Group
How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life
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4.5 • 38 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK
'Every page of this incredible memoir by Christie Tate had me thinking, “I wish I had read this book when I was 25. It would have helped me so much!”'
Reese Witherspoon
‘This unrestrained memoir is a transporting experience and one of the most startlingly hopeful books I have ever read. It will make you want to get better, whatever better means for you.’
Lisa Taddeo, New York Times bestselling author of Three Women
For fans of Three Women and Everything I Know About Love comes a refreshingly original memoir about self-discovery, loneliness and love. A guarded young lawyer reluctantly joins a psychotherapy group where she has to share her innermost thoughts with six complete strangers. In turn she finds human connection, and herself.
“What’s going to happen to me when I start group?”
“All of your secrets are going to come out.”
Christie Tate has just been named the top student in her law school class and seems to finally have got her eating disorder under control. So why is she driving through Chicago fantasising about her own death?
Desperate, she joins Dr Rosen’s psychotherapy group, and through his unconventional methods, he challenges everything she thought she knew, about herself and others. In group, secrets are not allowed. This means telling a group of strangers everything – about her struggle with bulimia, her failed sex life, her overwhelming sense of loneliness and acute longing for a relationship. And as she keeps sharing her thoughts and feelings and listens to the others doing the same, her life slowly begins to change.
This is a deliciously compelling read, and an intimate journey through the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy – a process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit.
Praise for Group
‘This book will remind you how to come back to yourself even when you want to give up, make you laugh, make you cry, help you breathe. This book will save lives’ Lidia Yuknavitch
‘Real transformation is not for the faint of heart, and in these pages Christie Tate captures her evolution in all its misery and hilarity, along with the beauty of bearing witness to one another as we grow.’ Sarah Hepola
‘Christie Tate takes us on a journey that's heartbreaking and hilarious, surprising and redemptive – and, ultimately, a testament to the power of connection.’ Lori Gottlie
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Everything in Christie Tate’s life seemed perfect, but she still wanted to die. Funny, brilliant and at the top of her class in law school, Tate was nonetheless plagued by agonising depression. In this stirring memoir, she viscerally describes the pain that lurked beneath her perfectionist surface. Her candour is shocking and gripping, especially as she finds a therapist who somehow persuades the buttoned-up law student to try group therapy. And as Tate learns to unpack her feelings about everything from food to sex to family, something unexpected happens: She begins to feel OK about feeling awful. Tate’s no-holds-barred approach is fearless, giving us every excruciating detail on her journey toward accepting that she’s not perfect—she’s human. That same openness is what makes Group so heartbreakingly relatable, not to mention compulsively readable.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Tate delivers a no-holds-barred account of her five-plus years in group therapy in this dazzling debut memoir. Growing up in Texas, Tate suffered from bulimia; she entered law school and moved to Chicago, where she continued to confront her eating disorder and attended 12-step programs. At a friend's suggestion, Tate agreed to see a therapist, and ended up in group therapy with Jonathan Rosen, a quirky but wise Harvard-educated therapist who insisted that his clients keep no secrets neither from him nor the group ("keeping secrets from other people is more toxic than other people knowing your business," he reasoned). Tate then unveils the intimate details of her romantic life; after graduating first in her law school class, Tate landed a job at a prestigious firm, though she was still dealing with a series of flawed romances (one boyfriend with intimacy issues habitually flipped her on her stomach for sex). Through therapy, Tate found a sense of self-worth, and eventually a lawyer named John at work ("I felt something I'd never felt with a man before: calm, quiet, happy, and excited"). Readers will be irresistibly drawn into Tate's earnest and witty search for authentic and lasting love.
Customer Reviews
Wonderful
Free counselling!! A real journey which is so relatable (I don’t have an eating disorder or other addiction) just because life offers such adventures & avenues in life that can be mind blowingly difficult / beautiful / rewarding / frightening…. Just brilliant read