Quotes from Lori Gottlieb

When working with couples on empathy, often I'll say, "Before you speak, ask yourself, What is this going to feel like to the person I'm speaking to? " I make a mental note to share this with John one day.

I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you. Namast'ay in Bed . . . that's exactly how I feel!

Maybe you can let yourself cry too.

Apparently, you can make people happy by delivering bad news and then taking it back (which, personally, would just make me mad). Still,

Sitting-with-you-in-your-pain is one of the rare experiences that people get in the protected space of a therapy room,

our biggest problem is that we don't know what our problem is. We keep stepping in the same puddle. Why do I do the very thing that will guarantee my own unhappiness over and over again?

the shutters, we both know in a bone-deep way that there's nothing else to say. I have a kid. He wants freedom. Kids and freedom are mutually exclusive. If the queen had balls, she'd be the king. Voilà—I had my presenting problem.

she didn't want to just add things to her bucket list; she wanted to cross things off too.

Because therapists know that at first, each patient is simply a snapshot, a person captured in a particular moment. It's like a photo of you taken from an unfortunate angle and with a sour expression on your face. There might also be a photo in which you're glowing, caught opening a present or mid-laugh with a lover. Both are you in that fraction of time, and neither is you in your entirety.

Often people talk about suicide not because they want to be dead but because they want to end their pain.

avoidance is almost always about fear.

You will inevitably hurt your partner, your parents, your children, your closest friend—and they will hurt you—because if you sign up for intimacy, getting hurt is part of the deal.

People often mistake numbness for nothingness, but numbness isn't the absence of feelings; it's a response to being overwhelmed by too many feelings. John looks from his cell back to me. "You know what I love about Rosie?" he says. "She's the only one who doesn't ask things of me. The only one who isn't, in one way or another, disappointed with me—

The future is hope. Where's the hope if you already know what happens? What are you living for then? What are you striving for?

If we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck place, in a perpetual regret

You're going to have to feel pain—everyone feels pain at times—but you don't have to suffer so much.

If, however, your childhood ruptures didn't come with loving repairs, it will take some practice for you to tolerate the ruptures, to stop believing that every rupture signals the end, and to trust that even if a relationship doesn't work out, you will survive that rupture too.

If we spend the present trying to fix the past or control the future, we remain stuck in place, in perpetual regret

Of course, therapists aren't persuaders. We can't convince an anorexic to eat. We can't convince an alcoholic not to drink. We can't convince people not to be self-destructive, because for now, the self-destruction serves them. What we can do is try to help them understand themselves better and show them how to ask themselves the right questions until something happens — either internally or externally — that leads them to do their own persuading.

You're not choosing the pain, but you're choosing the suffering

Therapists talk a lot about how the past informs the present—how 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't accept the notion that there's 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.

hadn't considered that if the only thing that keeps you going all day is knowing you'll get to turn on the TV after dinner, you probably are depressed.

You know, John," I'd said the week before as he texted away, "I'm curious if you have any reaction to my feeling dismissed when you do this." He held up a finger—Hang on—but continued to text. When he finished, he looked up at me. "Sorry, what was I saying?" I loved that. Not "What were you saying" but "What was I saying.

Diagnosis has