Want to bounce back better? Here's how Lori Gottlieb says therapy can help

 In the Arena is LinkedIn News’ weekly human potential podcast hosted by (me) Leah Smart. You’ll hear from some of the world's brightest minds and bravest hearts about how to show up daily to live a better & more meaningful life. Each week, this newsletter shares learnings and practices connected to the conversations. Subscribe to the show's newsletter here. This week we're kicking off season 5 with writer and psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb on what therapy actually is.

A few years ago, I was explaining to someone my reason for regularly going to therapy. Mid-explanation, this person jumped in, stating, “no, you go to therapy because you don’t know how to deal with your own life.” This is someone I love and respect. And yet their statement showed me their judgment about therapy, perhaps how hard they are on themselves, and signaled that this topic was one I’d want minimally present in our relationship for a while.

Because therapy has been consistent in my life for a long time, I was disappointed but relatively unphased by their opinion. But I pictured how this comment could have impacted me if I were deciding whether to start therapy. I might have felt shame and held off on pursuing it. The truth? I needed it– I was experiencing stress and anxiety in a way that was interfering with who I know I am.

This person was not entirely to blame for their opinion. They’ve never been to therapy. And I find many people who haven’t been exposed to it firsthand, don’t know what therapy is. It's like they picture the stereotypical movie scene where a disheveled person is laying on a couch deciphering an abstract drawing while a therapist sits frowning and scribbling behind a desk.

So, I invited psychotherapist Lori Gottlieb to kick off Season 5 of In the Arena. Her book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed has sold over a million copies. Clearly, it's resonating. She joined me for real talk on what great therapists around the world are doing to help people change their lives and why she urges you not to ignore that curiosity you have about therapy.

“I think that so many people think that you're going to come to therapy and you're going to talk about your childhood ad nauseam and you're never going to leave and that's the model of therapy. That's not at all what therapy is. It's really about the present and the future. So yes, we're going to look at how the past informs the present so that you can now in the present create a different future.” – Lori Gottlieb

We Still Aren't Completely Comfortable with Therapy

The conversation about mental health has been catapulted by the pandemic and many Americans started therapy for the first time in 2020. Yet, a study that same year revealed that 47% of Americans believed therapy was a sign of weakness. We may be more willing to seek therapy. But our minds haven’t changed about what it means to be a therapy-seeker.

There have been moments when I’ve wondered aloud if I was alone in my reasons for being in therapy. And I remember my amazing therapist's response, “I wish you all could see each other. Then you’d know how not alone you really are.”

In the same 2020 study, a common response when asked why someone chose not to pursue therapy was, they felt their problems weren’t “big enough”. But this isn’t "The Suffering Olympics". And we don’t lighten anyone else’s load by ignoring our own challenges.  

As Lori shared,

...people think that if you go to therapy something is wrong with you. And that's such an interesting dichotomy when you think about how we think about our physical health versus how we think about our emotional health. So, we have this hierarchy of pain in our minds around emotional health, that if it doesn't meet the threshold then you don't go to therapy. And we don't do that with our physical health. So, if you fall down and you break your arm, you don't say, ‘well, I'm not going to go get a cast or get treated for this or get an x-ray because it's not as bad as I don't have a terminal illness,’ let's say, or whatever your hierarchy looks like. We go and we get treated.

If It's Important to You, It's Reason Enough to Go

I thought I’d share my current reasons for being a regular on the virtual couch, to give honest insight. Maybe they’ll be the bridge that connects your curiosity with your future therapist:

• I want to be the best person I can be for myself, those I love, and our world. If I don’t spend time working through past and current experiences, while planning for the person I want to be, that simply won’t happen.
• For me, a therapist provides something no friend or family member has: the ability to remain open to who I want to become without projections, fear of change, inserted opinions, or historical bias.
• I’m energized by processing externally. And I choose to lighten the load on my inner circle.

Ultimately, the decision to go to therapy is a personal one. If you find yourself surrounded by people who will respect what’s important and tender to you, consider yourself fortunate. Resolve to be a supporter of someone else.

And when you discover someone who is not supportive, that’s ok too. Sometimes those closest to us can surprise us by being the most threatened by our possible evolution. We can still be in relationship with them. And perhaps our choices will eventually give them permission to be braver than their own fear. They’re only human. And so are we.

Until next time...what's something you've explored that inspired someone you know to do the same?