Book Review: "Group"

I don't usually read much non-fiction, but I seem to be drawn to therapy memoirs. The first, Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone was from the perspective of both therapist and patient; the second, Catherine Gildiner's Good Morning, Monster was strictly from the therapist. I recently finished the third, Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate. 

She's obviously a patient. 

The book opens with Tate in her late 20s, wishing for death. She's smothered by loneliness. She wants a significant other. But the only men she's been attracted to thus far are incapable of relationships. 

She goes to a therapist (Jewish, of course) who has an atypical method of treatment: it's group therapy, and EVERYTHING is shared. His belief is that secrecy is damaging, as secrecy is tied to shame. 

That's not quite my outlook on secrecy (isn't there a difference between secrecy and privacy?) but the therapy does wonders for Tate. We see how she progress step, by step, by step. Sure, there are some missteps too, but the seven years that she details is fascinating, although I could have done without some of the EVERYTHING she relayed (warning: very UA). 

Two aspects jumped out at me from the book. 

The first:

There is a raw scene when Tate expresses her desire for a family of her own. The members of the group are inviting her for the holidays (all are married), but she wants her OWN family. It was at this point when I began to relate to Tate. 

That understanding continued as she describes one of her relationships. She has made progress with the sort of man she dates, but these attempts have not ended happily. The next relationship she's in, he's, well, a bit odd. But he has a stable job, a stable personality, suitably boring. She expresses her misgivings to the group, but they all firmly say that this is what she needs. She herself swallows her misgivings because, after all, this is the best she's going to get. 

. . . I fantasized about calling him later to say, "Have a nice life."

But I didn't think I was allowed to let go. That was literally the word in my head: allowed. I'd been bellowing about relationships for years. I'd invested thousands of dollars in therapy . . . I'd recently been involved with a married man. Therefore, I wasn't allowed to walk away from [him]. He was single, solvent, and kind. . . I knew I wouldn't break up with him. The urge to flee was overpowered by my need to prove I was willing to do the hard work I was sure intimate relationships required. 

And there we have it. 

This group of people love her. When you spend hours upchucking your emotional guts to a group, of course you feel something for each other. They socialize together outside of sessions. And yet, and yet, they encourage her to ignore her gut because this is the best option—so far. 

Well, does that sound familiar. 

During my dating years, I certainly heard this message enough. I heard mothers say it about their own children, how they told their kid that they must commit to the current option. Sometimes that works out—and sometimes it doesn't. 

Thankfully, Tate's boyfriend finally raises a red flag high enough that she could break up with him with the blessing of everyone. That irritated me, that she was told to ignore all those other flapping signals, supposedly for her own good.  

This breakup, unlike the others, carried something novel: a strong whiff of relief. Now I could stop pretending that [he] was my soulmate and get on with my life. 

In the end, it's not all those other random people who will be present in a relationship. It's two people, alone. Shouldn't they be the most comfortable together as possible?  

The second aspect in the next post.