Maybe another lonely soul would want to catch a movie or grab a salad. I’d find a 12-step meeting and hope that people would want to go for coffee afterward. The Fourth of July was Wednesday, which meant I’d face yet another stifling, empty day in the middle of the week. At LG&G only the receptionist and the partner who hired me knew I existed. No one was expecting to see me until Monday morning, when I’d report for duty at Laird, Griffin & Griffin, the labor law firm where I was a summer intern. The skin was thick but the flesh beneath was tender.

I pulled a plum out of the bag, tested it for firmness, and took a bite. I turned the key in the ignition and waited for the engine to turn over in the ninety-degree heat. It had been three days since my visit to the bursar’s office, where the law school registrar handed me a notecard with my class rank, a number that had begun to haunt me. Cabbage, carrots, a few plums, bell peppers, onions, and two dozen red apples. The first time I wished for death-like, really wished its bony hand would tap me on the shoulder and say this way-two bags from Stanley’s Fruit and Vegetables sat shotgun in my car. “Often hilarious, and ultimately very touching” ( People), Group is “a wild ride” ( The Boston Globe), and with Christie as our guide, we are given a front row seat to the daring, exhilarating, painful, and hilarious journey that is group therapy-an under-explored process that breaks you down, and then reassembles you so that all the pieces finally fit. Rosen and to depend on the sessions and the prescribed nightly phone calls with various group members, she begins to understand what it means to connect. Rosen’s outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: “You don’t need a cure. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. About everything-her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. All she has to do is show up and be honest. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. Why then was she driving through Chicago fantasizing about her own death? Why was she envisioning putting an end to the isolation and sadness that still plagued her despite her achievements?Įnter Dr. The refreshingly original and “startlingly hopeful” (Lisa Taddeo) debut memoir of an over-achieving young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to group therapy and gets psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers-and finds human connection, and herself.Ĭhristie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Group christie tate