By Christie Tate
Disclaimer: The therapy described in this book and review is not typical. If you need help, please seek it.
Explicit content below.
I feel so conflicted about this book. On the one hand, it was a really enjoyable read. I plowed through it in about a day, grabbing it every time I had a free minute to see what would happen next. On the other, I feel very strongly that this book is potentially dangerous in presenting a skewed version of therapy that could turn off people who need to seek help. Really, my overwhelming response to this book is that I wish it had been fiction.
In this memoir, Tate traces her treatment in group therapy with Dr. Rosen, an eccentric Harvard alum who makes promises and breaks HIPAA on the regular. Tate, although suicidal and recovering from bulimia when starting therapy, wants to focus her treatment on forming relationships with other people, especially men. Rosen believes that Tate needs witnesses, and assigns her various tasks to open up to other people, including calling a group member every night to list her food intake for the day and telling a fellow law student that she is a cocktease.
The closest that Tate comes to recognizing the fault in Rosen’s therapeutic methods is when she dates another of his patients, forcing her to question his conflict of interest in giving them both tasks to change how they relate to each other. Even then, however, she stays with the therapist, even attending additional weekly meetings and spending large portions of her paycheck on his “help.”
Despite all this, the book was fun to read. It felt like a romantic comedy, as we follow Tate through her failed relationships until the perfect guy lands in her lap, giving her the perfect fairy tale wedding. The writing is open, vulnerable, and often funny. It is worth noting, however, that even though Tate seems to be grateful for her therapy, it has led her to controversy in the past. Tate is most well-known for being a “mommy blogger” who refused to take down personal details about her daughter, likely because of Rosen’s instance on radical honesty as a therapeutic tool. If I were considering therapy for the first time, I would be seriously turned off by Tate’s experience, and I find that concerning. There are few books on the market that offer first hand accounts of what therapy is really like, and I wish this wasn’t one of them.
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