top of page
Bibliotherapy, the use of books to enhance therapy, is ideal for those who absorb information best by reading, or want more information on a topic. Reading a book can provide in-depth knowledge as well as comfort, insight, and the reminder that you are not alone. Below are some books that I recommend on a variety of the topics that I address in my therapeutic work.
ANXIETY
General13
It is very important to note that anxiety is not always pathological. As a matter of fact, anxiety is not usually pathological. While you may not love having it around, anxiety is your body's natural response to stress and is helpful in many ways. If you are going through a break-up or divorce, moving, interviewing for a job, giving a speech, for example, it is natural to have some anxiety around these stressful situations. Self-compassion is key when looking at your anxiety and determining if it feels like a normal and healthy response to your current circumstances, OR if things are generally ok right now and you just can't turn the anxiety off or you are experiencing negative thoughts/beliefs that don't realistically fit your situation. If you are in the latter category, this may be the book for you.
A key premise in beginning to address anxiety, which Dr. Burns does a great job of highlighting in this book, (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GCFVV0)is that there is no scientific agreement on the exact root of anxiety, which, of course, means that there is no one universally agreed upon way to treat it. Anxiety also presents itself in many forms (general anxiety, OCD, social anxiety, body dysmorphia, agoraphobia, etc), and with a variety of possible symptoms (panic attacks, withdrawal, insomnia, racing thoughts, hypervigilance, rumination, etc.). I say this to remind anyone suffering from issues related to anxiety that it is going to take some trial and error to find the treatment path that works best for you, and, possibly, an additional journey to get to the root of what initiated the anxiety in the first place.
It is not unusual to have depressive feelings if you are dealing with a lot of anxious feelings. No one likes feeling anxious, so, of course, being in that state can get you down. Anxiety and depression are often attached at the hip and determined to crash your party, but that also means that managing anxious feelings can also go a long way in alleviating depressive feelings as well.
While it is not the only treatment approach, by any means, CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) is the gold standard treatment method for anxiety. I personally feel that CBT as a stand-alone treatment is typically insufficient to address the full picture, but for many people it can go a long way in relieving symptoms and correcting negative thought processes that are feeding the anxiety.
If CBT is the gold standard of anxiety treatment, this book is the gold standard of self-help in applying CBT principles to your anxious thoughts. In his humorous and relatable stories and explanations, Dr. Burns walks the reader through basic CBT techniques and includes many helpful worksheets that can be printed for the reader to work through as they read. Burns emphasizes throughout the book that, while one technique might not work for you, that's ok; and he then offers another. It is unlikely that every technique presented will resonate with you, but I think most readers dealing with anxiety will find at least a few great takeaways to help manage their symptoms.
Reminder, that some people working on anxiety may also need the support of a therapist and/or the support of a medical doctor or psychiatrist, in addition to, or instead of, the techniques presented in this text. That's ok too! This is just one more tool to add to your toolbox.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
"1. You feel the way you think. 2. When you're anxious, you're fooling yourself. Anxiety results from distorted illogical thoughts. It's a mental con. 3. When you change the way you think, you can change the way you feel."
"When you feel anxious, worried, panicky, or afraid, you're telling yourself that you're in danger and that something terrible is about to happen … Once you start to feel anxious, your negative thoughts and feelings begin to reinforce each other in a vicious cycle. The catastrophic thoughts create feelings of anxiety and fear, and these feelings trigger more negative thoughts."
"Shame is also a central feature of anxiety. You may try to hide your symptoms of insecurity or panic, thinking that other people would look down on you or think you were weird if they knew how you really felt inside."
"Anxiety and worry are extremely common, so we end up "pathologizing" people unnecessarily."
"Many people don't understand the difference between a negative thought and an SDB [self-defeating belief]. Your SDBs are always present, but negative thoughts surface only when you're upset."
"… feelings of self-blame, guilt, and inadequacy usually aren't very motivating and don't help me learn from my mistakes. Feelings of shame and guilt simply make me want to cover up my failures because I can't stand to face them. In fact, I do my best work when I'm feeling happy, relaxed, and self-accepting."
"The word "should" comes from the Ango-Saxon word scolde. When you use Should statements, you're really scolding yourself or other people."
On procrastination: "Extremely successful people know that … action comes first and motivation follows. They don't wait around until they "feel" like doing something. They just plow ahead and do it, whether they feel like it or not."
PERSONAL GROWTH & LIFE TRANSITIONS
General20
In Fault Lines,(https://www.amazon.com/dp/B085XK7XW4) Cornell professor and family sociologist, Karl A. Pillemer addresses the common, but not commonly discussed, issue of familial estrangements. One study found that around 27% of American adults have experienced estrangement from at least one family member. The book outlines the collateral damage and intergenerational trauma that can stem from these estrangements, addresses the issue of reconciliation, several paths towards reconciliation, and examines boundaries that may need to be in place in order for a reconciliation to happen. The real impact of the book comes from the wisdom that Pillemer collected in long-form interviews with people who are experiencing, or have experienced, estrangements. Through their words, the reader may experience the universality of their own experience and, possibly, find a path forward. Pillemer presents categories of causes of estrangements including: The Long Arm of the Past, The Legacy of Divorce, The Problematic In-Law, Money and Inheritance, Unmet Expectations, and Value and Lifestyle Differences.
TRIGGER WARNING: The book is largely written with a focus on reconciliation. If you are experiencing a family estrangement and you are not wanting to reconcile, or just don't feel that this is where you are in your journey at this time, this book could be triggering. The majority of the people interviewed in the book are endorsing reconciliation as a path toward peace, but, for many estrangements, a certain amount of healing and work on developing healthy boundaries may be necessary before taking those next steps.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
"Of all the regrets older people have, a family estrangement is often the most painful."
"The groundwork for an estrangement can be established early in a person's life, through disruptions and difficulties that occur while growing up in the family. A history of harsh parenting, emotional or physical abuse and neglect, parental favoritism, or sibling conflict can shape relationships decades into the future."
"People describe estrangement in precisely these terms: a form of chronic stress that never goes away. It may be punctuated at times by a burst of contact from the estranged relative, followed by silence. It is characterized by attempts to reach out that become highly stressful sources of disappointment."
"You can and should, perhaps with the help of a counselor, piece together the incidents that led to a rift, understanding your role and that of others involved. However, when it is time to reconcile, the relationship must be lived forward. For many people, the attempt to create a shared 'backward understanding' will fail, because our narratives are our own and form part of our identity. If you are considering an attempt at reconciliation, you must ultimately move forward together, whether or not the two pasts can be aligned."
General21
The Body Is Not an Apology moves beyond a focus on self-esteem and acceptance to combating self-hate and body terrorism through the concept of radical self-love. Radical self-love is our inherent state of being worthy and enough. The concepts in this book are a practice – a muscle that we must exercise to deprogram a lifetime of messages from society, media, culture, as well as family, friends, and enemies, that there is something inherently wrong with us as we are. Why is the beauty industry valued at over 500 billion dollars a year? – because we have been taught that we need to pluck, paint, diet, dye, and shape ourselves into an acceptable version of a body. Who decided what an acceptable body is? Don't look at the man behind the curtain!
Sonya Renee Taylor's book reads like a friend chatting you up, but shares concepts that can serve to launch an exploration of how self-hatred has impacted your life while providing steps to begin forging a new path – a path that starts with loving yourself. It's also a quick read that offers reflections throughout that can also function as journal prompts.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
"Whenever my critical eye focused laser-like on some perceived imperfection of my own or some other human's being, the words would arrive like a well-trained butler to remind me, 'Hey, the body is not an apology.'"
"No matter how 'enlightened' our ideas, none of us is immune to the social, political, and cultural indoctrination of body shame."
"Racism, sexism, ableism, homo-and transphobia, agesim, fatphobia are algorithms created by humans' struggle to make peace with the body. A radical self-love world is a world free from the systems of oppression that make it difficult and sometimes deadly to live in our bodies. A radical self-love world is a world that works for evey body. Creating such a world is an inside-out job. How we value and honor our own bodies impacts how we value and honor the bodies of others."
"Children do not arrive here ashamed of their race, gender, age, or differing abilities. Babies love their bodies! Each discovery they encounter is freaking awesome. Have you ever seen an infant realise they have feet? Talk about wonder! That is what an unobstructed relationship with our bodies looks like … just knowing that there was a point in history when you once loved your body can be a reminder that body shame is a fantastically crappy inheritance. We didn't give it to ourselves and we are not obligated to keep it."
"Health is not a state we owe the world. We are not less valuable, worthy, or lovable because we are not healthy. Lastly, there is no standard of health that is achievable for all bodies. Our belief that there should be anchors the systemic oppression of ableism and reinforces the notion that people with illnesses and disabilities have defective bodies rather than different bodies. Each of us will have varying degrees of health and wellness throughout our lives, and our arbitrary demands and expectations as they relate to health and size of people's bodies fuel inequality and injustice."
"We may be trying to convey how we don't judge people based on racial identity, but 'color blindness' is an act of erasure. Not only does it make invisible all the experiences a person has had that were shaped by their racial identity or color, it implies that to truly respect another human being we must obscure their areas of difference."
"When our personal value is dependent on the lesser value of other bodies, radical self-love is unachievable."
"Remember, we are not our beliefs. We can examine them without judgment and shame."
General22
Towards the beginning of the book,(https://www.amazon.com/dp/0807014273) Frankl quotes Nietzsche, "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How." This concept is the premise of Frankl's philosophy of logotherapy – the assertion that the primary motivation for human existence is to find meaning in life. Frankl describes three broad categories in which we find meaning, "in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times."
Viktor Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, but because of this book, he is also remembered as a Holocaust survivor. He began developing logotherapy before World War II, but gained significant perspective into the concept of finding meaning during difficult times in the years that he spent in various concentration camps. This unique perspective is part of what launched Frankl's book into being an international bestseller, and the power of his message has reverberated with many readers going through their own hard times.
Please note that the continual reference to "man" in this text along with male gendered pronouns, as opposed to "human," "person," "being," or any other ungendered term, is the product of the male-centric language common in the 1940's. If you, like me, don't identify as a "man," and can make a mental substitution when reading, the heart of the text is very worthwhile, despite the dated language.
TRIGGER WARNING: While this book is not about the horrors of the concentration camps, it does include many scenes from Frankl's experiences during this time of his life.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can control what you will feel and do when it happens to you."
"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it."
"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."
"One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it."
TRAUMA
General15
The Body Keeps the Score (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143127748)is the preeminent book on the study of how trauma impacts us mentally, emotionally, neurologically, and physiologically, giving voice to the lived experience of trauma survivors everywhere. Though the book is written from a scientific perspective, it provides an easily digestible explanation of trauma, its causes, its impacts, and ways to address the impacts from trauma. Van der Kolk also explains the impact of adverse childhood experiences, the functionality of EMDR as a treatment, PTSD, and the link between chronic illnesses and trauma. Most importantly, his writings remind us that “our capacity to destroy one another is matched by our capacity to heal one another.”
TRIGGER WARNING: The book contains anecdotes involving survivors of child abuse, sexual abuse, and combat.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
How past traumas can show up in our day-to-day lives: “When something reminds traumatized people of the past, their right brain reacts as if the traumatic event were happening in the present. But because their left brain is not working very well, they may not be aware that they are reexperiencing and reenacting the past – they are just furious, terrified, enraged, ashamed, or frozen.
Many mental health problems & destructive behaviors develop as a reaction to unprocessed trauma: “As long as we register emotions primarily in our heads, we can remain pretty much in control, but feeling as if our chest is caving in or we’ve been punched in the gut is unbearable. We’ll do anything to make these awful visceral sensations go away, whether it is clinging desperately to another human being, rendering ourselves insensible with drugs or alcohol, or taking a knife to the skin to replace overwhelming emotions with definable sensations. How many mental health problems, from drug addiction to self-injurious behavior, start as attempts to cope with the unbearable physical pain of our emotions?”
How we begin to change the trauma narrative: “Change begins when we learn to ‘own’ our emotional brains. That means learning to observe and tolerate the heartbreaking and gut-wrenching sensations that register misery and humiliation. Only after learning to bear what is going on inside can we start to befriend, rather than obliterate, the emotions that keep our maps fixed and immutable.”
How EMDR addresses trauma: “To my mind the most remarkable feature of EMDR is its apparent capacity to activate a series of unsought and seemingly unrelated sensations, emotions, images, and thoughts in conjunction with the original memory. This way of reassembling old information into new packages may be just the way we integrate ordinary, nontraumatic day-to-day experiences . . . [EMDR focuses] not only on regulating the intense memories activated by trauma but also on restoring a sense of agency, engagement, and commitment through ownership of body and mind.”
General14
The Gift of Fear, written by one of the leading national experts on personal safety, threat assessment, and violence prevention, was designed to give anyone the tools they need to keep themselves safe. de Becker addresses intuition, prediction, being in tune with your survival signals, understanding and evaluating threats, dating hazards, violence in the workplace, stalking, and domestic violence, among many subjects. He uses first-person accounts along with common sense easy to digest advice that can help anyone learn to be their own best protector. This book can also be healing for people currently trying to get out of a toxic or abusive relationship or who recently left a relationship of that nature and are processing the experience.
TRIGGER WARNING: While not overly gratuitous, this book contains many first person accounts of violence including sexual assault, homicide, and domestic violence.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
Charm: “Think of charm as a verb, not a trait.”
Too Many Details: “When people are telling the truth, they don’t feel doubted, so they don’t feel the need for additional support in the form of details.”
Disrespecting Your No: “’No’ is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you. . . . I encourage people to remember that ‘no’ is a complete sentence."
Shutting down unwanted contact: “If you tell someone ten times that you don’t want to talk to him, you are talking to him — nine more times than you wanted to. If you call him back after he leaves twenty messages, you simply teach him that the cost of getting a call back is twenty messages."
Interpersonal Violence: “Being beaten by a ‘loved one’ sets up a conflict between two instincts that should never compete: the instinct to stay in a secure environment (the family) and the instinct to flee a dangerous environment."
RELATIONSHIPS AND INTIMACY
General18
This small book of meditations (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1937006883)is filled with wisdom and opportunities for reflection on the way that we invite love into our lives. A few of the topics covered include love in intimate relationships, self-love, empty sex, crushes, and listening and communiation. The focus of the book is in applying mindfulness to the way that we experience love. For couples, this book could be used to share a reading with one another as a conversation starter or as a meditation. For individuals, this book can be used as an opportunity for personal reflection, healing, and growth. Check out the "Hugging Meditation" on page 28 and 29!
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
"Love is a living breathing thing. There is no need to force it to grow in a particular direction. If we start by being easy and gentle with ourselves, we will find it is just there inside of us, solid and healing."
"If you can accept your body, then you have a chance to see your body as home. You can rest in your body, settle in, relax, and feel joy and ease. As you practice building a home in yourself, you become more and more beautiful."
"Loving someone doesn't mean saying 'yes' to whatever the other person wants. The basis of loving someone else is to know what you need. It's important that loving another person doesn't take priority over listening to yourself and knowing what you need."
HIGH CONFLICT DIVORCE, SEPARATION, AND CO-PARENTING
General16
Multigenerational trauma, also known as transgenerational or intergenerational trauma, is the concept that trauma can be passed down from one generation to the next. This form of trauma is evidenced through communication, parenting style, parenting warmth, attachment, conflict patterns, and more. While we might think of trauma as the type of events that make headlines, in reality, we all experience some sort of trauma in our lives, sometimes just from the parenting style that we experienced as children. In Parenting from the Inside Out,(https://www.amazon.com/dp/039916510X) Dr. Siegel and Dr. Harzell combine attachment research and neurobiology to address how our past experiences shape our parenting. The book also offers concrete methods to begin the healing process, opening a path to more attuned parenting.
TRIGGER WARNING: The book contains anecdotes involving survivors of child abuse, sexual abuse, and combat.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
Multigenerational trauma: “Our childhood experiences may have involved trauma and loss in some form. Resolution of trauma and loss requires an understanding of the low road and its connections to patterns of experiences from the past. The passing of unresolved issues from generation to generation produces and perpetuates unnecessary emotional suffering. If our own issues remain unresolved, there is a strong possibility that the disorganization within our minds can create disorganization in our children’s minds. It is important to recognize that each of us may have leftover issues that create vulnerabilities that don’t become apparent until we raise or work with children.”
The importance of repair in our relationships with our children: “Sometimes relationships with children become filled with tension. Parents don’t always like their children, or feel positively toward them, especially when their children are acting in ways that make the parents’ life more difficult. Being compassionate toward your own emotional experience enables you to accept these challenging altercations with your children with less distress and self-recrimination. Sometimes, a parent’s sense of guilt at her own anger toward her child can prevent her from being aware of, or even caring about, a ruptured connection. Unfortunately, this guilt can block the initiation of repair and deepen the distance between parent and child. Having self-understanding about these processes can open the important door to reconnection.”
Compassion & self-compassion: “We just like our children, are doing the best we can at that point in time and like them we are learning more respectful ways to communicate.”
NARCISSISTIC ABUSE RECOVERY
General17
Will I Ever Be Free of You? (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1476755728)does a wonderful job of walking the reader through the impact of recovering from a narcissistic romantic relationship, with a heavy focus on divorces and partnership separations. Special attention is paid to navigating caring for children through this process, though the book would be equally useful for those without children. Because being romantically involved with a narcissist involves a heavy amount of gaslighting, it can be gratifying to learn that the abusive tactics that you may be experiencing/have experienced are universal in these types of relationships. Recognizing that commonality can be soothing, and serve as a reminder that . . . it’s not you . . . it’s them. The additional emphasis on how to deal with the divorce/separation process and how to protect children to the best of your ability in that process, elevates this book from a source of comfort to an easy to follow guide to your high-conflict divorce/separation.
TRIGGER WARNING: If you are early on in your recovery process, it could be triggering to read some of the stories included of others suffering through narcissistic relationships. Though I think the book can be very helpful, I invite you to notice where you are in your healing before diving in.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
How narcissism impacts the family system: “The narcissist does not feel secure enough to allow each individual in the family to have his or her own sense of self, beliefs, decisions, and separate interests. They expect all family members’ lives to revolve around them, and they ignore other people’s needs or desires. There is no sense of community or individuality. Their needs rule.”
Keeping children healthy during divorce: “As children adjust to divorce, they tend to mirror their parents’ emotions. So the better you deal with the changes, the better the children will do. If a parent is stuck in anger, a child is likely to be stuck there too. The same goes for the other emotional stages of divorce.”
Narcissists and the family court system: “The narcissist does not play well with others. He or she does not necessarily follow rules, laws, and court orders. Unfortunately, you may find little support or understanding about what you are dealing with. Especially in the beginning, the professionals – attorneys, judges, parenting-time evaluators, and others – may assume that both of you are unbalanced and creating unnecessary and time-consuming problems.”
General19
When you are in the midst of a relationship with a narcissist, it can be difficult to get an objective view of what is happening – that's part of the abuse. Gaslighting is a term derived from the 1944 film, Gaslight, that depicts a husband who manipulates small elements of his rich wife's environment, including their gas lights (it's an old movie!), to trick her into thinking she is crazy so he can have her committed and steal her money. Gaslighting, as the term is now used, refers to using misdirection and deception to create cognitive dissonance in another person with the purpose, consciously or unconsciously, of destabilizing them, leaving them with no one to trust but the very person who is hurting them. Gaslighting is a hallmark of narcissistic abuse and can leave a romantic partner disoriented, dependent on their abuser, and struggling with low self-esteem.
If you are suspicious that you might be in a relationship with a narcissist, or someone with highly narcissistic tendencies, Should I Stay Or Should I Go? (https://www.amazon.com/Should-Stay-Surviving-Relationship-Narcissist/dp/168261333X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1623991598&sr=8-1)can offer that objective view that can help combat the gaslighting and guide you to explore the best path to take care of yourself. Dr. Durvasula also writes about next steps, if this situation rings true for you, highlighting important things to keep in mind if your separation also involves a divorce and/or a custody situation with children involved.
If you have escaped a relationship with a narcissist, this book can provide validation for your painful experience and help reverse the damage of the gaslighting – "yes that really happened to me; and, no, it was NOT ok." One of my favorite aspects of this survival guide are the highlighted sections called "Red Flags." In these sections, important qualities are highlighted to be on the lookout for in any future relationships.
Relationally, we often gravitate toward the most familiar, rather than necessarily the safest and healthiest choice. This is why it is so easy to find ourselves stuck in patterns that don't feel good. Exploring those patterns is the first step to breaking free and making choices that are more in line with your personal goals for health and happiness. Seeking out therapeutic assistance with a practitioner familiar with this area of abuse is also very helpful. The important message of this book is that you CAN survive a relationship with a narcissist, and, even thrive, if you are able to reflect on the experience and grow from it.
TRIGGER WARNING: If you are early on in your recovery process, it could be triggering to read some of the stories included of others suffering through narcissistic relationships. Though I think the book can be very helpful, I invite you to notice where you are in your healing before diving in.
MEMORABLE QUOTES:
"Narcissists are not going to change. That simple premise, I hope, will be a lifechanger, because for many readers, it may pull their attention off of blaming themselves, frustrating themselves by working on communication and reading piles of relationship advice (that presumes that the other person is actually listening), or waiting for a bus that is never going to appear."
"Narcissists fall in love (and quite often), however it is often a rather superficial experience, focused on variables such as excitement, validation, appearance, and success … It is often a rather grandiose experience, with numerous references to 'falling in love at first sight,' and a 'once-ina-lifetime' love story."
"…narcissists never quite learn how to regulate their moods, so they are inconsistent, can have strong sudden shifts and rages, tend to project their emotions onto other people, behave badly, and find external ways to numb their emotions (drugs, alcohol, and sex are among the most classic ways.)
"Rage gives pathological narcissists two payoffs: the opportunity to rapidly vent extreme and disproportionate anger and a means of controlling the world, since most people are often very 'careful' with them. It is not unusual to hear people talk about narcissists as people who need to be 'handled' a certain way."
"Narcissistic parents are not above using their children as pawns, manipulating them with money or information, or sharing highly inappropriate details with them. Your role is to protect your children, and working with a skilled therapist in managing divorce transitions with children … can help with this process."
On ending the relationship: "Sadly, this can also be a frightening time. Not just in situations that are violent and require restraining orders and the justice system. The threatening e-mails, text messages, and calls, the threats of legal action, the sense of being followed and of having your name besmirched to family members, friends, and anyone else who will listen are extremely upsetting. Many people who endure a narcissistic breakup will say they had to start anew – and learned who their real friends were."
bottom of page