“There’s a huge difference between examining and dwelling,” says Lori Gottlieb, the LA-based psychotherapist behind The New York Times bestseller Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. Gottlieb—whose book interweaves the crises of her patients with her own reckoning with therapy—is decidedly against navel-gazing. Instead, she advocates therapy as a tool for personal progress. Likening her role of therapist to that of editor, she explains how she helps patients reshape their own narrative through self-examination. When someone comes to see you, what are you looking out for? I like to say that that I’m listening for the music under the lyrics. The lyrics are, “Here’s why I came today, ” and the music is, “What’s the underlying struggle or pattern that got you into this situation in the first place?” And that’s often what we end up working with. We all have blind spots and it’s really hard to see your own. Whatever those This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty-Four Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 39 Learn Lenience We were all young once. Arts & Culture Issue 39 Pay it Forward How to be a mentor. Arts & Culture Issue 39 Be Accountable On youth and responsibility. Arts & Culture Issue 39 Think Back A reexamination of nostalgia. Arts & Culture Issue 39 Grow Up In praise of aging. Arts & Culture Issue 38 Go Online Etiquette for making rituals digital.
