Baek Sehee shares her conversations with a psychiatrist, dissecting her introversion, anxiety and persistent depressive disorder. An otherwise quick read, majority of the pages are in dialogue between the author and psychiatrist with the occasional monologue chapters where the author reflects on the sessions or other thoughts that cloud her mind.
I've skimmed a few reviews where readers have said psychiatrists would never speak like this and the fact the translated text makes the entire book sound off. In all fairness, I haven't read the translator's other works so can't comment on how good his translation is. Truthfully I'm not so fussed over how the text is translated in English as to me I get the message from each page. Naturally if I was a good Korean speaker with excellent reading comprehension, I may think differently if I read the original Korean text.
As for how the psychiatrist speaks...I've spoken to six therapists in my time and everyone had a different approach in their tone. Some were apathetic or showed indifference, there were some who just prompted questions to get me thinking and talking about my feelings.
Maybe I'm just stupid or jaded that I'm not too bothered, plus I happen to relate to a lot of what Sehee is thinking on a rather deep level and she happens to be in a job sector I originally aimed for as it connected to my studies but never pursued properly after graduation. I only aimlessly accepted temp admin roles in different companies.
It will be interesting to see how the second book pans out on other thoughts the author will share from her later sessions. So far book 1 has been helpful and I sense I will refer to it from time to time when I need some reassurance during my lowest days.