Suggested Books and Resources
Most clients find that reading books, listening to podcasts, or having information on the topics related to their concerns help support the work they are doing in therapy.
Below I list resources that I have developed over the years based on my own research and what my clients tell me has helped them most. That said, YOU are the best person to determine if a particular resource will work for you. Different people find different things helpful.
Hopefully, you find one that resonates with you and can support you in your journey. I also want you to know that as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Books on Trauma
The Body Keeps the Score provides a comprehensive overview of current trauma treatment. The book provides a user-friendly explanation of the neurobiology of trauma, which helps one understand the reason for symptoms such as flashbacks and nightmares, and specifically addresses what happens to children’s development when they experience trauma that goes untreated. The book then lays out numerous leading approaches to treating trauma, providing survivors the option to identify what works best for their personal needs, circumstances, and preferences.
The Myth of Normal delivers a sweeping analysis of the relationship between illness, trauma, and capitalism. “Our social and economic culture generates chronic stressors that undermine well-being,” Mate mostly focuses on the traumas of day-to-day life, including how pregnant mothers’ stress about employment or healthcare may lead to behavioral problems in their children, and how the effects of racism and poverty lead to lower life expectancies.
Getting Past Your Past is an accessible user's guide to EMDR psychotherapy. Whether we've experienced small setbacks or major traumas, we are all influenced by memories and experiences we may not remember or don't fully understand. Getting Past Your Past offers practical procedures that demystify the human condition and empower readers looking to achieve real change.
Resmaa Manekem is an American therapist specializing in body-centered trauma therapy (Somatic Therapy). His book examines the impact of racism on Black, white, and police bodies in the United States of America, positing that historic, familial, and personal trauma is stored deep inside the nervous system.
BOOKS ON PARETING AND REPARENTING
Adult Children of Emotional Immature Parents exposes the destructive nature of parents who are emotionally immature or unavailable. You will see how these parents create a sense of neglect, and discover ways to heal from the pain and confusion caused by your childhood.
Recovering from Emotional Immature Parents offers powerful tools to help you step back and protect yourself at the first sign of an emotional takeover, make sure your emotions and needs are respected, and break free from the coercive control of emotionally immature parents.
Parenting from the Inside Out explores the extent to which our childhood experiences shape the way we parent. Drawing on stunning new findings in neurobiology and attachment research, the book explains how interpersonal relationships directly impact the development of the brain, and offer parents a step-by-step approach to forming a deeper understanding of their own life stories, which will help them raise compassionate and resilient children.
The Whole-Brain Child offers a revolutionary approach to child rearing with twelve key strategies that foster healthy brain development, leading to calmer, happier children. The authors explain—and make accessible—the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures.
Brainstorm offers teens and parents a road map for understanding the adolescent mind that will help families not just survive but also thrive through the “teenage years” and beyond. Busting a number of commonly held myths about adolescence — for example, that it is merely a stage of “immaturity” filled with often “crazy” behavior — to reveal how it is in fact a vital time in our lives in terms of charting the course for the adults we ultimately become.
Books on Relationships
This book has the seven principles that guide couples on the path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Packed with practical questionnaires and exercises, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the definitive guide for anyone who wants their relationship to attain its highest potential.
Attached reveals how an understanding of attachment theory can help us find and sustain love. Pioneered by psychologist John Bowlby in the 1950s, the field of attachment explains that each of us behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways: Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back. Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. Secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.
The State of Affairs look closely at this questions, why do we cheat? And why do happy people cheat? Why does infidelity hurt so much? And when we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean? Is an affair always the end of a marriage? Affairs, the author writes, have a lot to teach us about relationships. They provide unusual insight into our personal and cultural attitudes about love, lust, and commitment. Betrayal hurts, but it can be healed. An affair can even be the doorway to a new marriage - with the same person. With the right approach, Perel argues, couples can grow and learn from these tumultuous experiences, together or apart.
In Mating in Captivity, Esther Perel takes on tough questions, grappling with the obstacles and anxieties that arise when our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion. She invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire, and explains what it takes to bring lust home. Esther Perel explains that our cultural penchant for equality, togetherness, and absolute candor is antithetical to erotic desire for both men and women. Sexual excitement doesn't always play by the rules of good citizenship. It is politically incorrect.