Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life

Christie Tate is stuck. She’s first in her class in law school and on track for a promising legal career, but her love life is unfulfilling. Though she frequently attends twelve-step meetings to help her with her eating disorder recovery and has tried a handful of therapists, Tate feels hopeless. When her friend suggests group therapy with a psychologist named Dr. Rosen, Tate’s life slowly transforms. In Group, Tate recounts this transformation, reflecting on her personal journey in Rosen’s therapy groups over the years.

Group is incredibly readable—there’s something both touching and addictive about getting to sit in on group meetings and witness the superficial details and the deeper, more painful vulnerabilities of Tate and her group members. With candor and humor, Tate lifts back the curtain on the complexities of personal growth. At times, though, the book is missing a deeper examination of Dr. Rosen’s unconventional group therapy format—the groups are not confidential, and Dr. Rosen attends his patients’ weddings and invites them over for dinner. While Tate sometimes acknowledges this unconventionality—and acquaintances’ taken-aback responses to it—she doesn’t dig deeper into its ethical implications. One can’t help but wish that more reflection on the therapy format made its way into the book.