The following nonfiction books about being in therapy include a couple written by therapists who’ve been in therapy.
I. I Think My Therapist Hates Me by Chris Olsen (2026)
In this brand new memoir TikTok star Olsen uses actual conversations with his therapist to address such issues as dealing with his mother’s alcoholism and his parents’ divorce, his history of being in the closet, having toxic relationships, managing social media fame, and facing his own addiction.
“The titular therapist does not hate him, but readers are in for a surprise if they’ve skipped over any of Olsen’s candid videos about his addiction or relationship woes” (David Oliver, USA Today).
II. What Doesn’t Kill You Gets You a Really Good Therapist: A Story of Abuse, Survival, and the Long Way Out by Amber Orrey (2026)
This independently published memoir from this year is described as covering the author’s “trauma, therapy, hypervigilance, shame, motherhood, survival mode, and the long, messy process of learning how to trust yourself again after spending years ignoring your instincts and making yourself smaller for someone else.”
III. What I Couldn’t Tell My Therapist: The Truths We Told to Heal Our Lives by Michelle M. May (2025)
Books about being in therapy don’t regularly feature the therapist-author’s own experience, but May, who specializes in Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy (ISTDP), doesn’t shy away from recounting her own experience. She also details two other clients’ stories.
“It is particularly suited for students of ISTDP,” states psychiatrist Robert J. Neborsky, MD, “who are struggling to learn the metapsychology of the unconscious and apply this difficult technique to patients with challenging conditions, including medically unexplained symptoms.”
Ange Cooper, DClinPsy, RPsych: “This courageous book reveals what most therapists want to avoid— their own history of trauma!…May navigates the reader to the heart of emotional difficulties in a fiercely loving, respectful, and insightful way. It flips the script on the usual therapist client encounters and shows us that, while different, we are all fundamentally made of the same essence.”
IV. Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Four Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery by Catherine Gildiner (2020)
The title comes from one of this psychologist‘s “most heroic and memorable patients” who was greeted this way daily by her abusive mother.
Kirkus Reviews: “Overcoming fear is no easy thing, writes the author, and her five patients as well as her own therapy lead her to the pointed conclusion that ‘all self-examination is brave’.”
Publishers Weekly: “While each patient first comes to Gildiner with an immediate health concern, they all find healing by opening up, delving into their past to uncover former traumas, and finding forgiveness for those who have caused them harm. These painful accounts will break anyone’s heart, and also inspire awe for the ways people who suffered horrific abuse were able to find a measure of recovery.”
V. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb (2019)
Therapist Gottlieb’s was one of the first notable nonfiction books to focus on her own experience of being in therapy. (See my previous related post, “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: What Is Therapy?“)
Author A.J. Jacobs‘s review: “Here are some people who might benefit…: Therapists, people who have been in therapy, people who have been in relationships, people who have experienced emotions. In other words, everyone. Lori’s story is funny, enlightening, and radically honest. It merits far more than 50 minutes of your time.”
