Genre
Auto-biography, non-fiction
Setting and Context
Los Angeles, California, as Lori Gottlieb struggles to come to terms with the end of a relationship
Narrator and Point of View
The narrator is the author. She tells her own story from her own point of view, and also tells the stories of her patients from the perspective that they gave her, and from her own expert point of view.
Tone and Mood
The tone is alternately upbeat and downbeat; the mood is emotionally difficult and depressing.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Lori is the protagonist, her boyfriend the antagonist.
Major Conflict
There is conflict between John, Lori's patient, and his wife, which is why he is seeking therapy.
Climax
Wendell tells Lori that her depression is caused by something deeper and underlying and not by the loss of a boyfriend.
Foreshadowing
The fact that Lori can't seem to bring herself out of her depression foreshadows her need to find a therapist of her own.
Understatement
John believes everyone around him is an idiot, which is an understatement because he considers himself so far above everyone else that he mistreats and bullies them as if they have no mental capacity whatsoever.
Allusions
Lori alludes to her real-life patients and the situations that life had presented them with.
Imagery
N/A
Paradox
Lori is both therapist and patient in the book.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between Lori and her patient John in that both believe they are depressed for one particular reason only to learn that there is an underlying cause they had not even considered.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The patients is the way in which Lori encompasses all of the individuals and their cases that she has treated.
Personification
N/A
