Good Life Project - The Secret Lives of Therapists | Lori Gottlieb

Episode Date: April 16, 2019

Lori Gottlieb is a psychotherapist (http://www.lorigottlieb.com/) and New York Times bestselling author who writes the weekly “Dear Therapist” advice column for The Atlantic.She has written hundreds of articles related to psychology and culture, many of which have become viral sensations all over the world. A contributing editor for the Atlantic, she also writes for The New York Times Magazine, and appears as a frequent expert on relationships, parenting, and hot-button mental health topics in media such as The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, Dr. Phil, CNN, and NPR. Her latest book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, (https://amzn.to/2Tj5UMZ) and this week's conversation is a revealing look at the inner thoughts, struggles and revelations of a therapist who finds herself on the "needing help" side of the conversation, and all the unexpected things this shift in dynamics brings up.--------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sparketypes/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So ever wonder what's really going on in the life and mind of a therapist? Maybe you haven't, but I certainly have. And in today's conversation, I sit down with Lori Gottlieb. She is a psychotherapist and also a New York Times bestselling author and writer and journalist. What's kind of fascinating to me is on the one hand, we explored the pursuit of these dual paths, a writer and a journalist, and also a practicing psychotherapist. And on the other hand, we really dive into where she goes in this most recent book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, because it is her stepping into revealing a lot of the details

of her own life, her own struggles, her own thoughts about what it's like to be on the other side of the chair in the psychotherapy room. And the decision to actually write this and reveal this inner life while she is still very much in private practice is something that was kind of fascinating to me. So we go there and we explore a lot of really interesting ground. Really excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you 8 hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday.

We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die.

Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. Taking back, what did you actually, I'm curious what you studied in school, sort of like in college. I studied French language and literature. Which just makes it sound much more fascinating. Right. But I think it is related. I mean, it all has to do with language and story. And I think that's what the through line is with all of my seemingly disparate careers, but that really kind of ended in a place that is the perfect combination of all of those things that I've been seeking. Yeah. So were you in France at all studying for that? I was. Yeah. Nice. And you decided to come back. Yeah. So were you in France at all studying for that? I was. Yeah. Nice. And you decided to come back. Yes. So you come out of school with that degree. Were you looking to actually pursue a career sort of related to that or just? No. I mean, initially when I started

studying it, possibly. But when I was in college, I also got involved with the entertainment business, doing internships. And so when I came back to LA from college, I started working in film development and then ultimately TV development before I left. Yeah. I mean, cause it sounds like you started out, I guess, as an assistant. Oh yeah. Which is glorified secretary. Yes. It's funny. I've had a friend who was actually years ago an agent at ICM out in Hollywood. And when he described to me the ferocious sort of like competitiveness to get a sort of an entry level assistant job there, I was, my mind was kind of blown.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you think you've worked so hard in college and you've done so well in school and you have this degree and you try to get the lowest level job where you're getting coffee and running errands and bringing in their dry cleaning. And you're like, really? There are 20 people vying for this one job. Right. Yeah. And you're like, but I have a degree.

I'm smart. I did really well. But I guess there's still this very sort of traditional path. There's like a pecking order and seniority. You start at the very bottom and you work really, really hard at your day job, which is the secretarial job. And then at night you're doing all of this extra work so that you can show them that you actually have skills and some creativity. And you try to impress the people that you're working for so that you can get promoted. Yeah. And it sounds like for you, that extra work was commenting, making notes on stories and plot and stuff like that. Right.

So I was working in motion picture development. And so I would get the scripts that would come in, and then I would have to write what's called coverage. And you do, we can do short coverage and kind of summarize it or you can do longer coverage, which the executives loved. And that was where you really analyze the script very deeply. And I love that because, of course, you know, coming out of, you know, literature and language, I found that fabulous. I liked that part of the job a lot. And as I got promoted, what I found out, by great surprise, was that you actually do less of that. Because then you're out there trying to acquire projects.

You're out there going on sets. You're not really doing the behind the scenes work. And if you're kind of the bookish kid, like I was, you know, you want to be the person sitting in a room with a script. You don't want to be kind of out there trying to awkwardly schmooze, which was, you know, not that comfortable for me. Yeah. So it's, it's like the thing that draws you to it originally is the generative, the creative side of things. And then the higher you go, the more you're involved in business and all the forward-facing stuff. I mean, it's interesting

because I think that happens in a lot of different careers, actually. It's the actual, it's like the domain expertise or a very sort of small set of skills that you just really love. I think that in a lot of industries, there's not a real clear path

sort of to rise, quote, up without going into management rather than just being extraordinarily good at what you do and somehow like gaining in your world. So from there, you start to rise up in the industry. The work that you're doing as you're five to nine on weekends becomes your main job. And then you get to a point where you're now being pulled away from it because of the forward-facing business side of things. Right, right. And so, you know, I end up leaving the film side and going to the television side

because I like the idea of series. I like the idea of being able to follow the characters through a longer arc than you can do in a movie. And so I was really loving that. But then the shows that I was assigned to, I ended up at NBC and I was assigned, this is like 1994, and I was assigned to, I ended up at NBC and I was assigned, this is like 1994, and I was assigned to Friends, which was a brand new sitcom and another brand new drama called ER.

And of course that was, you know, George Clooney and Julianna Margulies. Two big risky bets at the time. Right, right. I mean, who were they? It's so funny. In fact, Julianna Margulies was supposed to die at the end of the pilot. Oh, no kidding. And then she was so good in it that they decided, oh, she? It's so funny. In fact, Julianna Margulies was supposed to die at the end of the pilot. Oh, no kidding. And then she was so good in it that they decided, oh, she's not going to die. We'll revive her.

And so I loved ER and I love the stories. I love the really human stories. I love Friends, too, you know, because it was a very, even though it was a sitcom, it was a very, there were very real emotions in it. But one of the consultants on ER was an actual ER doctor. And I started spending time with him in the ER and I fell in love with it. And I was really, I never thought I would leave the entertainment business, but I was so drawn to the real stories that I decided to go to medical school. Yeah. And let's slow it down a tiny bit. So you're basically trailing docs in the ER under the guise of research for your job.

Right. But there's clearly something else going on. You're developing a real love of this profession. Right. It's where I really felt alive there. You're seeing life up close in a way that you just don't see it out in the world. It really is life and death and big decisions about what's going to happen. And you're faced with mortality every day. And also these really inspiring stories where people are saved and people get to, you get to have a part in these great human dramas. And I really love that. Yeah. As you're starting to really geek out on this and realize there's something about this that's really calling you, what was happening with your quote day job? Because you're still like, you're still in that business. You're still writing. You're still sort of like helping build the stories for these shows, which both of which would become these epic, epic sort of shows. So are you getting disenchanted with that or?

Well, I was a junior executive there. So when I switched over, I was sort of on the lower end. And so I was involved with story like I was in film. And I love those shows, but I was really spending so much time. I wasn't just spending time with the consultant in the ER. I started reaching out to other doctors and I would be like in the neurosurgery suite at a county hospital. And they're like, what does this have to do with research for what you're doing? It wasn't. I mean, I knew it wasn't, but it was sort of like at that point I decided it was my hobby, that I was never going to leave my job, but that I was going to have this

hobby because that's what hobbies are for, right? To kind of fill in the gaps of the things you're not getting in your job. Is there a moment that you recall when something happens where that switch gets flipped, where you're like, this is not my hobby. This is something bigger. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there was sort of a pre-moment and then it was a moment. One of the moments was going inside somebody during brain surgery and standing there and looking at a brain while they're operating on this guy and then saving his life. the network, you know, we were trying to get inside people's minds all the time. It's must-see TV, whatever our slogans were. And here, for real, we were inside this person's skull. And it was just, it was mind-blowing. But I still, that wasn't the moment. The moment was later on, I was in a different ER and a woman came in and we walked behind the curtain and the smell just assaults me. And I don't know what it is. I've never smelled anything like this.

I'm looking around. Did somebody vomit? You know, did somebody defecate? What is this? And it was a woman who had severe diabetes and she had gangrene and she had like stumps for legs and her stumps were severely infected. And I really had trouble like being there and looking atumps were severely infected. And I really had trouble being there and looking at this and smelling this. And the woman noticed that and she grabbed my hand. She grabbed my hand.

And it was just one of these life-changing moments, this incredible moment of connection, this incredible moment of generosity on her part that made me feel like I wanted to be a part of these real stories in my day job. You describe it as a moment of generosity on her part because she was grabbing your hand to console you? Yes. Yes. To console me. She, she, she noticed that I was whatever, however well I was trying to fake that I was fine. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't even a medical student. I was just like somebody that I was fine, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't even a medical student. I was just like somebody, I was like a network executive who was, you know, standing there in my- She probably thinks you're an intern or something at the hospital.

Right, right. Well, I was just trailing. I was shadowing. And I was in the scrubs and I was, you know, all of that. But, you know, I was young and I looked young. And she probably thought, like, this girl has never seen anything like this. And she grabbed my hand. And it was the most

meaningful moment. And I said, I just drove home that day and I said, I don't know how, if I'll get into medical school or what classes I need to take because I wasn't pre-med undergrad, although I was a kind of a math science geek. And then I did. What's the path then at that point? Because you've got a full-time gig. Right. You need to support yourself. Right. What's the path then at that point? Because you've got a full-time gig, you need to support yourself, and you've now spent a chunk of years working your way up in this field, and you do, I have a friend of mine who was an award-winning top, top magazine editor in New York for 25 years. At the age of 52, you know, like married with two

kids. She also, she edited the health section of magazines, big magazines. She decided she wanted to be a doctor also and went to med school. But for her, she had to go back to undergrad and take all the science prereqs and all this stuff. So did I. Yeah. So we call that the post-bac. Yeah.

Yeah. You have to do a post-bac, which is you're taking all of the pre-med classes that you didn't take as an undergrad. Right. Yeah. How was that for you? It was great. I loved it.

You know, but I love that stuff. And I think part of it too was, you know, using your mind in a different way. And I think that, you know, I think science itself tells a story, right? So I love that part of it. Took a year, two years, couple years just for that part of it? It took, that was so long ago. I think it took two years. Right. Yeah. And then you take the MCAT. So then you're kind of still supporting yourself through writing during that time. Well, I wasn't, so I wasn't a writer.

When I was at working in the entertainment business, I was never writing. I was an executive. Got it. So I was over, I was working with the writers. Got it. Okay. And then I did start writing. I started freelancing to support myself.

I had no idea that years later I would be a journalist and that would be my career. That's amazing. So you go from there, you get into med school. When you started med school, at that point, did you have a sense for what area of medicine you actually want to study? I mean, you had sounds like through the years before you had sort of been bouncing around and exploring all these different departments within the medical setting? Did you go in knowing there's this one thing that I want to focus in? Right. I knew that I wanted to have long-term relationships with my patients. I thought that it might be, it's not ER, right? I didn't want to do surgery because they're asleep. Although you do have relationships with your patients as a surgeon, but it's different.

I wanted to be kind of like the family doctor, you know, whatever that meant, you know, family medicine, internal medicine, maybe pediatrics, maybe OBGYN because babies are, you know, wonderful. And, you know, but I wasn't, I wasn't really sure. And then when I got to medical school, I was up at Stanford, and it was the middle of the dot-com boom just before the bust. A lot of my professors said to me, you know, there's this newfangled thing called managed care, and it really changes the way you practice medicine. If you can write, why don't you write? So they were pretty much discouraging you? I don't know that they were discouraging me. I mean, they loved what they did, but they said if they entered the field now, it would be very different from what it was like when they started out. They loved what they did. And that's what I was

looking for too. Right. So then how do you end up choosing your specialty from that point? So, you know, it's funny that you can tell the personalities from the first year students. You can tell, like, who's going to go into psychiatry. You know, there's ones always talking about, tell me how you feel about this. You know, who's going to be a surgeon? Who's going to do, like, radiology where you don't have to interact at all with people in the same way? Who's going to be a dermatologist? You know, you can kind of tell. You know, I think that it takes a little while to figure it out. So you shadow people. I think that I struggled a lot. I was writing because I had been writing to support myself to get to medical school.

I was still writing when I was in medical school. And my first book came out first year of medical school. And then I was writing for magazines and newspapers and going to medical school. And given what a lot of people were telling me, I really struggled with whether I would be able to stay in story, which is the writing, and while these real life stories were going on. And eventually I left medical school and became a journalist full time. So, I mean, that must've been a hard choice. I think initially it was, it's hard to do all that work to get there and then to say goodbye to it. But I also, it felt really right.

I was in my 30s. I knew I wanted a family. I was very clear about, I worried about how will I, if I do both writing and medicine and I have to finish medical school, do at least three years of residency and then probably a fellowship.

Yeah, it's a long journey. It's a long journey. And I really felt like writing was the better path for me at that point in my life. Right. So at that point, are you sort of back to, well, this will always be part of my life, but it's kind of back in the hobby side of things or just like the deep interest side of things? Well, I think that I ended up writing a lot about, you know, what I was really interested in about those stories in medical school was sort of the psychology of it, right? The sort of the human emotions. Yeah, the human side. And so when you're a writer, you get to explore the human

side. Right. So you're back full-time in the world of writing, building career, you have a book out now, you're, you know, contributing to larger and larger publications, writing longer pieces. Where does the interest to then start working with clients or patients start to creep back in? Right. Well, then I had a baby. Okay. And, you know, before I had a baby, I loved working from home because, you know, I could go out in the world when I wanted to. And once I had a baby, I was like, I need adults to talk to during the day. The UPS guy would come with all the diapers and all that. Don't leave.

I know. And I would literally detain him. I would be like, oh, look, diapers. Who knew they were so heavy? And he would like back away to his brown truck. And, you know, that I was like, okay, the UPS guy is avoiding me. You know, something has to. So I called up the dean at Stanford Medical School. I had been actually very close with her because I had run her mother-daughter book groups. And she's wonderful. And she was sort of like camp mom. Like she's this incredibly distinguished professor and researcher. But she was just so warm with all the medical students.

And so I called her up and I said, maybe I should come back and be a psychiatrist. And she said to me, well, first she said to me, because I said it would be really fun because then I could, you know, I could make people happier. And, you know, she's like, psychiatrists don't make people happy, which is sort of a, she had nothing against psychiatrists. It was, it's kind of just a joke that, you know, psychiatrists don't make people happy, you know, medicine does. But the other part of it was she said, listen, the very thing that you always talk to me about were having relationships with your patients. And in psychiatry, you can do that, but you're mostly gonna be doing medication management.

You're gonna have these 15 minute- Right, psychopharmacology. And I don't think you're gonna be happy doing that. Why don't you get a graduate degree in clinical psychology where you can do the kind of work you want? And it was like chills. It was like, it seems like a very obvious suggestion, but it was, I hadn't thought about it and it was the absolute right thing. And it set me on the path of where I am today. Yeah. So at that point, you're a mom, you're a full-time writer, and now

you're back in school. Right. I was busy. Right. I mean, that had to have been, I mean, simultaneously like an amazing, incredible, but also like fiercely challenging window for you. It was. It was. But it was also really invigorating. You know, I mean, I think that it was nice. I think I might've gone crazy if I didn't have that balance of, you know, having my professional world and also being a parent in the domestic sphere. I think that it was, it was

lovely. I've always, I've always wanted to be a parent and, and I was able to do that, but I also, you know, couldn't imagine not having this other world available to me. Yeah. And so you go, you get the education. So now you're sort of in a position where you can go into the world and start practicing. But at the same time, it's not your intention to leave writing behind. This is like, you're starting to plot a dual path here. Right. It was the dual path that I tried to plot when I was in medical school. And the more I looked at the reality of it, the more it seemed like it would be very hard to do. Right. But with this, this felt like, okay, so it may

still be challenging, but there's a way to navigate. There's a way to really build both of them around each other. Right, right. And the other thing is that I really loved the idea that story was carried into psychotherapy, which is that I hear stories all day as a therapist, but now I have the ability to help people change their stories. So it's one thing to kind of write about people's stories. You don't have any agency in it. You're just telling the story. But it's another thing to have people come and tell you their stories and be able to help them say, let's edit that story. You know, what material is extraneous here? Is the story advancing or is the character running in circles? Do the plot points reveal a theme? And often they do. Who are the major characters and who are the minor characters

in this story? And it's people's lives, but people come to you with these very distorted stories. We all do. I mean, in the book that I ended up writing, you see me in therapy and I distort my story too. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping.

And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. One other question which pops into my head is on the writer slash journalist side of things.

So on the therapy side, you're like, tell me your story and let's figure out how to recraft into something more constructive and positive for your life. But it's almost like the journalist side is the exact opposite. It's like, let me extract the story as close to the truth as I can get. My job is very deliberately not to become a part of the story. When you are out in the world, when you're living the half of your profession where that's the role you're playing, the journalist, but at the same time, now you've got this therapeutic training. Were you ever dancing with this thing? Like, man, there are stories that need to be written in the piece that I'm writing. And I actually, I can help these people, but my job is not to play that role in this sort of like particular mode. My job is just to sort of report what I see as truthfully as I can. I think that they're very complimentary in the sense that when you're talking to somebody,

you want them to tell, you really want them to be able to tell their story. And so when you're interviewing somebody as a journalist, it's not so dry. It's not like just the facts. It's the facts mediated through their experience. They have control over their story. They have control over what they tell me. And so my job is to get that story out of them. I want them to tell me their story. And I want to hear the most interesting parts of that story. A lot of people think that they're boring. And so both in the therapy room and when you're interviewing them as a journalist, right, they think, well, you know, how am I going to sound interesting? But their stories are inherently interesting if you can get to the meat of the story. And so I think that what I try to do both as a journalist and a therapist is to help people get their stories out there.

Right. But I guess my curiosity is, were there times where as a journalist, you're having these conversations and helping get their stories out there? And was there a journalist, you're having these conversations and helping get their stories out there? And was there a moment where you're thinking to yourself, well, or you are compelled to ask the question, have you ever explored sort of like a different lens on that story? Or like, is that the story or is there maybe, is that one story? I'll definitely ask questions that I hope will help them think about something from a different angle. Yes. I'm not doing therapy with them, but I'm certainly saying, oh, that's interesting. What about this? And see where they go with it.

And often people will, after interviews, say, you know, that was so interesting. I never thought about it that way before. So I just think they're interesting conversations to have. and inquiry and being really present and, you know, like not just following a script, but really listening and responding and drawing out, you know, the truest and the deepest parts of the story. And then also, like you said, you know, when you're a journalist, you're looking for the pieces that are being edited and see if you can find out what those are. And it sounds like you do the same thing as a therapist as well. Right, right. You have to know what to listen for and you have to know sort of, you know, what pieces of the story you're missing. A lot of times people won't tell you something right away because they're embarrassed, because if they tell you, then they'll have to deal with it because they don't even see it as a problem. They're so stuck in the content of something

else. You know, they're always sort of giving you the play by play of something. And you really have to look for the story too. Yeah. Do you feel like your experience in training as a journalist has made you a better therapist and vice versa? Yes. I think they're very, it goes both ways. I think one helps me with the other and it goes both back and forth. Yeah. So interesting, right? One is sort of like the, you know, the output of the process of inquiry is something, you know, it is a piece of writing and the other is a therapeutic outcome. But maybe somehow it's not quite that clear. Right. I don't think there's a clear line at all.

Yeah. That's so fascinating. So you start to develop a private practice. You start to develop this writing career. year. And you also, you've done something interesting, especially with the, with your newest book, which is that you're pulling back the curtain on the fact that, that therapists are actually people too. Right. It's almost like seeing when you're a kid and you see your teacher out in the world, you're like, wait, you exist outside the classroom? What are you doing here? You have a life? Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, it sounds really obvious, but of course, we live our lives. And, you know, there's a chapter in the book called Embarrassing Public Encounters, which is that, you know, when people see us out in the world, it can be discombobulating for them, but it can also be discombobulating for us. Okay. Well, tell me a pharmacy across from my office and you don't want to run into your patient,

you know, when you're like buying something, you know, whether it's like tampons or condoms or, you know, you just, you don't want them to see that part of your life, even though it's just a normal part of life. Yeah. I mean, is there a professional reason not to want them to see it or is it more just sort of preference or boundaries? Both. I mean, the professional reason is that you're not there to reveal your life to them. And so you really want to keep the focus on the patient. There are times when we will strategically and very intentionally reveal something about ourselves, but it's in the service of something happening in the room. And I think that, you know, when patients see you outside, they might see things that they affect the transference, the way that the patient is going to kind of put other past experiences onto you. So we're not complete, you know, we're not sort of the Freudian blank slate, although Freud was not a blank slate as it turns out. Um, but, but individual. I mean, in fact, it starts out with a pretty traumatic personal relationship that kind of falls apart. Well, first tell me

a little bit about this and also why you felt like you need to share it. Right. So, you know, I never imagined I would write something this personal from this side of the therapy room. And as I started writing the stories of my patients, I started really thinking about the fact that it would be almost disingenuous of me to not include what it's like for me to go through exactly what they're going through. I was originally supposed to be writing a completely different book. I was supposed to be writing a book about happiness, and it was making me miserable. I started calling it the stupid, miserable, depression-inducing happiness book. I think a lot of people would have bought that book. Yeah, no, they would have. They would have. And that was the thing is that, you know, this book all started actually when several

years ago, I was relatively new to my practice after having worked as a journalist for a dozen years. My son was very young at the time, and I had just written a cover story for The Atlantic called How to Land Your Kid in Therapy, Why the Obsession with Our Kids' Happiness Might be Dooming Them to Unhappy Adulthoods. And the piece went crazy viral. It was the most emailed piece in the hundred year history of the magazine at the time. Media from around the world were calling. Overnight, I became a parenting expert. And then publishers wanted the book for a dizzying sum of money. You know, the kind of money that a single mom like me only dreams of. And, you know, kind of like Bartleby the Scrivener and with equally tragic results, I said, I would prefer not to. And people thought I was crazy. You know, I hadn't had a stroke.

I just, I just said no to this once in a lifetime opportunity. But I said no, because I felt like it wouldn't really be getting at the kinds of things that I wanted to write about the way we were living our lives. And so instead of writing about why our obsession with our kids' happiness might be dooming them to unhappy adulthoods, I thought, okay, I'll write about why our obsession with our own happiness might be dooming us to unhappy adulthoods. And that was the happiness book. And once I started delving into the research, I got very discouraged because the research felt like it was scratching the surface of everything, all the richness and subtlety and nuance that I was seeing with real people's lives

in the therapy room. And I had this book contract and I had paid my graduate school loans back with it. And so I had to write this book and I was miserable. And, you know, people would say, how's the book going? And I'd say, oh, you know, research, it's going. But I was sort of like this closet gambler who would like get dressed in the morning and kiss her family goodbye and then go to the casino instead of the office. You know, and my casino was basically Facebook. I would like to sit there on Facebook. And I had this boyfriend, which was great because, you know, I was like, okay, this is going well. But then he, you know, we're about to sort of like move to the next step and move in together. And he says, I can't live with a kid under my roof for the next 10 years. And I'm completely blindsided.

And so then I land in the office of this very unconventional and much more experienced therapist than I was at the time named Wendell. And I think I'm just there for this boyfriend crisis. But what I don't yet know is that the boyfriend situation is just the tip of the iceberg. And throughout the book, he actually sort of becomes what I call in the book, the Yoda to my Luke Skywalker. Yeah. I mean, and I guess one of the things that you share also is that this is not an uncommon thing. In fact, you've seen this exact same phenomenon in your own practice with your own patients. It's sort of like you come in with one, oh, I just need help with this one thing. Right, right, right. So yeah, people usually come in with whatever the presenting issue is. And often the presenting issue is a manifestation of something bigger and broader that's going on in their lives. Yeah.

And that's what we're trying to help people. How quickly did you realize that's what was actually going on with you? I was slow. Because I wonder if therapists are actually more resistant than the sort of like average person off the street to this idea. Right, right. I mean, I think that as a therapist, you tend to think that you are very self-aware.

And, you know, when this happened, I realized not only was I not self-aware about this relationship, but that there were other things in my life that I was ignoring because I could focus on the relationship. And that served as a distraction for me from some of these deeper things that I needed to deal with. And, you know, it was kind of like everybody comes in and they're sort of like different puzzle pieces that you're not sure how they fit together. They'll tell you little snippets of something and little snippets of something else. And, and you kind of have to figure out, well, how does this all fit together? And you had, you found yourself in the middle of that process. Yes. On the other side.

Right. And I think, you know, I think if, if being a therapist is hard work, I think being a patient is doubly so because, you know, you really have to work hard if you want to see change. It's not like you go there every week, you're going to say a few things and then boom, your life is going to be better. You have to work really hard. And I think some people don't expect that. Yeah. Do you feel like being a therapist whose patients are therapists is even harder? I don't know. That's a great question. I think a little bit because I know that with Wendell, I had the tendency to do some backseat driving. Right, right. about right now? And what's he doing with this other thing? Why does he always have to imagine it's about something else? It's about this. So it's very much, you know, I think you have to let go of the fact that you're a therapist. Before I even saw him, my friend who is a therapist

said to me, she suggested that I go to therapy when this breakup happened. And she said, you need to go somewhere where you're not being a therapist. You need to go somewhere where you can completely fall apart. And I had to keep that in mind when I was in therapy, that I am not being a therapist here. I am being just a regular person who's going through a struggle. So as you start to process this and move through, it starts out as this one thing and then cascades into a whole bunch of other, oh, this, and then, oh, this, and then, oh, this. At the same time, you're also running your own therapy practice. So you're, you know, like kind of falling apart and picking up the pieces and reorienting your own personal life and rediscovering all of these things and dealing and processing and evolving. But you've got to show up every day and put on your therapist hat when

you're with your people. So what's that like for you? At first, I thought it would be really hard, but actually it was a welcome distraction. The therapy relationships are very, very, you feel very connected to the person that you're dealing with, that you're working with in that moment. And so I think it's almost like a respite from the outside world. You know, it's a very unique experience. And so when you're, you're so focused, it's, it's kind of, you know, it takes a lot of energy too. People think, oh, you just sit in a chair all day. Actually, it's really exhausting at the end of the day, because unlike other work where you can kind of, your mind can wander a little bit,

or you can think about something else for 20 seconds, you can't in the therapy room because you have to be really focused on what's in front of you. So I think that it was good that I was also working with people. And I think also what it did was it held up a mirror to me in the sense that the very questions that these people were bringing to me were the same questions that I was bringing to Wendell, to my therapist, because they're the questions that I think are at the core of all of our lives. You know, who am I and how do I connect and how do I love and be loved and how do I deal with uncertainty? You know, what can I control and what must I let go of? They're the questions everybody asks.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is?

You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. And I know you write about also when you're sitting with, do you call them clients or patients?

You know, both. For the purposes of the book, I say patients because I think people might get confused. Got it. So when you're sitting with your patient, you know, one of the things I thought was really interesting was your frame on not judging, you know, that one person's pain or problem against another. So if you, you know, you have one person with a serious medical trauma versus another person who's got, you know, something which is perceived to be so much more mundane or almost like pedantic. You know, it could be easy to sort of like take this outside looking in lens and being like, seriously? Like,

I just had this one person who's struggling for their life and you're here telling me about this little thing. Right. But as a therapist, that's not your job. In fact, it's the exact opposite of what you're there to do. Right. Right. I mean, I think it's, you know, that's not your job. In fact, it's the exact opposite of what you're there to do. Right, right. I mean, I think there's this idea that there's no hierarchy of pain, that pain is pain. And I was working with this woman who she wanted me, she was dying. She was a young newlywed in her 30s and she was dying of cancer. She had a breast cancer that had metastasized.

And she, you know, I'd go from like CAT scans and tumors and how she wanted to handle her death and, you know, really, really intense existential life questions to, I think the babysitter is stealing from me or why do I always have to initiate sex? And, you know, what I came to see, it actually gave me more compassion for those people, not less, because what I came to see was that their problems did matter on a deeper level. You know, when you have to initiate sex, it's like, why am I being rejected? What, how am I having trouble connecting? You know, it's a horrible feeling. And I think also, you know, the person whose babysitter might be stealing from them. This, you trusted this person with your child and this person has betrayed you. And it's very, it causes a lot of anxiety. And so I think pain is pain. And I think that a lot of people don't feel like their pain is worth talking about. That a lot of people walk

around with a lot of pain because they worry that their problems will sound trivial or irrelevant. And I think that not talking about them makes them so much bigger. So when you're sort of taking this pain is pain is pain lens, sort of looking amongst your different patients, when you're also personally in pain and going through your own therapy at the same time, were you able to make that same recognition acceptance for yourself? No, not at all. I would, I would go to the cobbler's kid thing where it's like, we can do for everybody else. Right. You know, I would apologize for my pain. You know, I would, it's the kind of thing, it's a breakup, but it's not a divorce, right? It's like the people who have miscarriages and they feel like, well, I didn't lose, you know, like I didn't lose a

five-year-old, but it's, it's, it's painful. You know, there's what we call silent losses because a lot of people, you know, if you get divorced, it's very clear what the loss is versus a breakup. If you lose a child that everyone knew, it's much more clear what the loss is than if you lose a child that, you know, nobody has seen. And so I think that I would apologize a lot to Wendell in therapy. And he, you know, there are scenes in the book where he's trying to make it clear to me that I don't need to apologize for the pain that I'm going through. Did that finally land with you? Like, are you there now? It did, but it took a while. I mean, you know, again, I think that's what I mean by therapy is hard work. I think that it's really hard to change your patterns. It's really hard to change your default

ways of being. And it takes time and it takes the relationship of therapy that you're having with your therapist to really, you know, you have to go through a lot of repetition before you finally start to move and change. Yeah. So as you're resolving your own stuff, which we all have, and then working with all of your patients, one of the things that I'm really curious about too, I'm going to kind of ask you all the questions that I want to ask therapists that I think probably is on, you know, like our listeners' minds too, is when you're in this situation all day, when you're seeing patient after patient after patient, you know, like three, four, five days a week, sometimes more for different people. I have a friend who actually has, because she takes, you know, a ton of insurance,

so there'll be days where she sees like 12, 15, 18 patients in a day. Does that just on a personal level, you know, as you described, yes, your patient is doing work, but you as a professional in the room are doing work too. I mean, at a bare minimum, it takes a certain amount of energy to just hold the space, to hold your energy, to hold your attention and to really be present with that person. And when you add on to that, the introduction of deep wounding and pains that are sort of part of this conversation that are coming up, and it's not yours, but you're witness to them and you're involved in them, you're helping people process them. At the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of months or years of this, does that potentially take a toll on you as a therapist or on therapists in general? And if so, what do you do to be okay? Yeah, it's really important because burnout is a big issue. And yet at the same time,

on the other end of that, most therapists don't retire because it is such a fulfilling, it is really fulfilling work to do. I think that we do a lot of things to avoid burnout. We have consultation groups that we go to. of things to avoid burnout. We have consultation groups that we go to. Most of us go to consultation groups every week where we talk about our cases, but we also talk about ourselves in relation to our patients. You know, this person is driving me crazy or this person I'm having a really hard time with, or, you know, the patient in who starts off the book who, you know, seems like an asshole in the beginning, you know, he's somebody that, you know, I think, you know, I come to really, really care about.

And, you know, I never expected that. And so I think in the beginning, you know, I wasn't even sure that I wanted to keep seeing him because he was so abrasive and narcissistic and condescending. And then we hear the tragic stories, right? We hear the really difficult stories that stick with us. But I think it makes us richer as people to kind of hear about, you know, what people have been through. It's hard. You take it home sometimes and we learn how to not take it home, but we do have to really monitor it because some people can get really overwhelmed by it. Yeah. I could imagine. I remember when I was a pretty young kid, actually, my mom was a paramedic for a chunk of years and you could tell when she would come home and there was a kid involved in something. Yeah. It would just,

it was, it would, it would wreck her for a window of time. Those are the stories that actually wreck me the most too. And I think also just being a parent, when I either hear stories about something currently going on or just people who come in and they talk about their childhoods and I hear what happened in their childhoods. And some of this stuff is just really hard to listen to, really hard to hear as a parent and try to imagine. There's a woman in the book whose adult children won't had done, it was really hard for me to kind

of separate out. I can't imagine someone doing that to my son. And then also finding a way to have to connect with this woman and have compassion for her and to like her. And I really did like her had I not known about all that had gone on before. Yeah. I mean, somebody described to me, actually a psychiatrist who teaches at med school also, once described to me, he said there are two different types of empathy. There's cognitive empathy and emotional empathy. And he said, you know, like in my job, you know, in a therapeutic profession,

I have to really work to make it much more of cognitive empathy where I really get what's happening. I can see it. I can, but I can't allow's happening. I can see it. But I can't allow myself to emotionally stand in the place. And I can't allow myself to feel what that person is feeling because then I don't have the capacity to serve them because I'm feeling too much of what they're feeling. Yeah. I think that's really interesting. I think that you feel a lot in the room, but you're not going down the same path that they're going down. Yeah, that makes sense. The book, you write very personally about yourself.

We talked about earlier that there are these moments in the pharmacy or this store or that store where you don't want somebody to really see your personal life, but you chose to put a lot about your struggles in your life out there. When you're making the decision to do this, are you thinking in the back of your head, how is this gonna land?

Is this gonna affect my professional career? Is this gonna affect whether people will or won't wanna work with me? And what's the trade-off of putting it out there versus, you know, any potential negative impact that it might have on my ability to serve as a professional? Right. I definitely thought about that. And I think that one of the main messages that I hope the book leaves people with, even

though it's not really a message book, is that this is no more a book about a crazy therapist than it is about her crazy patients, right? So they will see me as a struggling human being in the therapy office with my therapist, but they will see me as a competent professional in the therapy room with my patients. And that those things coexist, not because it's an anomaly, but because for all of us that coexist, right? We struggle with things and we're incredibly competent in other areas at the same time. And so I hope that, you know, people can see both sides of that, that, you know, but I think therapists have a particular difficulty with the way people perceive them. Because unlike if you saw your doctor, like your internist, crying in Starbucks because she had just lost, she just got the phone call that her pregnancy wasn't viable.

You wouldn't go, I'm never going to that doctor again. But this happened to a colleague of mine, a therapist, where she got that call in Starbucks. A patient saw her and never came back, right? So we can't be as human in that way because people don't want to see that side of us. So there are different standards. Like if you saw your chiropractor, if you saw your cardiologist, that would be okay, but not your therapist. So, I mean, in your mind, why is it important? I mean, I'm making an assumption, actually. Is it important? And the assumption I was making, tell me this is wrong or not, is that in writing this book and being so transparent and sharing that, yes, we are people too, that there is some important reason for patients to know that. Yeah.

There's some value. What is that? Yeah. I think that it's important because I think that it bridges the gap where people, I think, feel really alone in their struggles. And it's one thing to read about other patients, but I think it's important to know that the person that you're seeing knows what it's like to struggle. Whatever that means, the struggles will be different. The history will be different. The vulnerabilities and insecurities will be different. But that it's a real person. And I think especially in this day and age where people think they can kind of get therapy through, you know, like a bot or, you know, an app, I think that the I-thou relationship is really what is so much a part of the cure, right? You know, as if there were a cure, but I mean, it is part of the treatment. And statistically, you know, it's true that

your relationship with your therapist is more important than their training, what they specialize in. All of those things are important, but the most important factor in whether people will view their therapy as successful is whether they felt that they had a good relationship with their therapist. So interesting. I had heard years ago that there was data supporting that, that it kind of didn't matter the modality of the training. It was really about the nature of your relationship. Right. So it's interesting that here that's actually valid.

Yeah. And it makes sense, right? Because unless you feel safe, unless you feel like you have confidence in this person that they're genuinely there and participating in this with you and offer something that's wise of counsel. I think if you feel that, you really couldn't care less where they went to school or what the background is. It's like, am I getting what I need from this? Right. And I think mostly people want to feel understood. Yeah. And they want to feel like they matter. And it was really interesting being, you know, in therapy with Wendell that how much it did matter to me, whether he liked me, you know, whether I mattered to him, you know, when people leave and they see other people in the waiting room, if the waiting room is set up that way, or they see people at the beginning in the waiting room, it's almost like sibling rivalry. You know, like, I think people think like, what, but I want to be the most, you know, the most well-liked,

the most entertaining, you know, the one that my therapist looks forward to seeing. I don't want to be the one where my therapist is like, oh God, look who's coming next hour. I wonder if that's more because you're a therapist too. Like, I wonder if that's your sort of mental chatter versus everybody else who doesn't even think about how much they're entertaining. Oh, people bring it up a lot. Oh, they do? Oh, that's too funny. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe you're more enlightened. Right. Not me, no. That's pretty funny, though. It's sort of like, where am I in the pecking order of like my, my therapist's favorite. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, I guess it makes sense. Right. Cause earlier you were saying, you know, like people are concerned about being too boring to their, like within the session or something like that. Well, right. And what's funny is they, they think that their stories are too boring or like something is, you know, not going to be

interesting to talk about, or it's too small, but small. But the boring patients are the ones who want to keep you at bay. The boring patients are the ones who go off on a million tangents. And when you try to connect with them or redirect them, they're off on something else or they repeat the same story over and over. Those are the boring patients because they won't let you in. Not because the content is so boring, but because you can't connect with them in any way. You can't reach them. And so you're sort of trying to find a way in and they're putting up a wall. That's really boring.

Yeah. And isn't that the same thing in life, right? Right. There are people like that that you'll encounter out in the world. Yeah, when you just can't get through and it's just sound bites or it's just, you know, they won't let you through. There's no there there. But I think there is a there there., when you just can't get through and it's just sound bites or it's just, you know, they won't let you through. There's no there there. But I think there is a there there. Yeah.

They just won't let me see it. Right. And so it takes a lot of trial and error to get through it. And sometimes I will bring up in the room that I feel bored. I will bring it up in a way that isn't hurtful. Would you actually use that word? Or kind of phrase it differently? I would probably phrase it differently. I've used the word. Depends on how long I've known the person and what my

relationship is like. Is there a general response to that? Or are people generally startled if that comes up? Or is it just completely different depending on who it is? It usually changes things immediately. Really? It's like, you know, I want to make sure the person doesn't feel any shame or embarrassment. You know, sometimes I'll say something like, you know, I want to make sure the person doesn't feel any shame or embarrassment. Yeah. You know, sometimes I'll say something like, you know, I wonder why I seem more curious about your life than you do. And the person's sort of shocked by that question.

Whoa, is that, is she more curious about my life than I am? And it starts a new conversation and it brings us, it diffuses the facade and brings us to a deeper level. Yeah. And I guess a lot of that facade, maybe not a lot, but you have to imagine the more somebody has been wounded through their experience of life, a lot of the facade that a lot of people probably bring to you as they do to the world is it's armor, it's coping mechanism. This is how they've gotten to the point in their life where they're still alive and they're still like able to function on a day-to-day basis until they can't.

Right. And when we go back to this idea we were talking about earlier about story, that the stories we tell ourselves shape our behavior. They shape what we believe about ourselves. I'm lovable. I can't trust, I'm lovable or I'm not lovable. I can trust people.

I can't trust people. You know, whatever they believe, it's a story that they have, but it needs updating. So those people have used whatever coping mechanism they've used to keep people out. And through, you know, we say insight is the booby prize of therapy, right? Which is that, you know, if you don't, if you're just learning something about yourself, but you don't put it into practice out in the world, the insight is useless. And I think that we'll talk about it in therapy, but then they have to really take a risk out there and say, this thing that I'm doing, these risks that I'm taking here in the therapy room, I need to take out there in the world.

Yeah. So fascinating how these two different sides of you just keep interrelating, like the journalism, the storytelling, the therapist, the personal transformation of story within a person's life, evolving it to a story that's more beneficial for how they want to live the next story, you know, that they wake up with. Right. And I think the story that most of us come into therapy with is like, it's almost like we're French existentialists. Our story is hell is other people, right? Most people come in with, you know, hell is my boss, my spouse, my child, my parent,

whatever it is. And I think what, you know, what sometimes and often is, you know, is the realization that sometimes hell is us, meaning maybe we didn't create the circumstance, but our response to it is keeping us stuck. And if we can just get out of our own way and see what we're doing to contribute to whatever the hell is, then that's when we can start to make changes. We can't make changes when we think everything is external or situational or out there.

When we start to say, what am I doing? How do I contribute to this? And it's not to blame the person. It's to say, it's great that you have all this control over certain things that you thought you didn't, that you actually have choices. You actually can make different decisions. So you don't keep ending up in the same place. Yeah.

It's like you cannot change the quality of your experience in the world until you reclaim a sense of agency and step out of victimhood. Yes. And then you get to tell a different story. Right. And that's what I was talking about earlier when we say like, who are the heroes in the story and who are the victims? And is that really accurate? Yeah. So fascinating.

I feel like this is a good place for us to come full circle as well. Kind of started with story, went the full gamut and came back to it. So as we sit here today, this is called The Good Life Project. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? I think to live a good life is to think about what matters, to think about that our time is limited, I think people are really worried about thinking about death. And one of the themes in the book that comes up a lot is the fact that we don't get forever. And that if we keep waiting and waiting for something else to happen, it will be too late. And so I really want people to not be afraid of their feelings, not be afraid of kind of getting to know themselves, not be afraid of taking risks. There's this idea that a lot of

people have that, you know, feeling less is feeling better. Like if you don't feel that's good, you know, because, because then you feel better if you don't feel like sadness or anxiety or whatever it is. But feelings are like a compass, right? They tell us what we need to pay attention to. And so I would say to live a good life, it's to let yourself experience the whole gamut of being human. Thank you. Thank you. This is really fun. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life?

We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com. Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. It's the thinnest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

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