A Therapist’s Top Mental Health & Wellbeing Book Recommendations
Therapy is a big investment of time, energy, and financial resources. And while I whole heartedly believe that therapy can be a profoundly healing experience that equips people with tools to live healthier, more fulfilling lives, it really is what you put into it. Merely attending a 50 minute session each week isn’t going to magically change your life. The winning combination is a willingness to show up and do the work in session, and implement those changes throughout your week.
One of my favorite recommendations for my counseling clients is to supplement our work with some intentional reading. By adding some adjunctive therapeutic reading (psychobabble term: bibliotherapy) on certain topics you want to change, then working to make those incremental changes can really help your healing process.
My clients often laugh when I say (regularly) “Okay I have a book I want you to check out”. I make lots of book recommendations, and often. Seriously, this blog was originally 4 pages! I had to break it up by topic. So here are my most recommended mental health/well being & personal growth therapy books:
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Amelia Nagoski & Emily Nagoski
We live in an increasingly stressful world where we bounce from one stressor to the other, without the proper rituals to help move that stress through our bodies. The authors bring some really helpful tips and research into effective tools to complete the stress cycle in our daily lives. Perhaps my most recommended book!
The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body's Fear Response by Ellen Vora
Written by a holistic psychiatrist who was underwhelmed by current psychiatric prescribing practices, Ellen Vora speaks to the ways in which lifestyle (diet, sleep, hormones, stress, phone usage, etc.) can manifest as anxiety, and the ways to reduce it. She then speaks to the remaining experience of “true anxiety” as a north star wisdom, wondering “what is my anxiety trying to communicate to me?”. Highly recommend for anyone struggling with ongoing anxiety.
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model byRichard Schwartz
The author of Internal Family System (often referred to as parts work” or “inner child work” or IFS) wrote a user friendly manual for lay people. IFS has been very healing for me personally, and I am constantly amazed at its effects for my clients. It’s gentle, effective, and promotes lots of self-compassion and and understanding about some of our tricky, stuck behavior patterns and responses.
Brene Brown’s Entire library (seriously)
I joke with my clients that if I could follow Brene Brown around and be her disciple, I would. I have enjoyed, benefitted from, and grown personally from everything she has written. I cite her work around shame and vulnerability in session often. My top recommendations of her work are:
Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead - Guidance on how to acknowledge our shame messages and use vulnerability as our super power in life, relationships, family, and work.
Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience - Essentially an emotional encyclopedia to help everyone expand our language around emotions.
The Enneagram Guide to Waking Up: Find Your Path, Face Your Shadow, Discover Your True Self by Beatrice Chestnut and Uranio Paes
For those Enneagram curios folks, this is the best book I’ve read. I enjoy their approach to the enneagram, overview of the subtypes (which can be a game changer!), and super tangible ways to use the Enneagram to grow, which is what its intended for. Once you identify your type, you essentially only need to read one chapter and come back for reference to continue growing.
Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time by Melody Beattie
Codependency is such an often misunderstood buzzword. This is the timeless classic that helps illustrate what codependency looks like and how to move beyond it.
The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter--And How to Make the Most of Them Now by Meg Jay
Your twenties can be a fun and strange decade. There are no more syllabus guidelines or parents or teachers moving you to the next thing, decisions, and big ones, are now up to you. This book helps twenty-somethings make proactive decisions around work, relationships, and family planning in their twenties so they can enjoy the type of life they hope for in their 30’s and beyond.
If you’re hoping to dig into therapy or something you’ve been reading has brought something up that you’d like to process with a counselor, schedule a free 15 minute consultation call for therapy in Dublin, CA today.