Maybe You Should Talk to Someon - Lori Gottlieb Page 0,151

says. “I guess we’re finally both ready to talk about Gabe at the same time. And now that we are, I feel better. I mean, I also feel like shit, but it’s okay, if you know what I mean. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be.”

“It’s not as bad as it was not talking about Gabe,” I suggest.

“Like I said, you’re good, Sher—” We share a smile. He’s stopped himself from calling me Sherlock, from using the caricature as a space keeper between us. Letting Gabe become more real in his life is allowing him to let others be more real too.

John sits up and starts fidgeting; our session is about to end. As he slips on his sneakers and stands to retrieve his phone, I think back to his earlier comment about telling Margo he came to therapy due to stress and how often he’s told me the same thing.

“John,” I say, “do you really think you came here because of stress?”

“What are you, an idiot?” he says, a twinkle in his eye. “I came here to talk about Margo and Gabe. Boy, are you dim sometimes.”

When he leaves, there’s no wad of cash at the door for his “hooker.” “You can bill me,” he says. “No more skulking around. We’re legit now.”

49

Counseling Versus Therapy

“Are you asking for counseling or therapy?” Wendell says at today’s session after I tell him that I have a professional question. He knows I’ll understand the distinction because he’s offered professional guidance twice before. Do I want advice (counseling) or self-understanding (therapy)?

The first time I asked Wendell such a question, I’d been talking about my frustration with people choosing the quick fix over the deeper work of psychotherapy. As a relatively new therapist, I was curious how someone more seasoned—specifically Wendell—dealt with this. It was one thing to hear what older colleagues had to say, but from time to time, I couldn’t help but wonder how Wendell handled the frustrations of the profession.

I doubted he would answer my question directly—he would more likely express empathy for my predicament. In fact, I knew I was putting him in the classic Catch-22 position in which therapists often find themselves: I want empathy, but if you give it to me, I’ll feel angry and hopeless, because empathy alone won’t solve my very real problem, so what good are you anyway? I was thinking that he might even say something about this Catch-22 (because the best way to defuse an emotional land mine is to expose it).

Instead, he looked at me and asked, “Would you like a practical suggestion?”

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. A practical suggestion? Are you kidding me? My therapist was going to give me a concrete piece of advice?

I moved closer.

“My father was a businessman,” Wendell began quietly. At that time, I hadn’t yet fessed up to my Google-binge, so I nodded, pretending this information was new. He told me that when he was starting out, his father suggested that he make an offer to prospective patients: They could try a session, and if they chose not to continue to work with Wendell after that, the session would be free. Since many people were nervous about starting therapy, this risk-free session would give them the opportunity to see what therapy was about and how Wendell might help them.

I tried to picture Wendell having this conversation with his father. I imagined the pleasure his father might have gotten from finally giving professional advice to his gentler son. His suggestion wasn’t groundbreaking in the world of business, but therapists don’t often think of what we do as a business. And yet we do run small businesses, and Wendell’s father must have realized that his son, despite leaving the family’s company, had actually become a businessman after all. Maybe he took great joy in having that connection with his son. And maybe it meant a lot to Wendell, which is why he was willing to pass this wisdom along to other therapists like me.

In any event, his father was smart. As soon as I implemented this offer, my practice filled up.

But his second piece of counseling—which I not only asked for, but pushed for—flopped. While I was grappling with my happiness-book dilemma, I kept agitating for Wendell to tell me what to do. I pushed so hard and so often that finally, Wendell (who, of course, had no knowledge of the publishing business) gave in near the end of one session. “Well, I