In this book, Irit Kupferberg and David Green - a discourse analyst and a clinical psychologist - host 21 troubled human beings in an attempt to study how these sufferers negotiate their problems in the media, hotline, and cyber talk with professional and lay others. The authors show that the presentation of one's troubles in detailed personal stories as well as succinct figurative forms often 'lubricates' interpersonal communication, provided that the troubled selves are deemed media-worthy by the institutional representatives.