned batch of “product,” noting that one donor profile—her nickname for him is “young {{Tooltip|George Clooney}}”—won’t stay available long. The decision lands against an earlier disappointment at Urth, where a friend, {{Tooltip|Alex}}, had backed out of being her donor; this new option feels like a second chance rather than a consolation prize. Months later, after a baby shower dinner, her mother spots the real {{Tooltip|George Clooney}} at a nearby table, and the family shares a wry glance between the movie star and the expectant mother’s belly. A week after that sighting, she names her son Zachary Julian—{{Tooltip|ZJ}}—and the title phrase clicks into place as a description of a real child, not an idealized checklist. The chapter ties together the {{Tooltip|NBC}} era when {{Tooltip|George Clooney}} starred in {{Tooltip|ER}}, the clinic’s sales language, and the quieter rituals of becoming a parent. It also foreshadows the pain of {{Tooltip|Boyfriend}}’s later line—he can’t live with a kid under his roof—which echoes that earlier “no” and shows how hope and loss return in new forms. The through-line is relinquishing fantasies of a perfect package and embracing the messier, truer one that exists. Accepting reality over packaging is how love becomes durable rather than hypothetical. ''He is, as {{Tooltip|Kathleen}} might say, "the whole package."''
🗂️ '''17 – Without memory or desire.''' The chapter opens with {{Tooltip|Wilfred Bion}}’s mid-20th-century instruction for clinicians: enter each session without preloaded stories or agendas. Early in training, she tried this stance and found it humbling—more like attempting to emulate Oliver Sacks’s patient {{Tooltip|H.M.}} than a practical way to switch off memory on command. Now, as a patient, she wishes for the same grace: no memory of {{Tooltip|Boyfriend}}, no desire for {{Tooltip|Boyfriend}}. On a Wednesday morning she settles on {{Tooltip|Wendell}}’s couch, halfway between “position A” and “position B,” and plans to mention a copy of ''Divorce'' magazine she saw on the office reading pile, its bright yellow cover shouting a life she didn’t technically live. She imagines the subscribers heating up dinners for one and wonders whether a breakup can feel worse than divorce when there are only pleasant memories to counter grief. The session keeps returning her from narrative loops to the room—pillows adjusted, breath counted, feelings named as they crest. {{Tooltip|Wilfred Bion}}’s method becomes a patient’s practice: less prediction, more noticing; less argument with reality, more contact with it. Letting go of outcome makes space for the present, where hurt can move instead of calcify. ''In the mid-twentieth century, the British psychoanalyst Wilfred Bion posited that therapists should approach their patients 'without memory or desire'.''
=== II ===
🧘 '''34 – Just be.''' During her traineeship, a conversation with her hairstylist, {{Tooltip|Cory}}, becomes a small lesson in therapy: clients in his chair tell him everything, he says, and his only response is, “Just be.” She jokes about how useless that would sound in a clinical office, then starts to hear its wisdom as the week unfolds. In back-to-back sessions, advice lands like static, while simple presence helps people regulate enough to think and feel at the same time. The contrast sticks: the more she tries to fix, the more patients speed up; the more she listens, the more they settle. She notices how bodies cue the shift—breath slows, shoulders drop, a gaze steadies—long before any insight arrives. The phrase returns when she leaves {{Tooltip|Wendell}}’s office and catches herself rehearsing what to say next time instead of letting the last hour sink in. What began as a throwaway line from a stylist becomes a working stance: make room rather than make a point. The chapter shows how containment, not cleverness, moves therapy forward. Acceptance and attention change arousal states first; understanding follows, which is the book’s wider theme of contact over control.
❓ '''35 – Would you rather?.''' An afternoon with {{Tooltip|Julie}} opens like a grim parlor game: if treatment keeps taking pieces of her body and energy, what would she choose to keep, and for how long? She and her husband measure time in scans and semesters, weighing future hopes against what her oncologists can promise today. Naming the choices out loud—rather than pretending they don’t exist—turns dread into something that can be faced together. {{Tooltip|Julie}} tracks what still feels like her—work rhythms, a private joke, the glide of a grocery shift that lets her feel useful—and what the disease has tried to steal. The room gets very quiet when she pictures birthdays she might miss; it gets lively again when she lists what she can still give while she’s here. “Would you rather…?” stops being a riddle with right answers and becomes a way to state values with eyes open. Small, concrete plans replace fantasy bargaining. The heart of the chapter is value-based choice under constraint; clarifying what matters now loosens the grip of imagined futures. Facing limits does not erase hope—it redirects it into present-tense living, which is the memoir’s governing move.
🏎️ '''36 – The speed of want.''' In a clinic break room, interns swap hour counts and case notes while a supervisor shrugs at modern impatience: the speed of light has been replaced by the “speed of want.” Same-day scheduling, texting between sessions, and video visits promise frictionless care; the culture outside the office keeps asking therapy to feel the same. She recognizes the pull in herself too—refreshing an inbox after a difficult hour, wanting {{Tooltip|Wendell}} to give her a shortcut through grief. The cases on her roster show what quick fixes miss: symptom relief without change, insight without practice, or neat stories that won’t survive contact with real life. She experiments with pacing anyway—brief interventions here, psychoeducation there—and sees that technique helps only if the frame can hold discomfort long enough for it to metabolize. A line from her consultation group echoes: urgency is often anxiety in costume. When she slows sessions down, patients notice sensations, not just thoughts; choices appear that speed had blurred. The point isn’t to reject technology or tools but to resist letting them dictate tempo. Therapy works at human speed—attention, repetition, and earned trust—which is slower than want but faster than suffering when it finally moves.
💥 '''54 – Don't blow it.''' In {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}}’s {{Tooltip|Los Angeles}} office, {{Tooltip|Rita}} arrives with a gift wrapped in tissue paper—a hand-painted tissue-box cover that reads “RITA SAYS—DON’T BLOW IT,” a wink at the tears shed there and a pledge not to sabotage what’s finally growing. The hour threads through cases where closeness stirs panic: {{Tooltip|John}} folds his newly pedicured feet on the couch and, rather than deflect, lets grief show; {{Tooltip|Rita}} practices staying with tenderness instead of fleeing; {{Tooltip|Charlotte}} wavers at the doorway between impulse and care. {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} lays out a clinical distinction she’s seen during crises: some depressions expect to come through the tunnel; others insist the tunnel is all there is. Across sessions she points to a pattern—people push away what they need most when they fear being left—then helps patients name the moment before they bolt. The tissue-box motto becomes shorthand for a new stance: breathe, notice, choose. Small, specific trials—answer the text later, tell the truth sooner, let the compliment land—build tolerance for connection. By the end, “don’t blow it” shifts from a scold to an invitation to keep what matters. Self-protection can morph into self-sabotage; pausing inside the urge opens room for a different choice. ''Don’t blow it, girl.''
🎉 '''55 – It's my party and you'll cry if you want to.''' An email from {{Tooltip|Matt}} arrives with the subject line “It’s a party… wear black!”—{{Tooltip|Julie}}’s request for a “cry-your-eyes-out goodbye party.” {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} waits until her last patient leaves and then opens the invitation, which includes {{Tooltip|Julie}}’s note about wanting people to mourn together and maybe even meet one another. The room that weekend is packed with voices from all parts of {{Tooltip|Julie}}’s life; a banner reads “I STILL CHOOSE NEITHER,” and the napkins carry the title phrase. {{Tooltip|Matt}} speaks through tears about a book {{Tooltip|Julie}} left him—Thehim—''The Shortest Longest Romance—andRomance''—and reads the pages where she gives him permission to love again, even sketching playful “grief-girlfriend” profiles and, later, a serious one for the person he might end up with for good. He answers with a “dating profile for heaven,” exactly the blend of funny and raw {{Tooltip|Julie}} would have wanted. The ritual is public and intimate at once: shared weeping, shared laughter, and stories that keep the relationship alive. {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} stands at the back, letting the meaning of clinical words like “termination” be rewritten by the reality of love. Community turns private loss into collective care; permission to grieve and to love again lets the living carry on without erasing the dead. ''IT’S MY PARTY AND YOU’LL CRY IF YOU WANT TO!''
🙂 '''56 – Happiness is sometimes.''' {{Tooltip|John}} shows up with lunch and, because Rosie’s “danny” is sick and {{Tooltip|Margo}} is out of town, with Rosie balanced on his lap, her eyes trained on the takeout containers. He asks straight out if he’s an awful person and sits still while {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} answers without flattery or attack. The session tracks what’s changed since he first filled the room with contempt: fewer rants, more pauses, and room for sadness alongside jokes. He talks about {{Tooltip|Gabe}} without exploding and wonders if trying couples therapy might be worth it after all. When {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} reflects that feelings can coexist—joy and ache, relief and regret—he tests the words in his mouth and feels the tightness ease. A binary he’s clung to (happy or never happy) loosens into something human-sized. He leans back on the couch as if a gear has finally clicked. The chapter’s point is that resilience grows from emotional flexibility; the mechanism is allowing mixed states in real time, which makes “better” possible without pretending pain disappears. ''“Maybe happiness is sometimes,” he says, leaning back on the sofa.''
== Background & reception ==
🖋️ '''Author & writing'''. {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} is a practicing psychotherapist who also writes the {{Tooltip|Dear Therapist}} column and co-hosts the {{Tooltip|iHeart}} “{{Tooltip|Dear Therapists}}” podcast. <ref name="AtlanticDearTherapist">{{cite web |title=Dear Therapist |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/projects/dear-therapist/ |website=The Atlantic |publisher=The Atlantic |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="iHeartPodcast">{{cite web |title=Dear Therapists with Lori Gottlieb and Guy Winch |url=https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-dear-therapists-with-lori-68853191/ |website=iHeartRadio |publisher=iHeartMedia |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> The memoir grew out of her own course of therapy after a breakup and interweaves that experience with patients’ stories to explain core ideas of talk therapy in plain language. <ref name="KCUR2019">{{cite news |title=A Psychotherapist Goes To Therapy — And Gets A Taste Of Her Own Medicine |url=https://www.kcur.org/2019-04-01/a-psychotherapist-goes-to-therapy-and-gets-a-taste-of-her-own-medicine |work=KCUR (NPR) |date=1 April 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="PWReview2019" /> Structurally, she alternates her sessions with “{{Tooltip|Wendell}}” and case narratives; the U.S. hardcover is arranged in four parts and 58 concise chapters. <ref name="PWReview2019" /><ref name="SchlowTOC2019" /><ref name="WaPo2019Sheehan" /> In media interviews she emphasized permissions and the altering or combining of identifying details when portraying patients. <ref name="EW2019">{{cite news |last=Canfield |first=David |title=Lori Gottlieb’s ''Maybe You Should Talk to Someone'' will change the way you look at therapy — and life |url=https://ew.com/author-interviews/2019/04/04/lori-gottlieb-maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone/ |work=Entertainment Weekly |date=4 April 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> Critics frequently describe the voice as smooth, candid, and humane. <ref name="Kirkus2019">{{cite web |title=Maybe You Should Talk to Someone |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/lori-gottlieb/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone/ |website=Kirkus Reviews |publisher=Kirkus Media |date=2 February 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref>
📈 '''Commercial reception'''. The book debuted at #9 on {{Tooltip|Publishers Weekly}}’s Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction (week of 15 April 2019), selling 9,055 print units, and remained a presence on later lists (e.g., #13 on 8 July 2019). <ref name="PWBestsellers20190415" /><ref name="PWBestsellers20190708">{{cite web |title=Hardcover Frontlist Nonfiction — July 8, 2019 |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/nielsen/HardcoverNonfiction/20190708.html |website=Publishers Weekly |publisher=PWxyz, LLC |date=8 July 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> It also appeared on the American Booksellers Association’s Indie Bestseller lists in April 2019. <ref name="Indie20190417">{{cite web |title=Indie Bestseller Lists: April 17, 2019 |url=https://www.bookweb.org/indie-bestseller-lists/april-17-2019 |website=American Booksellers Association |publisher=ABA |date=17 April 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> {{Tooltip|TIME}} named it one of the “100 Must-Read Books of 2019.” <ref name="Time2019" /> According to the author’s official bio, it has sold over three million copies and been translated into more than 30 languages. <ref name="AuthorBio" />
👍 '''Praise'''. ''{{Tooltip|Kirkus Reviews}}'' gave the book a starred review, calling it “an irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition” and “a vivacious portrait of a therapist from both sides of the couch.” <ref name="Kirkus2019" /> {{Tooltip|Publishers Weekly}} praised its “sparkling and sometimes moving” account and noted its usefulness for both prospective clients and experienced therapists. <ref name="PWReview2019" /> {{Tooltip|The Washington Post}} highlighted the book’s momentum and the “joy” of watching patients’ and therapist’s emotions evolve over time. <ref name="WaPo2019Sheehan" /> The ''{{Tooltip|New Statesman}}'' described it as an “accessible, informal and very personal” therapy memoir. <ref name="NewStatesman2019">{{cite news |title=Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is a warm, engaging therapy memoir |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2019/06/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone-lori-gottlieb-review |work=New Statesman |date=26 June 2019 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref>
👎 '''Criticism'''. In ''{{Tooltip|The Washington Post}}'', Susan Sheehan faulted passages for “psychobabble,” jargon, and overuse of expletives while acknowledging the book’s narrative pull. <ref name="WaPo2019Sheehan" /> Kirkus’s description of the reading experience as “entertainingly voyeuristic” underscored concerns some readers may have about boundaries when real clinical material is rendered for a general audience. <ref name="Kirkus2019" /> ''Entertainment Weekly'' raised ethical questions about confidentiality; Gottlieb responded that patient permissions were obtained and details altered or combined—an exchange that reflects ongoing debates about therapist memoirs. <ref name="EW2019" />
🌍 '''Impact & adoption'''. {{Tooltip|ABC}} put a scripted TV drama based on the book into development with Eva Longoria and Maggie Friedman, a project the author continues to note on her site. <ref name="Deadline2018">{{cite news |last=Andreeva |first=Nellie |title=ABC Nabs 'Maybe You Should Talk To Someone' Therapist Drama From Maggie Friedman & Eva Longoria Based On Book |url=https://deadline.com/2018/10/abc-maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone-drama-maggie-friedman-eva-longoria-lori-gottlieb-1202493162/ |work=Deadline |date=31 October 2018 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="AuthorSiteTV">{{cite web |title=Maybe You Should Talk to Someone |url=https://lorigottlieb.com/books/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone/ |website=LoriGottlieb.com |publisher=Lori Gottlieb |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref> Public-facing programs and media have featured the book and its themes, including a {{Tooltip|PBS}} “{{Tooltip|A Word on Words}}” segment (2020) and library author-talk events. <ref name="PBS2020">{{cite web |title=Maybe You Should Talk to Someone |url=https://www.pbs.org/video/maybe-you-should-talk-to-someone-lori-gottlieb-npt-92ofcg/ |website=NPT / PBS |publisher=Nashville Public Television |date=10 June 2020 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref><ref name="SalinasLibrary2024">{{cite web |title=Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: Examining the Truths and Fictions We Tell Ourselves — Author Talk with Lori Gottlieb |url=https://libraryc.org/salinaspubliclibrary/58216 |website=Salinas Public Library |publisher=City of Salinas |date=22 October 2024 |access-date=27 October 2025}}</ref>
== Related content & more ==
=== YouTube videos ===
{{Youtube thumbnail | tIlGCRTgmg8 | Review of ''Maybe You Should Talk to Someone'' (13 min)}}
{{Youtube thumbnail | fQIg6KBfqic | {{Tooltip|Lori Gottlieb}} talk (44 min)}}
=== CapSach articles ===
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