Therapy is hard. Therapy is work. Therapy is confusing. THERAPY IS WEIRD. Joshua Ericson found himself on search engines and AI chatbots trying to make sense of even getting started. So he decided to bring readers along for the entire ride, offering a wealth of knowledge and experience that any therapy-goer, novice and veteran alike, can appreciate.
Though therapy is not linear, something THERAPY IS WEIRD reiterates, Ericson’s guide offers a basic timeline and guidance the whole way through. Readers begin by exploring the various types of therapy with a handy list of clinical definitions, helpful translations for the everyman, and a rundown on what situations each may suit. That list precedes a brief quiz to make selection faster, and what follows is a lot of reassurance and vulnerability. Ericson opens up about hard conversations he's had with a therapist. He shares stories of thinking the therapy has "cured" him, only to find that there is more work to be done. He takes the reader through marriage counseling over a tongue-in-cheek chapter titled “How to Win at Couple’s Therapy,” which gives a friendly reminder that there is no winning or losing—only growing with your partner.
Like therapy itself, THERAPY IS WEIRD should not be a linear experience. It serves as a companion to the reader’s therapy journey, a compendium of experiences that feel much like a friend sending you encouragement as you navigate yourself. The read is quick, if gone through in one sitting, with great humor throughout: “I turned to ChatGPT, spilled my whole emotional mess, and asked which type of therapy I should go to … It said, ‘All of the Above.’"
It does suffer from some repetition, particularly the ice cream flavor analogy when describing categories of therapy. But where a guide offers repetition, those lessons stick, and the reader can explore the metaphor deeper—taking their scoops of counseling as an experiment. A constant throughout the book is Ericson’s insistence that this form of addressing one's mental health is nothing like what a patient would expect, and the final chapter (“Day in the Life of My Therapy Brain”) solidifies exactly what this book offers: a thoughtful example of how therapy is very, very weird.
Though it's a bit repetitive, THERAPY IS WEIRD sees Joshua Ericson offering a reliable and comforting look into the therapy process. Readers can confidently refer to this during their entire therapy journey.
~ Melodie Coulter for IndieReader