Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

by Lori Gottlieb

From time to time, Wendell and I have discussed the ways parental relationships evolve in midlife as people shift from blaming their parents to taking full responsibility for their lives. It’s what Wendell calls “the changing of the guard.” Whereas in their younger years, people often come to therapy to understand why their parents won’t act in ways they wish, later on, people come to figure out how to manage what is. And so my question about my mother has gone from “Why can’t she change?” to “Why can’t I?” How is it, I ask Wendell, that even in my forties, I can be affected so deeply by a phone call from my mother?