In Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy a 23–year–old person attempts to explain to himself the possible origins, ends, and cures of anger, worry, despair, obsession, and confusion, while concurrently experiencing those things in various contexts including a romantic relationship, a book of poetry, and the arbitrary nature of the universe.
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“Tao Lin's poetry passes by slacker era irony and self–indulgent formalism to dig up something deeper and more human, even when that something seems on first reading to merely be depressed hamsters.”
—Jeffrey Brown, author of Clumsy and Little Things
“I hope this new publisher uses my blurb this time. I was a little sad that the other one didn't use it. They could have sold tens of copies if they'd put my blurb on that book. But this book is better; these poems are serious and funny and more than they appear. I am a big fan of Tao Lin's writing and this book makes me happy.”
—Matthew Rohrer, author of A Green Light and Rise Up
—Jeffrey Brown, author of Clumsy and Little Things
“I hope this new publisher uses my blurb this time. I was a little sad that the other one didn't use it. They could have sold tens of copies if they'd put my blurb on that book. But this book is better; these poems are serious and funny and more than they appear. I am a big fan of Tao Lin's writing and this book makes me happy.”
—Matthew Rohrer, author of A Green Light and Rise Up
About the Author
Tao Lin is the author of the novel Eeeee Eee Eeee, the story collection Bed, and the poetry chapbook, You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am. His stories, poems, essays and criticisms (he once reviewed the audience at one his readings for Seattle's The Stranger) have appeared in Noon, Nerve, Esquire, Bear Parade, The Agriculture Reader, and the Mississippi Review. His blog is called Reader of Depressing Books.
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More About the Author
Tao Lin (b. 1983) is the author of six books of fiction & poetry. His writing has been published by GAWKER, NOON, VICE, THOUGHT CATALOG, ESQUIRE, THE STRANGER and he has been profiled by NYLON, SALON, NEW YORK MAGAZINE, LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, NEW YORK OBSERVER, THE GUARDIAN. His third novel will be published by Vintage in 2013. He lives in Brooklyn. (Photo by Noah Kalina.)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
i felt the things that matter,
This review is from: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (Paperback)
i think a lot about this book and tao lin's other books
the first time i read this i was so excited i read it all in one sitting it is hard for me normally to read more than three poems in one sitting i normally stand up and do something else there are a lot of poems that have multiple parts to it like in the books BAD BAD by chelsey minnis or ANGLE OF YAW by ben lerner but different because of the hampsters and sadness and other things the poem 'are you okay?' made me so sad that i had to stop reading and lie down on the couch and think for a minute my friend asked me if this book is funny like his other book of poety and i said 'no, no it is never funny. i didn't laugh once while reading it' and i did not realize that was true until i said it even though i lied a little some parts are actually very funny, but not funny in a way that makes me laugh out loud, but just makes me smile and feel 'consoled' i just opened the book and looked at 'ugly fish poem, part one' and read this sentence: "and i have swum fast; any speed that exists i have swum at that speed" that makes me laugh i don't know why this book made me sad a lot and i don't think i will look at it as much as 'you are a little bit happier than i am' but that is okay, because that book made me excited about life and stuff in ways that few things ever have, i don't know
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Feel like I know a stranger,
This review is from: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (Paperback)
I've been on a bit of a Tao Lin "rampage" these days--a dear friend recently recommended his stuff and it seems like I just can't get enough. The rebellious, questioning soul inside me is always suspicious of generalizations, but I get a sort of "intuitive feel" that in this coming generation of young people, there is both some kind of widespread desire for something more (both materially and spiritually), and with that maybe a forthcoming cultural awakening of some kind. Who knows?
What I do know from my own life and participation in the lives of others (both professional and personal)...dissatisfaction with every imaginable interpersonal relationships are so prevalent, and in my therapy sessions I usually wind up focusing more on the person's relationship with themselves, which seems to be useful sometimes. How can we truly know what another thinks? We can only monitor and aim to control the "ruckus" inside our own minds. With presenting problems like anxiety or depression the focus is almost totally on "the Self", but relationships add a whole bunch of dimensions of complexity that become about Self and Other.....1 + 1= infinity in that arena I think. To me it's so clear how different the Tao Lin who wrote this book is from the Tao Lin who wrote "You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am." Some of these poems (I'm certainly no poet nor do I know anything about poetic "structure" so I like reading each line almost as a series of zen-like aphorisms) are funny, but in a quieter, more resigned, almost absurd way where the poems in "You Are A Little Bit Happier Than I Am" felt like they contained much more sarcasm and antagonism (really disappointment) for/in the world (understandably so). The poems in this book feel on the verge of something "infinite" to me.....the paradox of both accepting reality and wanting something more from others, from the universe, though only able to control one's own thoughts....and somehow in documenting these sometimes insightful, sometimes unexpectedly hilarious observations, the reader acts as witness to the "distance" Lin so often mentions, and in that I feel a kind of closeness is created between two strangers.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Barnes & Noble,
This review is from: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (Paperback)
I bought this book at a Barnes & Noble in 2007, a few days after reading "Bed" and looking at Tao Lin's blog. My dad and I sat in the parking lot looking at/reading what we bought. The book is pink and feels `sleek' and I had a weird feeling that it might contain sexual things I would want to `guard' from my dad's vision, while also knowing that it probably wouldn't contain sexual things. I have referenced the first poem, "i will learn how to love a person and then i will teach you and then we will know," in 3 `mission statement'-like papers (a poetry class, an ethics class, and contemporary philosophy). I read it aloud at the beginning of a poetry workshop I was `leading' once and the members of the workshop, mostly older jobless women who wanted to write mystery novels, looked at me confusedly at the end.
I think I enjoy "CBT" so much because it feels like the extremely well documented thoughts of a person observing himself in the world and struggling to determine what it means to exist in an arbitrary-seeming universe while simultaneously having feelings and preferences that seem necessary to write down. I like that there were lines that felt like non-sequiturs. It makes sense to me that a person who feels and thinks these kinds of things about existence would pay attention to non-sequitur thoughts, because they seem to have a neutral value/happen spontaneously, and are maybe `grounding' or `important' to write down because of that. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is, from my experience, a process of analyzing what things I think/do are `irrational' and what are `helpful' and trying to encourage `helpful' patterns of thinking to aid behavior. Seems like this book is a physical attempt at something like that. A lot of the poems have lines featuring a non-specific, vaguely romantic-seeming "you" (i.e. "the secret of life is that i miss you, and this describes life"). I like that. It made me feel like the person writing the book wanted to connect with other people.
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