Lori Gottlieb shares relationship tips from 15 years of clinical practice.
I first came across Lori Gottlieb’s work when I read “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,” her funny, candid memoir written from both sides of the couch — as a psychotherapist working with patients, and as a person undergoing therapy herself.
I was struck by her original voice, her wit and her ability to be vulnerable on the page. So I was thrilled when I found out that she’d be writing an advice column for Well called “Ask the Therapist,” tackling reader questions about life’s difficulties. Her first column was just published; look for future installments twice monthly. (You can sign up to get it in your inbox.)
I called Gottlieb, who is also a host of the “Dear Therapists” podcast, and asked her to share some of the best advice she had gleaned from her 15 years of clinical practice. She told me she wanted people to think of their mental well-being as “health, and not as a separate entity.” Some of her patients, she said, “wait until they’re having the equivalent of an emotional heart attack — and then they come in.”
Her tips from the front lines are below.
‘I didn’t mean that’ is not an apology.
Research suggests that taking ownership of your mistakes is one of the most essential components of an apology. But when Gottlieb treats couples, she said, she often hears phrases like “I didn’t mean that,” or “You shouldn’t feel that way, because that wasn’t what I intended.”
People say this, she said, because they feel misunderstood and blamed, and when they have that reaction, they become defensive. But making excuses is ineffective. No matter what your intentions may have been, she explained, the other person still feels hurt — so you should focus on how your actions or words landed with them.
“You don’t have to agree with the other person’s interpretation of the events,” she added, “but you can’t argue with the way someone says they feel.”