Get Lit with All of It: Lori Gottlieb

hey everybody thank you for coming out tonight it's so great I see some regular faces we've been doing this long enough that we have regulars it's so good so we're gonna do tonight we're gonna have a live show and we're gonna make a radio show as well so I have to do a little bit of radio shenanigans with you guys I need you to be I need you to clap for me sort of golf claps a little bit and then I need really enthusiastic claps and then I just need a bunch of just being excited to be here noise so I will orchestrate it are you ready we're gonna do golf claps first like oh that was so nice overachiever stop all right three two this is get lit with all of it book club live from the green space really excited about books three two this is the get lit with all of it book club live from the green space and we'll do one that sort of medium we'll be back with more of the get lit with all of it book club from the green space you are very good thank you very much so a little bit of housekeeping first of all Laurie has agreed to stay after and sign books which is very exciting so you don't miss that and her books are on sale in the lobby see Lobby courtesy of books on call New York and I think that's it no that's not it actually I've talked about a February book club as well do you guys know what it is yet all right our February book club selection is such a fun age by Kylie read this is emitted it last night it's so good the story follows a young black woman who's a babysitter and she is in the store with a little girl that she babysits one night and she's accused of kidnapping a little girl so while she's this is happening somebody videotapes it in this age we're in so a video of the confrontation goes viral and it changes the live of the nanny and the family she works for forever so Kylie Reed is amazing it's already a New York Times best seller it was selected this month as Reese Witherspoon's book club copycat and it's already been optioned for screen by Lee no way who does master of none and queen and slim so Kylie Reed is going to be here in the green space with us on February 18th mark your calendars you people clearly know how to get tickets so we hope you'll come back and become one of our regulars so that's our bit of business let's get to it I have to all right control room are you ready I okay you gonna play intro hey guys you can play the show intro should I just go for it I think they're deciding hello and welcome to our very first get lit with all of it book club event of 2020 we are here live in the green space we're gonna dig into the book we've been reading together all this month maybe you should talk to someone a therapist her therapist and our lives revealed by Laurie Gottlieb we're also going to talk with dr. Gail Saltz about how to find a good therapist because I don't know about you but I thought I might need one after reading the book and we will hear music from jill Sobule that's all coming your way and now for the main event our get lit with all of it book club pick for this month laurie Gottlieb's maybe you should talk to someone here's the story when we meet los angeles-based therapist laurie Gottlieb she's already she has her hands full she has a patient who was terminally ill a patient who calls people idiots when they don't get things exactly his way and then there's the fact that Laurie realizes she needs therapy herself what sends this therapist into therapy the presenting problem as Laurie calls it is a really bad breakup Laura's fiance reveals to her sort of kind of out of the blue that he just doesn't think he can help raise another kid specifically he doesn't want to talk to Laurie son about Legos so Laurie heads to get help coping and is ready for her therapist named Wendell to tell her what a jerk her ex is her therapist fortunately has other ideas Laurie writes about her experiences with therapy from both sides of the chair in her New York Times best-selling memoir that the New York Times called irresistible candid and addicting please welcome Laurie Gottlieb hello Oh Laurie thank you so much for being here oh thank you for having me we're very excited as you can see we have a full house with some a standing-room-only so we really know that people want to hear from you tonight but it's interesting as I was reading the book I thought in theory we should be sitting here discussing a book about happiness hi cuz if you read the book you know that Laurie was supposed to write a book about happiness and you just couldn't get to it why couldn't you get to that you know when I was writing that book I was starting out as a therapist and I felt like what I was saying in the therapy room was so much more about the human condition than a book about happiness and in fact I feel like happiness as a byproduct of living our lives in a fulfilling way is what we all want but happiness as the end goal is kind of a recipe for disaster and in fact the writing of the happiness book got me depressed I called it the miserable depression inducing happiness book because I really wanted to I really wanted to bring people into the therapy room and show them what I had the privilege of seeing every day so there are five people that you follow in your book including yourself you have as I mentioned a young woman who is dying a sort of gruff and I'm gonna say a little bit rude TV producer senior citizen who's just kind of a misanthrope and a young woman with sort of impulse control and then there's you so when you thought about writing this book how did you know it was going to be this kind of booklet could have just been about your patients it could have just been about you why did you think the combination was going to be powerful I thought it was really important because I chose these four patients who seemed very different from one another on the surface but underneath it all is you get to know them you see how similar we all are and I didn't want to be the expert up on high I say at the very beginning of the book that my greatest credential is that I'm a card-carrying member of the human race and I was going through something at the time and I felt like it would almost be disingenuous not to include that entire part of the story so I'm the fifth page and I go to see my therapist as I'm treating my patients and we're all growing and changing through this process in terms of the patients and I know you can't break patient-doctor confidentiality what did you think I know you you went to them and said I want to include you in my sinasohn this story in our story what did they say to you I was a writer long before I was a therapist so I came to this later in life and everyone who comes to me knows that there's a possibility that as long as I disguise their identities they might be written about but this was different because this was a really in-depth look at the treatment as it unfolded I think people were honored by the way that they were written about and I think they were surprised that I thought about them as much as I did you know I think a lot of us wonder so your therapist sees you for 50 minutes a week and then do they forget about you for the rest of the week and they were really moved by how much I cared and how much they had come into my life and and helped me as a person to become a better therapist and to become a better person that was surprising to me that how much you've thought about your patients because I did go to therapy and I remember one time her saying I heard that interview you did it was great and it shocked me I was like wait you I exist outside of this room why do you think patients don't think about their therapist that way it's interesting because I think that in reality most of the therapy happens outside of the room and people don't realize this so there's the 50 minutes in the room but if you aren't doing something with the therapy outside of the room you're not really getting therapy you're not really making use of the therapy I always say that insight is the booby prize of therapy that you can have all the insight in the world but if you don't make changes out in the world the insight is useless so somebody might say in therapy you know now I understand why I'm having these arguments with my partner and then I say well did you do something different during the argument with your partner well no but I understand why I did it well you're not really working in therapy so I think that it's not really an isolated 50 minutes but for a lot of people is very discombobulating when they run into their therapist outside of the therapy room it's almost like when you're a kid and you run into your teacher and like Best Buy and she's in cutoff shorts with her husband or something and her kids and you're like wait you don't sleep in the classroom I think people think that about their therapist too my guest is Lauren Gottlieb we're talking about her memoir maybe you should talk to someone so you described the language of presenting problem that's what happened that's what somebody gets somebody into the therapists office people aren't sleeping well they're obsessing about somebody they can't get out of the job they want to get out of when you first went to your therapist what was your presenting problem so my presenting problem was that the person that I was going to marry told me that he decided that he couldn't live with a kid under his roof for the next ten years that kid at the time was my eight-year-old and my version of the story and I very purposely say my version of the story just no spoilers here but um was that he was a sociopath no my version of the story that was my friend's version of the story and I didn't disagree my version of the story was that I was blindsided that I had no idea that there were no signs of this and I was sure that when I went to therapy that my therapist was going to wholeheartedly agree with me that I had dodged a bullet that you know this was this was a blessing in disguise all of those cliches and and that would make me feel better and that might have made me feel better in the moment but ultimately it was not what was going to help me and I always when I have patients come in I'm always listening for what I like to say the music under the lyrics so the lyrics are I had this breakup here's what happened the music is what is the underlying struggle or pattern that got you into this situation in the first place what have you found from your practice is the biggest obstacle to hearing that music I think that we all believe that our version of the story isn't early 100% accurate and the full version so and I talked about the difference in the book between idiot compassion and wise compassion right so idiot compassion is what our friends do they go along with our version of the story they say yeah you're right you know he was a jerk or yeah your boss should have promoted you even though we know you don't really deserve the promotion or so we we go along with it because we think we're being supportive wise compassion is what happens in the therapy room it's we're holding up a mirror to the person to help them to see themselves in a way that maybe they haven't been willing or able to do and ultimately that is going to help them to grow and change and and navigate their life differently so it's not just about solving that one thing that you came in for it's about how can you figure out what got you there so that you don't end up there again how do you know when you have a good fit with your therapist that's an excellent question because every study shows that the most important factor in the success of your therapy is your relationship with your therapist so more than their training or years of experience or the modality they use all of which are important you have to have a good relationship with your therapist I think that people don't trust themselves to to leave if they don't have that good fit and people think that you're gonna hurt the therapists feelings they don't realize that you're there for you so what a lot of people do is they just keep going and therapy and they're not making any progress and they're afraid to leave or they just leave one day never come back and they ghost the therapist and a really good thing for them to do is to say hey you know I'm not sure that this is working and to talk about it with the therapist because we don't want to keep you there if we're not helping you and so maybe we're not aware that this is how you're feeling and we want to talk about what's getting in the way and maybe it truly isn't a good match in which case we don't want to keep you there what made Wendell a good fit for you Wendell was very different from me and that ultimately was exactly what I needed um he was much farther along in his career so he was much more experienced than I was he was very quirky and he brought his whole personality into the room in a way that I didn't know at that time in my career that you could so he he does a lot of very unconventional things in the room he doesn't cross any weird boundaries there's nothing creepy going on you know he's not self disclosing he's not talking about himself but he's very effective in reaching me on a very human level which which I think is different from what we see in like movies and television and I think also different from what we're taught in grad school in terms of how we're supposed to be in the room he was just entirely authentic I'm curious about it we learn in the book that you had a health a health condition but you don't tell him right away and withhold that information as a therapist what difficulty does that present for you I mean aside from the obvious if you're not having all the information when a patient is not honest with you most people are not entirely honest when they first come in not because they're lying but because of what they choose to tell you and what they choose not to tell you and I think it's a natural instinct to want your therapist to like you and to want to come off well in front of this other person and so maybe we aren't sharing everything at the beginning and and sometimes it's not even conscious sometimes you're just you you tell yourself that's not really important even though it's the most important thing and the thing you really need to be talking about so I think it takes a little time for people to take off their mask and that's part of the work of me as a therapist is to figure out what are they not telling me so I'm listening for what they're saying and I'm also listening for what they're not saying is there anything that's sort of a telltale sign that you know when you're talking to something okay there's more okay there's more here yeah yeah and you could see that unfold in the book too a lot of people but I might not know what the thing is but I might you know guess that there is something else they are sometimes when people are just trying to distract you you know they're sort of chatting they're trying to entertain you that's kind of like look over here look over here look over here and you have no idea what they're talking about what is the thread of the story and I'm always wondering when someone's talking why are they telling me this what is the purpose of this story that they're telling me right now is it a distraction from what we're supposed to be talking about or what we need to be talking about or is there something about this story that there's something deeper to it that they're feeling a lot of shame around and they're staying on the surface of it because they don't want to go down into the shame so if someone's listening to this and they have a therapy session tomorrow and they want to be an excellent patient if they really want to move it forward what's something they could do to be an excellent patient you just have to show the truth of who you are and so many people are afraid to do that because they're afraid that if they show the truth of who they are that people are going to judge them or feel a certain way about them and the truth is that if you show the truth of who you are people will be drawn toward you because that's how humans connect and it's not just true in the therapy room it's true in life but so often we feel like we have to project a certain image and it's very hard for us to let go of that I'm gonna flip it around you have a patient you write about who you have you have patients with this patient he is he's he's awful but he's terribly rude at the beginning I mean if for people who haven't read the book or haven't gotten that deep into it he likens you to a hooker because he pays you in cash and he throws it down and he's very he is very entitled with his space he's gonna eat his food and in the session not particularly as patients but what do you do as a therapist when you have someone you just don't like so I think there's a difference between someone that you would choose as a friend and someone that you can feel a lot of compassion for and I think in his case it was so obvious to me that he had some very deep pain that he was he was so wanting to avoid and so he couldn't let anybody get close to him and so he would be kind of a jerk to people so that they couldn't get close to him those were just his defenses and I needed to figure out a way to get underneath those defenses and what's interesting about him is that I think that for people who have read the book he becomes someone that most people feel very close to by the end of the book they feel so much compassion for him and they're rooting for him and dare I say they like him what about someone who's not him and what would you would you could you is it appropriate to ask someone to leave a practice because you're just not connecting or just you don't feel like you can get past sure so when I was yeah so when I was when I was training a supervisor said to me there's something likable and everyone it's your job to find it and I thought yeah well I don't know about everyone but it's true um I think that I have found something likable and every single person that I have seen now there was a case in the book that I write about of a woman who would you know she was in her 20s and she was having some relational difficulties and she would come in every week and tell me in in all different kinds of ways that I was incompetent and not helping her and she wouldn't leave so so that was really challenging did I like her I felt like I don't know if I would have liked her because I could never see who she was so I was only seeing the persona that she was presenting to me but I'll bet that if she had let me get to know her I would have liked her very much I just couldn't get to that place with her my guest is Laurie Gottlieb the name of the book is maybe you should talk to someone it is our this month get lit with all of it book club pick we'll have more with Laurie live from the green space we're gonna take some of your questions in a little bit so start thinking about your questions and Jordan's gonna run the microphones just so you know alright gonna come back in three two this is all of it on WNYC we're live from the green space with our get lit with all of it book club and the book we've all been reading this month is maybe you should talk to someone from Lori Gottlieb it's the subtitles a therapist her therapist and our lives revealed Lori we learned so much about you and your life you have such an interesting career path you worked as a journalist you worked in TV and you made what I think a lot of people think is a really a big leap I mean it's interesting that you went to your therapist for a broken heart to a degree but you've done things that people can't imagine doing like just switching careers what was at the at the the core of you realizing that you wanted to make that big a leap into being a therapist when I look back on all the different parts of my career whether that was working in film and TV or going to medical school or being a journalist and being a therapist I've always been interested in story and the human condition and I feel like all of those things were simply looking at it from a different perspective and I use all of that background every day as a therapist I feel like a lot of what I do as a therapist is I'm an editor in the room and people bring me their stories and usually most of us are unreliable narrators and I'm helping people to do a rewrite on their stories and part of it is that we're unreliable about other people you know people come in and they say I want to change but what they really mean is I want someone else or something else to change and so we have to rewrite the story and help them to see how can they be the protagonist in their story and sometimes the story that they tell themselves about themselves needs a rewrite like people can be so unkind to themselves and so I had a patient leave and write down everything that she was saying to herself for three days and then come back and tell me about it and she came back in and she said I can't read this I am such a bully to myself and she started to read it and and you know it was it was these kinds of things that we all do like I'm such an idiot I made a mistake or god I look terrible today or you know oh that was so awkward and if your friend experienced the same thing you would never think that about your friend it's not only that you wouldn't say it you actually wouldn't believe it but we can be so critical of ourselves and so unkind and so those stories need a rewrite - let's talk about Julie in the book what a challenging experience that was for you professionally Julie asks Laurie to remain her therapist as she's dying what did you think when she asked that so I wish that I could say that the therapy session went like this she said will you stay with me until I die which is what she did say and that I said of course I will and we hugged okay that is not what happened what actually happened was I hesitated and she saw me hesitate and I hesitated I thought at the time because I thought you know I don't have a lot of experience dealing with a young person a newly Wed in her 30s who's dying of cancer and I want she's only gonna get one chance at this and I don't want to mess it up for her but I think that later on I realized that the real reason that I hesitated was because it's hard for all of us to look at death and to look death in the eye in the way that it would I would be required of me and yet it was one of the most meaningful rich experiences I think for both of us as she went through that I think we learned a lot from each other not so much about death although partly about death but mostly about life what was different in your approach of working with her than some of your other patients I think that I was much more aware of time with her not only of her time but of time that we all have to think about being very intentional about the fact that life has a hundred percent mortality rate and that's not just for other people that that's for all of us you and I think that it helped me to live more intentionally and I think that Julie made choices in her life knowing that her time was extremely limited and so my approach was we don't have any time to waste we got to really get to it and we got to get to it quickly another one of your patients we meet Charlotte claims that she's addicted to therapy and she's addicted to seeing you is there such a thing she believed there was you know I think that you know and she kept leaving because she felt like I was her her addiction and she was trying to sort of break the addiction ultimately I think she came to realize that she was afraid of confronting the fact that she kept hooking up with all the wrong guys including eventually a guy from the waiting room I don't mean they hooked up in the waiting room by the way our office is not that exciting but you know she kept picking guys who were completely inappropriate for her and once she was able to stop with the distraction of I'm addicted to you I'm addicted to therapy she was able to sit with oh maybe the common denominator and all of these encounters that I'm having is me and maybe I'm choosing people who are going to let me down and disappoint me okay audience were coming to you and one more question so we'll be there with you in a second so think about it I'm gonna ask the audience a question first though who here is googled their therapist Oh guys honest should we be googling our therapist Laurie so the answer is no and yet I did Google my therapist and what I found was that his father had died at a relatively young age suddenly his father had been a marathon runner and seemed to be in perfect health and I had been talking about my very close relationship with my aging father in my therapy sessions and once I googled this and found this I went back to therapy and I stopped talking about that because I felt like I would be causing him pain and what I should have done was say hey I googled you I found this out per EUR per the obituary that I found after two hours of google stalking you you know I learned this information and and that's not what I did at first and he realized that something weird was going on in the room you can feel as a therapist you can feel that something has shifted and I confessed to him eventually that that that's what I did and we had this wonderful conversation about fathers and my father and I don't think we would have had that deep conversation about my father in the same way had I not told him what I had found but I think when you start googling anyone not just your therapist you have to ask what is the purpose of this what do I want to get out of this and is this going to serve me and I think that your answer will be no and hopefully you will find something healthier to do with that time that you would have wasted going down the internet rabbit hole a colleague of mine calls the internet the most effective short term non prescription painkiller out there my guest is Laurie Gottlieb the name of the book is maybe you should talk to someone okay audience you get to ask a question of Laurie we've done here hang on a second I get your microphone hi Laurie I love it either thank you very therapeutic for me to read my question for you is how did you choose what patients to include in your book that's a great question I wanted to choose people who seemed very different on the surface because I wanted to show how similar we all are and I thought it was important to show different kinds of people people from different socioeconomic backgrounds people who are different genders different ages different personalities different histories different presenting problems and and I thought that these people especially in the way that they transformed themselves without having the ending being wrapped up in a bow I thought that was really important to show all of their stories and and how they're all connected and how they were connected to mine as well right here so thank you so much I loved your book and I appreciate your opening comments about how you need to have the right fit with your therapists so I wonder if you could talk about my impression which could be wrong that you were kind of in love with your therapist so in the book this side of the room doesn't agree but that's why it's book club this is why it's good so initially I talked about the fact that that's called romantic transference when you when you have romantic feelings toward your therapist and it's actually quite common because you're having this very intimate relationship with this person and it doesn't mean that you actually are in love with the person but I think that we have very strong feelings toward our therapists and Wendell was this kind of tall very skinny kind of your cardigan wearing you know balding kind of nerdy therapist and so initially it never occurred to me that I would be attracted to him romantically in any way and it wasn't until later when I come back after he had been away for a couple weeks and his office has been completely redone he had this very had terrible taste in furniture too so it was on top of that and and when I first came in I thought well you know I questioned his judgment because I thought you know anybody who decorates their office like this I don't know how much I can trust their judgment but he had his office completely redone and then he walks out to get me from the waiting room and he had this whole new wardrobe on and he had sort of grown a little bit of a beard and he looked kind of attractive and I was really thrown by that so um you know I think we have all kinds of feelings for our therapist so was I in love with him a little bit that day maybe but not not over the long term I think that wasn't really the the thrust of our of our sessions back here hi Laurie we have a book club group ourselves and we loved your book so our question for you is you do such a good job of humanizing therapists and what goes on in the room but what do you think is the reaction of the therapists community I mean aside from the fact that they might see a surgeon business what do you think is going to be there that's an unintended consequence of the book so I think it's really important to therapists that we're portrayed as regular people and you know we're doing a television version of the book and it's it's so important because I think that a lot of the ways that therapists have been portrayed in the media is one of two ways there's the the therapist who's like a robot who never talks who just kind of says aha and they don't really seem human and I don't think anybody wants to talk to a brick wall and the other kind of trope of therapy is that the therapist is like very competent in the office but a train wreck or a hot mess outside and you're like an in treatment or something and I think that this book is a really realistic portrayal of a person who happens to be a therapist who's just like anybody else so I think therapists are very grateful that that version of what if therapist is like is out there because that's what most therapists are like one or two more thank you for being here tonight have you ever brought your relationships with your patients outside of the therapy room and created a relationship that wasn't any more grounded in the room but was a friendship or anything like that and and when is that appropriate to do with your patients no I've never done that I think the frame of therapy is really important which is that you're seeing somebody in the context of the 50 minutes in the room once a week and that's the frame and I think that when you break that frame it creates all kinds of questions about trust and boundaries and it changes how the two of you are interacting in in terms of you understanding who they are and not making it about you and there are all kinds of problems associated with that so no I would never do that and I would never recommend doing that over here Jordan hi Laurie as a fellow therapists I understand the importance of self-care so I was wondering what do you do for self-care that is so important for therapists and you know I work in a suite of therapists and I think it's really important between people to have some have a break so you have to go to the bathroom you have to eat I mean they sound like really obvious things but when you think about it and you're seeing people kind of back-to-back and you have about 10 minutes in between each session you really have to make sure that you schedule your patients in a way that works for you where you do have breaks where you can go into the kitchen and talk to your colleagues where you can return phone calls where you can write your chart notes and then have a little bit of space to kind of shift and transition in your mind before you go see the next person so I think that the way you structure your day is really important and I also think not bringing your work home with you so much so of course we think about the people that we see but also making sure that you have a full life outside of the therapy room I've got a question over here on the side hi there conventionally it seems that most therapists don't put much information about themselves into the world I was just wondering in light of this book and perhaps other things that you've written how it's impacted the way you perform your therapy with patients who now know something more personal about you right so I was a writer before I became a therapist or had any idea that I would become a therapist so there might have been things that I would have chosen not to write about if I knew later that I would become a therapist and not because I'm embarrassed about any of them but just because it's a lot of information to have out there in this age of the internet but given that I also felt like this book maybe three people would read it I didn't realize that more than three people would read it and so I really let it rip right I was very vulnerable and open and honest and I think that if I had known how many people would read it I might have tried to clean myself up a little bit especially in those early chapters but I also think that the reason that so many people have read it is because I didn't clean myself up because I was very real and relatable and authentic and so when people if people have read the book yes they know that about me but even my own patients when I published the book and I went off on book tour and I I didn't tell them I was leaving because of a book I just said I will be out of the office on these dates and I'll see you on this date and when I came back some people came in and they sat on my couch and they said so I read your book and we had these really beautiful conversations not about me because people really aren't that interested in me they're there for them but about them and their reactions to the book and also about our relationship because one of the real keys of the book is the relationships between me and my patients and me and my therapist and they didn't know that they were allowed to talk about that relationship in the room in the same way and a lot of people in fact there's a there's a moment in the book where I asked Wendell my therapist I say do you like me and so a lot of people I've heard are going to their therapist now and they're saying I read this book and in the book she says to her therapist do you like me isn't that interesting so I think that it's given my patients permission to talk with me about our relationship as well Laurie all many relationships come to an end how do you know when it's time to stop therapy it's really important to focus on why is the person here and have we met those goals so I think that there's this myth about therapy that you're gonna go into therapy you're gonna talk about your childhood ad nauseam and you're never gonna leave and that's just not what therapy is we're very aware of you know why is this person here and if it starts to get chitchat E is there something that the person is not telling us that we haven't talked about yet or is our work done and that's something that you talk about with the patient in the room you've been on book tour you've engaged with all kinds of audiences these are stressful times what do you what's on people's minds when they come up to you and you're signing books because I know so many people will lean in and talk to you about something or they'll catch you in in the lobby of an event what's what's on people's minds right now I think two big themes one is this question of how can I love and be loved I think everybody has that question and I think people are finding it harder to navigate that in today's world where people are treated more like a shopping expedition and less like another human being that you might get to know and I think related to that is an epidemic of loneliness even for people who are happily in relationship I think that we aren't connecting with people in a way that feels nourishing and fulfilling and so many times we'll be sitting with someone and our phones are sitting on the table and we're not giving somebody our full attention so I think that a lot of people are feeling like not only are they not being heard but they don't know how to listen what was an unintended consequence of this book I think well I would say it's an intended consequence an intended consequence was the title of the book maybe you should talk to someone doesn't necessarily mean everybody should go to therapy it means maybe we need to all talk more to each other and I think an intended consequence has been I think people are doing that I think more people are being much more aware of how am i connecting with people and am i prioritizing that in my life is there before I let you go is there one takeaway you want people to think about when they think about your book when they think about relating to one another something we didn't touch on that you think is really important I think that ultimately we grow in connection with others and we have this culture of Independence you know like it's it's revalue so much do-it-yourself you know it's all about you focus on yourself and I think that it's really important to say aiya it's important to focus on myself but it's also important for me to connect with others and that they're not mutually exclusive the name of the book is maybe you should talk to someone a therapist her therapist and our lives reveal Laurie got leave thank you so much for giving us so much time tonight thank you so much for having me here this is all of it we're done with the lorry thank you so much lorries agreed to sign books in the lobby after the program is over thank you so much Laurie okay good everybody good everybody okay all right all right control room here we go three two this is the get lit with all of it Book Club live from the green space hi everybody so after hearing our conversation with Lloyd Gottlieb are you thinking maybe I should talk to someone to finding the right therapist isn't easy it's it's tough is finding a good apartment these days where do you begin luckily we have an expert here who can give us some tips and tricks for finding the right therapist for you dr. Gail Saltz is a psychiatrist psychoanalyst and host of the upcoming I heart podcast person ology please welcome dr. Gail Saul okay so hi so if you really are thinking you know maybe I really do want to talk to somebody maybe I do want to think about therapy there's there are counselors there are social workers psychiatrists psychologists can you help us understand the difference I'm gonna try okay I think it's really it is hard to find someone in New York which is probably the most has the highest number of therapists per square foot of any place but it's hard because it is really confusing because therapist is a non regulated word that actually means nothing you all could hang out a shingle that says therapist that would be perfectly legally fine to do and so when you are looking for someone you want to be think about why are you looking for them what is the problem that you are bringing so for example if it's something I'm psychiatrist psychiatrically let's say more serious you feel maybe you're having a real serious depression you feel maybe even suicidal but even not that you have trouble getting up or functioning in your life because you're depressed or you're that anxious or you have bipolar disorder or you have borderline personality disorder you have something that you know diagnostically is pretty serious and you want to be looking for either a psychiatrist or a psychologist but someone who has some specialty in treating that area and not everybody specializes in in everything so some people I see a garden variety of things I see depression anxiety all kinds of things because I'm a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst so I do both talk therapy and I can medicate psychiatrists can medicate they can do talk therapy but fewer and fewer psychiatrists do basically because of insurance reimbursement which is doesn't really reimburse enough for them to make that worth their while so they tend to do mostly medication psychologists have a PhD they do talk therapies different kinds of therapies and it really is important to decide what you're seeking because some kinds of problems needs some kinds of talk therapy so for example if you have obsessive-compulsive disorder you want to see someone who does cognitive behavioral therapy maybe even that's true for an anxiety disorder but let's say you have repeated patterns of behavior that gets you into really lousy relationships over and over again you keep screwing up at work there's something self-defeating in your in your way of interacting with the world some pattern of behavior then you might want to see someone who does what's called a psychodynamic psychotherapy more of a a general talk therapy to understand why you have these patterns what your conflicts are to understand them to make what's not in your awareness now in your awareness so you I guess I would say knowledge is power so you have the power to stop behaving in the same way which is different from cognitive behavioral therapy so this all sounds really confusing and what the way to simplify it is I would say to you what are you looking for then you want to frankly call your insurance company find out what they're going to cover what they're willing to cover sessions you're gonna get how much they're gonna reimburse you part of the reason for that is because believe it or not paying cash to some people is going to be more economically feasible for you than actually dealing with what your insurance company will do then you're going to do several things you certainly I think it's reasonable to ask friends it's reasonable to ask some of your physicians if they have someone they like to refer to and think is good for this problem it's reasonable to ask your workplace depending on what your workplace is because many workplaces do have a group of people that they think are good to refer to so that kind of word of mouth thing can be really helpful then you want to find a good match what does a good match mean somebody that when you sit with them you really do feel like you get along with them they're getting you you feel comfortable someone that's geographically reasonable I have so many people say oh no I'll come from way away to see that's not going to work because you're going to want to see that person once a week or at least twice a month so somebody that's feasible somebody that's economically feasible don't go to somebody that's gonna break your bank in the first month and then what so economically feasible geographically feasible you you fight you sit with them you feel good then you're gonna call them up and you're gonna ask them what is their training what is their education this is reasonable to ask before treatment starts somebody want to intimidate it to do that but you say it's ok this is it you are shopping in the beginning and that is really reasonable you are the customer and you should feel comfortable so you should feel that if somebody goes and they don't really want to tell you about their training no if someone tells you oh I did this really great life coaching course for a month no you know and I'm telling you these people are all out there they really really are so you want to hear that they went to someplace reputable they did they have certain degrees and you want to ask them what modality they work in and make sure that you feel is that CBT is that psychodynamic psychotherapy is it just medication but they're not going to talk to you what what is it and and make sure you feel comfortable with that and then if you're comfortable those answers you go and see someone now I think it's reasonable to see more than someone to see two or three someone's and finds because this is a this is an important relationship right and it's gonna last for not forever somebody's is there seeing you forever you're not gonna see them the goal is to get in do some work get back on track not we're not back in the Woody Allen days if we see you till you die you know that that's not the plan but you are gonna invest in this relationship and so it's okay you see a couple of people say who feels like a good fit to me you know people are going to go to the Internet to look two things about the Internet one should you trust online reviews good question you have to be savvy about online reviews okay so the person who writes a terrible review look around and see if they write everybody a terrible review because generally people there's some people who just really like to complain and slam people and if you see that that's the case then take that review less seriously somebody who just writes 5 stars 5 stars 5 stars that doesn't mean anything - you're looking for some words that say something like I felt understood I felt listened to it some some qualities that make you feel like that would be a good fit for you so it's a little deeper than just how many stars and just you know I thought they stunk you know something a little more than that and and yes those reviews can be helpful but be mindful that usually people who feel negatively write more commonly than people who feel positively and so you know you have to consider that in your in your math but it but it's okay to search the internet and look for people because you will find you may find their credentials and certain things that you know you don't have to then call up and necessarily ask what may give you some guidance you may find the modality that they were you may find a lot of these things that I'm talking about and that is a common way for people to look are there any specific online resources which are valuable yes large organizations like the American Psychiatric Association the American Psychological Association give you a way of geographically financially subspecialty wise narrowing down your search so that can be helpful I think also online you may be able to investigate and find places that do things that are financially more feasible for you for example hospitals I'm I'm at Cornell New York Presbyterian Hospital we have an outpatient department that will do a sliding scale fee you need we need to look at your finances to say you qualify for that but if you qualify for that large hospitals that have outpatient psychiatry departments that's a good place to look online and see if they provide sliding scale fees also student doctors now what does that mean a student doctor so for example I'm also at the New York psychoanalytic Institute we have a treatment center that has quote student doctors who are in training and being supervised by more experienced doctors but those student doctors they're already psychiatrists and psychologists they're already out in practice they're just getting additional training and they're being supervised they're often terrific people and they will see you at a very low price because they're in training and they will continue on with you at a very low place so Columbia has a psychoanalytic Center and weiu has a cycle many places around the country have psychoanalytic centers where you're doing additional training and those student doctors are very worthwhile last question what do you think about therapy apps you know what there's okay if therapy app is not like talking to somebody in a room it simply is not however sometimes it really is better than nothing so for example there are a bunch of them you know talks based there are a bunch where you basically are going to get a therapist who actually in some ways meets your needs right and you are going to text with them well the advantages are you can text at any time all the time around the clock on weekends and when you travel somewhere etc and that has certain advantages and as I said that can be better than nothing it certainly increases your awareness of what you're dealing with which is sometimes half the battle but you know when you're dealing with something more serious or more pervasive it may only take you so far and then I think honestly there's just you know actually as Laurie alluded to earlier we're all becoming a little too removed from each other with apps and the Internet and I think it's important to be able to because I as your treater right I can't see your facial expression when you said that I can't see read your body language I can't tell if you look more symptomatic today because I'm seeing you move more slowly I'm seeing you look tired I when you tell me something by text and I don't have your facial expression to say what what did this mean to you what am i reading from you I'm I'm losing a lot of data and when I say something back to you and you don't see my facial expression you're also losing some emotional data so I don't think it's gonna replace talk therapy anytime soon but I think that there's a place for it and that they're there in the middle of the country where there's a real dearth of psychiatrists and psychologists and and frankly child especially it can be useful dr. Gail Saltz thank you for all the great information my pleasure thanks for having me this is all of it thank you so much give it up for Gayle of salt alright let's switch gears okay you're gonna play a music in again this is the get lit with all of it put club live in the green space hi everybody alright first a lot of people music can be really helpful on a time of distress you can put on your favorite album or a certain playlist or just keep hitting and repeat on that one specific song and for a few minutes you get to put your anxieties on pause and reframe them with the help of some thoughtful lyrics and if you're looking for songs to talk about either complicated personal feelings or troubling social issues one of the great songwriters out there right now is jill Sobule her songs banned topics from adolescence to anorexia to LGBTQ issues politics even the death penalty she's written for movies TV and played with people like Neil Young Cyndi Lauper and Billy Bragg as well as inducting Neil Diamond into the Songwriters Hall of Fame she'll be at Joe's Pub on january 28th but right now she's here with us in the green space please welcome jill Sobule why will you play a couple songs for us hi guys so I was living deep in Brooklyn and I was seeing a therapist on the Upper East Side it it it didn't work out [Music] if I had a jetpack the first thing that I do is fly above the gridlock and come to you I pick until the windows on Fifth Avenue to see how the other side lives and if I had a jetpack I would strap it on I'd get out of this one room and I'd be gone to wealth as will houses and big front yards if I had a jet pack I take you up with me at last we'd both be free pass the Statue of Liberty in my jet [Music] if I had a jet pack a fly above the bridge I'd wave to all my friends who thought I'd never rise again I'd fly above the stadium to watch my team win watch my team win and if I had a jet pack I'd bust into your dorm I take you by the hand to the Jersey Shore and then underneath the moonlight you'd want me but more cuz I'd have a jet pad I take you up so high if I dropped you you would die but I want you by my side immature [Music] I don't have a jet pack I don't even have a car I just set this token in a head full of stars I wish you didn't live uptown so far cuz I don't have [Music] so I have a one-woman show that I'm working on and it's called the F word seventh-grade and here's one of the songs from it [Music] I lost my keys I lost my heart lost my car in the parking lot lost my voice book in here sing from the island of lost things I lost my phone I lost my way lost the hours of the day grandma's ring swirled down the drain to the island of lost things island of lost things I lost my shirt I lost my aim lost the person I could blame I wish I could recall their name the island of lost things my mom was not a hoarder she threw everything away a forty-fives of a favorite toys shoebox full of Polaroids plastic on the good couch everything was clean a vacuum bag of treasures in the island of lost things [Music] I lost my wallet my ID someone else becoming me my girlfriend somewhere on the seas to the island of lost things I'd like to book a ticket and maybe I could find traipsing through the ruins the dream I left behind is she underneath the palm tree staring out to sea spinning my old records and the island of things so so you'll I want you all to know Joe move stuff around just to be here tonight so thank you so I had my therapy appointment so you have these two things going on this autobiographical show and a concept album tell us a little about the show first well the F seventh great show it starts in May the Pittsburgh City Theatre for a month and then it's gonna go elsewhere and I've done me worked on musicals but it's the first time that I have to memorize stuff I know oh and it's really scary but you guys Pittsburgh's great you guys should they have a lot of cheap therapists and it's good it's a great town it's up-and-coming Pittsburgh is a great down good food town too it's really good for your town and a concept album well that was the one I did then nostalgia kills and so you guys just go to jail so people don't come or go to jail Sylvia calm and I've got all this great stuff you can listen to and and yeah so Joe was you were one of the first musical artists to realize that you could use crowdfunding I was what when did it pop in my head I'm just gonna okay in 2008 yeah I thought you know I'm not gonna get a big label deal and I don't have money to put out a record like I wanted so I'm just gonna ask my fans but I don't want to ask them you know just give me money I want to figure out how to give them something in return so I had different levels of contribution this is pre Kickstarter pre you know that it was from polish rocks to weapons-grade plutonium and and I I did it and and the news and CNN and it was a big thing and then these two guys came up to me and asked me questions about how they did it and it ended up being the people from kicks time like why the F did I do something like that what an idiot I but you're a genius though no but I I did it for the first time I did another Kickstarter for this last record and the highest level would you get to be my my personal Lord and Savior and someone did it the Buffy the Vampire Slayer guy just we didn't is my Lord and Savior Wow you said it there had happened and eyebright theme songs for people and Tom Bergeron from dancing stars he has a theme song Wow I know you know I'll give you a discount you don't even name it I've known you a long time I appreciate of the green room friends and family discount I will ask you one serious question about our topic tonight is one of the songs you write you wrote Lucy at the gym it's just that you guys know that song it's it's about a young woman who is anorexic and Lucy is always at the gym right when do you when a song writing therapeutic for you I mean that's clearly somebody you saw all the time and yes it was really me I mean I'm running a little thing in I had in the 80s I suffered from eating disorder and and I went to this really weird like the first of its kind clinic in Glendale California it was the weirdest place on earth yeah can I just tell one story this is how they were treating me I told him I was from Denver and I told them that I was you know I was kind of a big shot in Denver I had my band and we were voted the best band and I'd befriended the nurse who kept trying to give me cocaine at the time and she told me what they were writing about me and they were writing that I had delusions of grandeur that I was pretending to be a singer oh yeah the entire time so when you write a song it's like I wanted to write it but it was kind of a reflection of something I've been through is writing songs therapeutic for you yeah and it's also hell because for instance I have to write some songs this week and and and and it's always the fear of that blank page and and it just feels somehow he'd somehow you have to create a frame around that anarchy that's why sometimes working on a musical is good because you know you've got a you know you need something right there I've got a structure but do you guys have any ideas of what I should write tomorrow oh wait you help me please please shall we play a couple more songs do you play us out yes thank you no I did tell them but can I do Lucy but that'd be great okay excellent [Music] Lucey at the gym she's there every time I go and I don't go that often so she must live at the gym stare at her ribs they show through the spandex the little legs are working she's going somewhere she's climbing up the stairs and when she reaches the top part dreams will be there Lucy at the gym [Music] Lucey on the scale for the third time through the games in Lucy's at the gym she's staring at the clock and Mike the second 10 she never stops she's Lucy at the gym when she takes a shower after all the hours does she ever place to go [Music] is there someone waiting or is Lucy alone [Music] I'm at the gym and Lucy's not there it's got me kind of worried so I imagine the worst she made it up to heaven and when she met her maker he said come right in he said I'll show you around the gym everyone's beautiful anthem and here there's no sins in your life can begin Lucy at the gym keep on Lucy keep on working girl keep on Lucy keep on working working keep on Lucy Lucy at the gym [Music] this is great ah here's here's how the seventh-grade show ends with this it's an older song of mine but it's kind of anthemic Bobby trucks was a fat little boy living it oh can I say that word the S word can I say the S word Robert trucks was a fat little boy living in a shitty little town and never resets the dodgeball fool would not pull Bobby down four o'clock when he got home upstairs in his room he closed the door tie on his cape put on his skin tight soon and he victorious he was simply glorious someday by notorious underdog Victoria's a couple years later tried out fold the banded covers of matchbox 20 but he was dreaming of the New York Dolls and Max's Kansas City course they never call the back they thought he was too queer but he didn't care back in his room he sang until the mere and he sang o victorious [Music] glorious victorious [Music] lalalalala he could see into the mirror that was one of his great gifts and one day all those dodgeball bullies would dream of his sweet kiss and he'd sing come on you guys arena stop underdog victorious he was simply glorious someday he'll die notorious come on get one too [Music] [Music] notorious underdog Victoria thanks to jill Sobule thanks to dr. gayle salt thanks to Lori Gottlieb and thanks to you for coming out for the getler with all of it book club everybody have a good and safe night thanks guys [Applause] you

Channel: The Greene Space at WNYC & WQXR

Views: 778

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Id: PSF3Z8aXBiA

Length: 72min 35sec (4355 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 22 2020