This Too Shall Pass

The introduction opens with a personal admission: at ten, Julia imagined her life would be like her mother's — fall in love, marry, have children. Outwardly it was, but the author counts the «living losses» that forced her to change from within: «five different marriages (all to the same man)», shifting relationships with each of her children, health problems. From this comes the book's thesis: we say «this too shall pass» on bad days, but the good days will pass too — change ends only with death.

Samuel notes that over the past fifty years the old certainties of age, gender and sexuality have been questioned in the West, and that a «culture of limitless choice» has raised the likelihood of existential crisis. The book's overarching theme is relationships: «A good life is built on good relationships.» Whatever stage of life we are at, we cannot make the transition alone.

«The Process of Change in Life» provides a theoretical framework: research suggests we take stock of our lives every seven to ten years, and adapting to a change takes about a year. The author presents Williams's «transition cycle» — initial shock or «honeymoon», denial, confusion, depression, acceptance and new confidence. The most common forms of resistance are busyness and fear; moving into a new stage requires a «fertile void» — time simply to be.

In the first story, Leena, of Hindu Indian background, knows she should be happy about her daughter Anita's engagement, but she is furious: Anita doesn't want a traditional wedding. The therapist openly acknowledges the gap between her own individualist Western outlook and Leena's collectivist worldview: for Leena, criticizing her daughter is a way of loving her — «in India there is no personal space, no personal decisions». Beneath the anger lies the fear of losing her youngest child.

The turning point comes when Leena begins keeping a journal: «I never asked what I needed. I never argued with my mother.» A silence passed from mother to daughter for perhaps twenty generations comes to light. Leena begins to accept her daughter not as the child of her imagination but as she is — a bicultural person — and mother and daughter reach a compromise about the wedding.

The second story is Lucas: an energetic, funny artist who became a father after four rounds of IVF. Behind his question «What kind of father am I?» lies a childhood wound — his mother hid for years that she was a lesbian and left the family when Lucas was nineteen. Samuel also admits a professional misstep here: with her supervisor she realizes that Lucas's positive energy had blinded her, and that she kept skipping over his pain to «leap» toward the hopeful.

• Each story is told alongside the therapist's own inner voice — her doubts, mistakes and biases
• The real stories are expanded at the end of each theme with statistics and research
• Diagrams such as the transition cycle make abstract ideas concrete
• Some stories can feel long and repetitive