As someone who used to work in the psychology field, I was immediately interested in Lori Gottlieb’s memoir Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed. I love books about therapy; two of the books that put me on the psychology path were Mary Pipher’s Reviving Ophelia and Irvin Yalom’s Love’s Executioner. Gottlieb’s book takes us into therapy rooms, as both practitioner and client, but her story is about more than just therapy. It’s about finding her way, becoming a single mom by choice, and learning how to navigate and be okay with life’s changes. Through several very different clients of hers, we see parts of ourselves, and in her confessions and mishaps, she forces us to take a look at our own stumbles.

I was able to snag Gottlieb for a phone interview right before her book tour, in between clients and having to pick her son up from school.

In the book, you talk about turning down one book idea, and how you really struggled with the happiness book you were writing and ended up breaking that contract. And then you tell Wendell [your therapist] that you’re writing about your therapy with him. Is that how this book came about?

Right. So purely by accident. I never woke up one day and was like, “Yeah. I should write about my therapy.” And even when I talk about the book now, people who are not therapists are like, “That’s really interesting. I want to read that book about.” And my therapy colleagues are like, “You’re writing what?” So I didn’t plan to write this book. I was just launching myself as a therapist and I was really interested in going to deeper places in life, in terms of meaning and purpose and what matters.

I wanted to be really intentional about what I was doing with my time, in a way that I don’t think I really had before. I think you get to middle age, and all of a sudden, you’re like, “Wow. I don’t have forever.” Not that we ever had forever, but I think you don’t realize it until later.

Readiness is a big thing that I talk about in the book. The patients I see have to be ready to change. You have to be ready to do something different instead of going in circles, and no amount of talking about it is going to change the fact that you have to be ready for it.

That’s a common theme in your book, with Rita and John. They have to get to that point where they’re ready to really open up. It’s interesting that you also had to be ready in many ways.

Yeah. I think all people do, and it was really important for me to see it in myself. As a therapist, you want people to struggle less, more quickly. You want to help them along, but you realize there are certain times when, if you do something too early, they’re going to put up even more of a wall, and you’re going to have to then break down that wall. And it’s going to take even longer.

How did you choose the clients you wrote about?

That’s a great question. First of all, I wanted to make sure it was nobody that I was still seeing, because I didn’t feel like I could write about people that I was with in real time. And I wanted to pick different people, in terms of age, gender, history, characterological makeups. So we have people with different personalities, at different stage of life, with different personal issues and struggles, including myself. I wanted that mix because I wanted to show that we can find ourselves in all of these people’s stories.

It sounded really interesting that some of your major decisions, like your motherhood and your career, were made near the age of 40. So many people now have the mindset of go, go, go, and if I haven’t done it by now, it’s too late, it’s not going to happen. Do you think this is changing, especially for women?

I think it is, and I think partly it’s because we live longer and our time horizon looks different from our mothers’ generation. A lot of us are having children later. I think a lot of us really want meaning, in a certain way. A lot of people have a more flexible idea of what their lives can look like… I think women have so many more choices and there’s a lot more freedom in terms of what I want to do and who I want to be and how I want to spend my time, when I have all of these good years left.

Speaking of your time, what have you done to carve out a space for yourself and your work, both writing and otherwise, within motherhood?

I think it’s challenging. I think it’s extremely challenging. I feel lucky because I’m doing work that I love in all of my various incarnations. But the reality is there just aren’t always the number of hours you want in a day. One thing I’m very aware of is that my son’s growing up and I’m not always going to have the opportunity to be under the same roof with him. And while he still wants to hang out with me, I relish that. Right now, for example, is an extremely busy time because I’m about to go on a book tour. So it’s been really insane, in terms of writing deadlines and interviews and the things that go into launching a book, and writing my weekly column, and having a private practice. There’s always these curveballs that come with parenting, where you think your day is going a certain way, and all of a sudden you have to fill out 20 forms and get things done with the pediatrician and do all these other things and submit a photo. And I’m just like, “Really? Where’s that going to fit in?”

But I think no matter what the situation—single parents, married parents, whatever— it’s really hard to manage a professional life and also be a parent and not at some point feel kind of torn between your time commitments.

Yes. Speaking of time commitments, you have a private practice, and you have family obligations. Do you have a writing routine that you try and stick with?

I like my weekly column because it’s on a schedule. You turn it in on this day, and you get your edits this day, and it’s all very predictable. I like having a built-in routine. My private practice is very routine; I know my patient’s schedules. But the book was challenging because I had these other two jobs. And then I have the job of being a parent. So I wrote the book whenever I could do it. Sometimes things all come in at once, and it’s like, your kid is going to have a little more screen time than usual, or maybe they go to a friend’s house. But I try to preserve my weekends and make those family time, where we’re doing social things. I think it’s really important to show your kids that you need balance in your life.

For sure. In that vein, how do you think the creative community tends to support women and mothers especially?

Just by giving people enough time and realizing that balance is important. You’ll get a better product if the person is more relaxed when they do it.

What would you say you’re struggling with as a parent and as a writer right now?

As a parent, I would say time. Even with the book tour, I’m going to be traveling so much. I’m not complaining about it—I think it will be really fun. But it’s hard to have enough time to do everything you want to do. I’ve had to turn down lots of opportunities. Not had to, I’ve chosen to. I think that we have to realize that we can’t be two places at once, and you make choices based on how you want to focus on different parts of your life. Sometimes you have to say no to some of the professional things and sometimes you have to say no to some of the family things.

What advice would you give to a writer trying to juggle parenthood and writing?

I think if you start being clear about what your boundaries are, editors will be very respectful of that. If the editor is emailing you at 8:00 at night or 9:00 at night, you don’t have to respond, right? You just respond during business hours. And then they’ll start interacting with you during business hours. Be very prompt during business hours, be very reliable and prompt, but you’re not a person who is going to be sending them an answer, at 10:00 at night, to a question that can wait until 9:00 the next morning. If you can carve out work time, social time, family time, and chill time, then you’re going to do really well, especially if you establish that early.

What books inspire you and what are you reading right now in all that spare time you have?

I love to read. So I always make sure I can read every day, usually before bed. If it’s not before bed, maybe it’s during a break in the day, or in the 10 minutes between patients. I bring a book with me everywhere I go. We have a little saying in our house, ABAB, which is Always Bring A Book. So my son and I ABAB. Whenever we have downtime, we read our books. It’s a nice way to pass the time. So what am I reading right now? I just started The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang, and I just finished Bowlaway, Elizabeth McCracken’s novel.

Which books inspire you? Do you have any favorites that you just return to again and again?

I mean, I have books the way other people have shoes. There are not enough bookshelves for my books. They’re all over the place. Books come up in the therapy room all the time, by the way. People talk about what resonates with them, and I’ll suggest books to people. Something I read recently that I loved was Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. It speaks to this very human desire to connect and how much shame we have around our past and how we heal from our traumas. And it’s a beautiful book. I loved it.

I know every writer hates this, so I apologize in advance, what’s next on the horizon for you?

I really have no idea. And I had no idea I was going to write this book. But I think this book is very much in the area that I like to explore. This area of the conundrum of being human and how we get through our lives, and what it’s like to be a person in the world.

Photo Credit: Shlomit Levy Bard