Group
How One Therapist and A Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
eBook
- 2020
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK AND INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "O ften hilarious and ultimately very touching ." — People "This book is a testament to the power of human connection." —Reese Witherspoon "This unrestrained memoir is a transporting experience and one of the most startlingly hopeful books I have ever read." —Lisa Taddeo, New York Times bestselling author of Three Women The refreshingly original debut memoir of a guarded, over-achieving, self-lacerating young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to get psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers—her psychotherapy group—and in turn finds human connection, and herself. Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her despite her achievements? Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything—her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: "You don't need a cure. You need a witness." So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen's outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect. Group is a deliciously addictive read, and with Christie as our guide—skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself—we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy—an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.
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Add a CommentWill make you hate, in no particular order: the author, group therapy, corporate law and whiny, privileged white people.
Yuk...what a terrible book and a waste of a read. I’ll never get those hours back. A self absorbed woman joins a group therapy circle with questionable boundaries run by a cult like therapist that should have his license revoked. She blabs on about her sex life in excruciating detail that does nothing to enlighten the reader how all this is helping her or the other patients. She is still going to this group and was encouraged by the same therapist to join 2 more (!) for weekly sessions, which she has now been doing for decades. Clearly, the therapist is not there to help her or anyone else as the goal of real therapy is to get the patient out of therapy as soon as possible with a positive result. Must be a great money maker for the therapist is all I can tell as no one is graduating from this. Nauseating.
This is a memoir of a whip smart lawyer who following graduation, imagined herself driving off the road. She finds salvation in her "Harvard trained" doctor who forbids secrets. That was great and kept me reading. After hundreds of groups her challenged relationships began to move forward towards okayness. What is hard to believe is how she kept her family nearly completely out of it. Sex in detail, cursing, violence, anger abound here but sadly it did not delve below the surface.
This story sucked me right in! It is dirty, sad, happy, and down right hilarious. I enjoyed the “prescriptions” that were given out by Dr.Rosen for his patient.