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Anyone who has spent any time at all in psychotherapy knows that the relationship between client and therapist is pivotal. Defining just how a good relationship functions and why some therapy pairings fail is Deborah Lott’s job in this impressive book.

After her own sometimes perplexing experiences in therapy, Lott sought input from nearly 300 women about their relationships with their therapists, many of whom echoed her concerns. “It wasn’t friendship and yet it was different from any other professional relationship we had ever had,” she writes. “It encouraged us to expose ourselves while imposing tight constraints on the encounter.”

Lott finds that even confident and intelligent women can find themselves abdicating their power in a therapeutic relationship. While not overtly critical of the practice of psychotherapy, she tells the stories of women whose therapists failed to set healthy, proper boundaries within the relationship. “In Session” is a wonderful guide to understanding how therapy can and should succeed despite the inherent difficulties that the relationship imposes.