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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nWhat drew me to this book is the curiosity: what a therapist’s profession is like, what it is like to attend therapy sessions, what problems people bring to their therapist, do people generally find the therapy approach useful, how quickly can people solve their problems and establish a new way of being, how does it fail and why, and many other general questions. I am very skeptical about therapy. I believe in learning in a full-rounded fashion: reading and writing, formal education and discussions, debates, physical activities, spending time with loved ones, meeting new people, developing new hobbies, trying new adventures, anything that generates positive energy, and keeps oneself mental and physically active. Therapy really does not sound appealing at all. But I desire to understand the importance of therapy for people who need or like it, and see the value of the field from others\u2019 perspectives. I am glad that I read this book. It allowed me to peak into that mysterious world through a small window.
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Would I consider therapy after reading this book? No, thanks. A very firm no and thanks. Would I recommend therapy to people around me? Maybe, it depends whether there is enough resources and support available from other channels, and self-resilience and so on. Frankly, it depends on the weather too! I need some rain.
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Would I recommend this book to you? Yes, a resounding yes. It helps me to understand people and the issues they deal with. Some people find it hard to cope with changes particularly the devastatingly bad ones; others adapt to changes quickly and let time work its magic; some think very light of playing a character in this lifelong drama; others take every step in life very seriously or somewhere inbetween. It is important that we see from other people\u2019s viewpoints, and find ways to accommodate and comfort others. Above all, the book is fun and easy to read.
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Enjoy your life, whether you choose to read this book or not. Take a break if needed. Always get back on stage. We are both the actors and the audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI know how affirming it feels to blame the outside world for my frustrations, to deny ownership of whatever role I might have in the existential play called My Incredibly Important Life. I know what it\u2019s like to bathe in self-righteous outrage, in the certainty that I\u2019m completely right and have been terribly wronged, because that\u2019s exactly how I\u2019ve felt all day.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI also know something less commonly understood: that change and loss travel together. We can\u2019t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nSometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nMost people are what therapists call \u201cunreliable narrators.\u201d That\u2019s not to say that they purposely mislead. It\u2019s more that every story has multiple threads, and they tend to leave out the strands that don\u2019t jibe with their perspectives.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI feel as though I\u2019m viewing this scene from above, watching a confused version of myself move at incredible speed through the famous stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cThe only way out is through.\u201d The only way to get to the other side of the tunnel is to go through it, not around it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Most big transformations come about from the hundreds of tiny, almost imperceptible, steps we take along the way.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI\u2019m ready, I think. One foot, then the other. I\u2019m going to be fine.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThere\u2019s nothing like illness to take away a sense of control, even if we often have less of it than we imagine. What people don\u2019t like to think about is that you can do everything right\u2014in life or in a treatment protocol\u2014and still get the short end of the stick. And when that happens, the only control you have is how you deal with that stick\u2014your way, not the way others say you should.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nYes, I\u2019m seeking objectivity, but only because I\u2019m convinced that objectivity will rule in my favor.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cthe therapeutic act, not the therapeutic word.\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nIn idiot compassion, you avoid rocking the boat to spare people\u2019s feelings, even though the boat needs rocking and your compassion ends up being more harmful than your honesty. People do this with teenagers, spouses, addicts, even themselves. Its opposite is wise compassion, which means caring about the person but also giving him or her a loving truth bomb when needed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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Before you speak, ask yourself, What is this going to feel like to the person I\u2019m speaking to?\u2009
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nPeople often mistake numbness for nothingness, but numbness isn\u2019t the absence of feelings; it\u2019s a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI once heard creativity described as being the ability to grasp the essence of one thing and the essence of some very different thing and smash them together to create some entirely new thing.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cYour feelings don\u2019t have to mesh with what you think they should be,\u201d he explained. \u201cThey\u2019ll be there regardless, so you might as well welcome them because they hold important clues.\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nHow many times had I said something similar to my own patients? But here I feel as if I\u2019m hearing this for the first time. Don\u2019t judge your feelings; notice them. Use them as your map. Don\u2019t be afraid of the truth.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe things we protest against the most are often the very things we need to look at.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nWendell explains that my pain feels like it\u2019s in the present, but it\u2019s actually in both the past and the future. Therapists talk a lot about how the past informs the present\u2014how our histories affect the ways we think, feel, and behave and how at some point in our lives, we have to let go of the fantasy of creating a better past. If we don\u2019t accept the notion that there\u2019s no redo, much as we try to get our parents or siblings or partners to fix what happened years ago, our pasts will keep us stuck. Changing our 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. Our notion of the future can be just as powerful a roadblock to change as our notion of the past.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nPeople tend to dream without doing, death remaining theoretical.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nLooking death in the eye would force them to live more fully\u2014not in the future, with some long list of goals, but right now.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nLife is the very definition of uncertainty.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nIn therapy we aim for self-compassion (Am I human?) versus self-esteem (a judgment: Am I good or bad?).
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cMost things worth doing are difficult,\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nHappiness equals reality minus expectations.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nSo many of our destructive behaviors take root in an emotional void, an emptiness that calls out for something to fill it.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nTherapists don\u2019t perform personality transplants; they just help to take the sharp edges off. A patient may become less reactive or critical, more open and able to let people in. In other words, therapy is about understanding the self that you are. But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself\u2014to let go of the limiting stories you\u2019ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren\u2019t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you\u2019ve been telling yourself about your life.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cNo problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe internet can be both a salve and an addiction, a way to block out pain (the salve) while simultaneously creating it (the addiction). When the cyber-drug wears off, you feel worse, not better. Patients think they want to know about their therapists, but often, once they find out, they wish they hadn\u2019t, because this knowledge has the potential to contaminate the relationship, leaving patients to edit, consciously or not, what they say in their sessions.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cI only know what I would do. I don\u2019t know what you should do,\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI try to wrap my mind around this paradox: self-sabotage as a form of control. If I screw up my life, I can engineer my own death rather than have it happen to me. If I stay in a doomed relationship, if I mess up my career, if I hide in fear instead of facing what\u2019s wrong with my body, I can create a living death\u2014but one where I call the shots.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThe four ultimate concerns are death, isolation, freedom, and meaninglessness.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cEverything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms\u2014to choose one\u2019s attitude in any given set of circumstances.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we give our minds space to wander, they take us to the most unexpected and interesting places.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nThere\u2019s no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn\u2019t be ranked, because pain is not a contest.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nYou can\u2019t get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can\u2019t change what you\u2019re denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seem like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\u201cEvery laugh and good time that comes my way feels ten times better than before I knew such sadness.\u201d
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nI believe in you. I can see possibilities that you might not see quite yet. I imagine that something different can happen, in some form or another. In therapy we say, Let\u2019s edit your story.
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nRelationships in life don\u2019t really end, even if you never see the person again. Every person you\u2019ve been close to lives on somewhere inside you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This book is written by Lori Gottlieb, with a subtitle: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed. My acquisition and reading of this book is a direct product of Amazon\u2019s ranking and recommendation system. It was presented to me, in the middle of my browser, with its eye-catching sub-title. This sub-title caught my attention … Continue reading Maybe You Should Talk to Someone<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paFL7T-mi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1382"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1385,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1382\/revisions\/1385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dongpingzhang.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}