Author Christie Tate on Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life

From The Book Cellar: We are so excited to welcome local author Christie Tate to discuss her memoir Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life!

Attendance is free, but pre-registration is required. Please RSVP to words@bookcellarinc.com with your name and the subject "Christie Tate RSVP." Event access information will be sent out the day of the event.

About Group: Christie Tate had just been named the top student in her law school class and finally had her eating disorder under control. 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?

Enter Dr. Rosen, a therapist who calmly assures her that if she joins one of his psychotherapy groups, he can transform her life. All she has to do is show up and be honest. About everything--her eating habits, childhood, sexual history, etc. Christie is skeptical, insisting that that she is defective, beyond cure. But Dr. Rosen issues a nine-word prescription that will change everything: "You don't need a cure. You need a witness."

So begins her entry into the strange, terrifying, and ultimately life-changing world of group therapy. Christie is initially put off by Dr. Rosen's outlandish directives, but as her defenses break down and she comes to trust Dr. 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.

Group is a deliciously addictive read, and with Christie as our guide--skeptical of her own capacity for connection and intimacy, but hopeful in spite of herself--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.

About Christie Tate: Christie Tate is a Chicago-based writer and essayist. She has been published in The New York Times (Modern Love), The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and elsewhere .