Nevertheless

‘We meet ourselves time and again in a thousand disguises on the path of life.’

– Carl Jung.

When I came across the above quote that I had jotted down in my journal, I cannot get it out of my head. Certain sayings call out to you just as Books call out to you.

Whenever I feel unsettled, I find myself grappling for something to hold onto. If I can settle into a read, that helps to calm my nerves and even regain my centre. There are times when I cannot focus on any of my reads, I find myself surfing the net, reading stuff that catches my attention. When that happens I so do not want to think about how many virtual space hours I have spent. If I am not mindful about the time I spend on virtual space, I will never complete anything. I have taken to listening to podcasts when I drive because that helps me to get through the journey particularly when the traffic is heavy. Nevertheless there are times it is necessary to let the mind rest and simply focus on driving and getting to the destination.

I read several books at any given time, partly because I have too many reads to get through; some take longer to read than others. I am a glutton when come to reading, and alternate between literary fictions, memoirs, beach reads et cetera and also non-fictions intermittently. Whenever I finish reading a book, I take a breather to decompress and think about what the takeaways are and how I relate to the book.

A few months ago, I read Maybe you should talk to someone by Lori Gottlieb who is a psychotherapist. It is interesting to read about the therapist’s own experience in seeing another therapist when her boyfriend with whom she had made plans to marry broke up with her. When his teenagers are leaving for college soon, he realises that he does not want to wait another ten years for the nest to be empty hence the breakup. She describes her Boyfriend as an extraordinarily decent human being, kind , generous, smart thoughtful and funny. Her Boyfriend leaves love notes on her desk, holds her hand and open doors, and never complains about ‘ being dragged to family events because he genuinely enjoys hanging out with your relatives, even the nosy or elderly ones‘.

Gottlieb writes about the good half of her Boyfriend:

‘He will send you Amazon packages fully of books ( books being the euqivalent of flowers to you), and at night you’ll both curl up and read passages from them aloud to each other, pausing only to make out.’

According to her, he will remember more about her life than she will because he listens so attentively to the details of her day. But she comes with a kid. That is the deal-breaker. He did not want to date someone with a kid but he fell in love with her. When they went out on their first date, he was already told that she had a six-year-old. Now what?

Now Gottlieb is in pain. She talks to her oldest friend, Allison who now nicknames Boyfriend kid hater. She does not feel better after they have spent about twenty minutes bashing Boyfriend.Then she calls her friend, Jen who is also a therapist. She is crying so hard that if not for the caller ID , the friend will not know it is her.

Gottlieb knows she is not going to be fine, she needs therapy. She has learnt as a therapist that most people are unreliable narrators. ‘Every story has multiple threads, and they tend to leave out the strands that don’t jibe with their perspectives‘.

The author writes that as a therapist, ‘One of the most important steps in therapy is helping people take responsibility for their predicament, because one they realize that they can ( and must) construct their own lives, they are free to generate change.’

Apparently people carry around the notion that the majority of their problems are circumstantial or situational – that is to say, external.

She writes :

‘ Remember Satre’s famous line ” Hell is other people? It ‘s true – the world is filled with difficult people ( or , as John would have it, “idiots’). I’ll bet you could name five truly difficult poeple off the top of your head right now – some you assiduously avoid, others you would assiduously avoid if they didn’t share your last name. But sometimes- more often than we tend to realize – those difficult people are us.

That’s right – sometimes hell is us.

Sometimes we are the cause of our difficulties. And if we can step out of our own way, something astonishing happens.

A therapist will hold up a mirror to patients, but patients will also hold up a mirror to their therapists. Therapy is far from one-sided ;it happens in a parallel process. Every day , our patients are opening up questions that we have to think about for ourselves. If they can see themselves more clearly through our reflections, we can see ourselves mrore clearly throught theirs. This happens to therapists when we’re providing therapy, and it happens to our own therapists too. We are mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting mirrors, showing one another what we can’t yet see. ‘

– Maybe you should talk to someone – Lori Gottlieb

In her book, amidst telling us stories about her clients ( with names change), she tells her own therapy sessions with Wendell, a veteran therapist with an unconventional style. whose sessions with Gottlieb will prove transformative for her.

While Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives, she finds that the questions these patients are struggling with are the very questions she is bringing to Wendell.

As a therapist, Gottlieb is quite invested in her patients.From her memoir, you get to know how she has landed herself a career in psychotherapy and writing.

She writes :

‘I’ve always been drawn to stories- not just what happens, but how the story is told. When people come to therapy, I’m listening to their narratives but also for their flexibility with them. Do they consider what they’re saying to be the only version of the story – the “accurate” version – or do they know that theirs is just one of many ways to tell it? Are they aware of what they’re choosing to leave in or out, of how their motivation in sharing this story affects how the listener hears it ?

I thought a lot about those questions in my twenties -not in relation to therapy patients, but in relation to movie and TV characters. That’s why , as soon as I graduated from college, I got a job in the entertainment business, or what everyone called, simply, “Hollywood.”

At the time, Gottlieb worked at a large talent agency and as the assistant to a junior film agent. She recounts the time when she interviewed for the job, she heard the agent ask the other agent, “Should I pick the smart one or the hot one?”

‘ “Always pick the smart one,”the other agent replied.’ She got the job but she felt perversely hurt despite finding the question outrageously inappropriate.

Gottlieb  also tells us how she begins to remember Viktor Frankl‘s story when she comes across her grad-school coursework on the Austrian psychiatrist. Scribbled in her grad-school spiral were the words ‘Reacting vs. responding =reflective vs.chosen. ”We can choose our response,Frankl was saying, even under the spector of death. He wrote, ” Everything
can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to
choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

‘ I particularly liked this line from Frankl’s book: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”                            — Maybe   you should talk to someone – Lori Gottlieb

Incidentally, Lori Gottlieb has reproduced the following quotes by Carl Jung:

‘People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own souls.’

‘Who looks inside, awakes.’

Maybe you should talk to someone is a fascinating and insightful read. It is told with humour and compassion and it shows us how we humans are not that different from each other and we possess the power to transform our inner lives if we look inside and accept responsibilities for where we are.