Gottlieb is the author and narrator of the book, through which she explores her experiences both as a therapist and as a patient. As an undergraduate, she majored in English, and started her career as a film and TV producer. However, she felt constricted by the nature of the job and too detached from reality, which made her decide to start medical school at Stanford in her late twenties. During this time, she began writing essays and journalistic pieces for newspapers, and her new job culminated in Lori abandoning her studies.

Gottlieb’s array of jobs shows that while she was unsure of her true calling, she understood there was a crucial element missing that would allow her to feel satisfied with her professional life. In retrospect, her journey towards psychotherapy is clear; from a job that was intellectually stimulating but failed to offer any real human connection, to the idea that she would like to help people get better, through writing about real life stories about real life problems, the common thread has always been Lori’s need to communicate with and help ordinary people solve their problems. We understand she has reached the apex of her soul-searching when she decides to study clinical psychology, and becoming a therapist is the one thing she has never regretted.