Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

John is a successful, Emmy award-winning TV writer, married with two children and a dog. He is 40, fit and fashionable, and on the outside, he leads the perfect life. However, as he starts therapy sessions with Lori, he proves to have issues with aggression and shows signs of narcissistic behavior, stemming from a complex of superiority. He does not allow anyone to approach him emotionally, which has put a strain on his marriage to his wife, Margo. His therapy process is slow as he sabotages Lori’s attempts to connect with him, by distancing himself both physically (organizing sessions over Skype, or not showing up) and psychologically (always looking at his phone, interrupting sessions to have lunch). His mother died in a hit and run accident when he was six, and this has left a deep feeling of mistrust in John, resulting in his failure to connect with people.

However, as therapy progresses, John reveals that he is still mourning the death of his six-year-old son, Gabe, who died when an SUV hit the family car that John was driving. Stuck in the mourning stage, John does not allow himself to move forward psychologically as he fears he will lose his son for the second time through forgetting him. Even though John and Margo have had another child in the meantime, and John is very protective and loving, he feels disconnected from his existing family and is in limbo between guilt and remorse over Gabe’s death. This is especially true as the circumstances of Gabe’s death involved John’s continuing fight with his wife over his obsession with his job and dependency on his phone.

The arc of John’s character develops as he slowly begins to allow himself to show his emotions during the therapy sessions. Bringing his emotions to the surface helps him rearrange his distorted view of reality and his position in the world. He begins to connect more with Margo through talking about Gabe and sharing their mutual feelings of grief and regret. 

Julie is 33 years old when she is diagnosed with cancer. She is a successful university professor, passionate about her job and her students. She has also just returned from her honeymoon, and her husband, Matt, is a supportive and loving man. During the first part of her therapy, while Julie believes she will recover, she works on accepting her diagnosis and on her post-cancer life, especially regarding her body image and her psychological recuperation from such an invasive illness. After the doctors declare her cancer-free, she begins to plan for a child, attempting to find a new normal that will include being more adventurous and life-affirming. However, she soon discovers that the cancer is back and is terminal, which once again demands Julie to reassess everything about herself and her life.

Through Lori’s help, Julie accepts the finality of her diagnosis and the terrible fact that she will not realize most of her dreams and aspirations. She decides to live the rest of her life on her terms, accepting the illness but not becoming a prisoner to it. She begins to work Sundays at a Trader Joe’s so she can connect with people in a way that is significantly different to the one she has practiced for the better part of her life. Although Matt does not understand this decision, Lori and Matt eventually see how much it means to Julie to be an ordinary woman communicating with ordinary people in a way that is not demanding or taxing.

In the latter stages of her illness, Julie begins to plan her “funeral party” with Lori’s help. She also writes her own obituary, deciding that she wants to keep control over her death as much as possible, while also accepting that death is unavoidable. Julie is determined to make her death a celebration of life and love and not a tragic affair, because she knows that the grief will come for her loved ones either way. She dies having made peace with the brutal shortness of her life and accepting the good things she experienced and received, especially love from her family and friends, including Lori.

Rita is a 69-year-old thrice divorced woman who suffers from depression and guilt complex. Having lost all ability to enjoy life, she plans to commit suicide on her 70th birthday. She is a mother of four children, all of whom are estranged and having difficulties of their own because their father, Rita’s first husband, was an abusive and aggressive man. Rita believes she has failed to protect her children from him, and that she has been an accomplice in his abuse, although she has suffered from it herself.

Rita is a talented artist, but she finds no joy in producing art because she sabotages every opportunity to be happy. This includes her developing relationship with her new neighbor, Myron, for whom she develops romantic feelings and feels abandoned and bitter when he starts seeing another woman. She also spies on a happy family that lives across the hall from her, feeling miserable when she compares her unhappy upbringing with their familial intimacy. Rita actively jeopardizes her prospects by clinging to a destructive self-image that she has become so comfortable with, she does not even register the hurt she is causing herself and people around her. In her sessions with Lori, Rita initially cannot let go of her sorrow, believing it is her due in life, until Lori manages to help Rita understand that she is perversely relishing the pain and the grief because she is afraid of the uncertainty and unpredictability of life.

Rita’s journey proves that at any age we can adopt a different, positive perspective. As her therapy progresses, Rita begins to open up slowly to possibilities around her, as she befriends the family across the hall, who inspire her to start producing art again. After she has taken that one important step, the change starts rolling on its own. Rita succeeds in reaching out to Myron via a letter that confesses all her faults and sins, in a half-belief he will reject her after learning the truth. However, Myron’s reaction is a welcome surprise, so Rita finds herself surrounded by new friends for her 70th birthday and in touch with her children for the first time without the terrible burden of guilt, abandoning her fantasy of suicide.  

Charlotte is 25, and she comes to Lori reporting anxiety, boredom at work, lack of romantic opportunities, and a busy social life where she sometimes drinks. This soon proves to be only part of the truth, as the author shows us that Charlotte has an unrealistic perception of herself. Charlotte believes she has become dependent on therapy, but she is experiencing the beginnings of alcoholism abuse; her attachment style is unproductive and often destructive.

Whenever therapy begins to uncover the deeper issues of her problem, Charlotte tends to shut down or stop coming to therapy altogether, and this has become a pattern. She has also met a man in Lori’s waiting room, of whom she knows nothing, but she begins to flirt and develop a fantasy crush on him. She spends parts of her session talking about him and imagining scenarios; Lori warns her that these scenarios are irrational. Charlotte finds familiarity in unstable situations and with people who are unreliable and avoidant; she cherishes the idea that she will transform them, and that there is more to them than what meets the eye.

Even though Lori feels that Charlotte is fundamentally not ready to confront adult life and its demands, especially in the area of interpersonal relations, she manages to lead her to an understanding of some of her mechanisms. This is significant when it comes to Charlotte’s drinking: When she becomes aware that she has a drinking problem, she initially rejects the idea but then admits it to herself and decides on her own to seek help within an addiction treatment program. Additionally, she understands that she will never change the irresponsible and immature men she chooses, and that the onus of change is on her. This represents a big leap in Charlotte’s self-understanding and offers hope for her further psychological progress.