Books I’ve Loved

These are some of the books I've loved, particularly in the past five years of diving into counseling psychology, therapy, and mental health. I hope you find them as useful as I have.

ACT, Mindfulness, and Contextual Behavioral Science

• The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris - A terrific consumer-friendly overview of ACT. It also comes in an illustrated version.

• Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg - Metta practice is something I have always loved, and this book explains it in more depth than I've ever encountered.

• Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana

• Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

• Great reads for professionals: Values in Therapy, Mindfulness for Two, ACT Made Simple, Trauma-Focused ACT, Learning ACT, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, ACT for Anxiety Disorders, The Heart of ACT, Functional Analytic Psychotherapy Made Simple, Compassion Focused Therapy Made Simple.

Emotions, Listening, Change, and Trauma

• Atlas of the Heart by Dr. Brené Brown - I loved this book! It is that rare mix of well-researched, easy to read, and applicable to daily life. She explains nuances between things like anxiety vs. stress vs. overwhelm in ways that are useful and compelling. It was so good on audiobook that I also bought the hardcover to re-read.

• Non-Violent Communication by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg - Observations -> Feelings -> Needs -> Requests. The chapter on empathy is particularly great.

• The Gift of Therapy by Dr. Irvin Yalom - A classic in the field of psychotherapy from a long-time practitioner.

• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

• Beginners by Tom Vanderbilt - Taking joy in being a beginner? It’s possible, especially after reading this terrific book.

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk - A fabulous look at trauma and some of the different ways to treat it. This was required reading in two different classes in grad school.

• Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change (3rd Edition) by Drs. William Miller and Stephen Rollnick - I've read this foundational textbook twice and loved it more the second time. I think about the “roadblocks to listening” quite often.

Memoirs, Intersectionality, Discrimination, and Privilege

• Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century edited by Alice Wong

• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

• Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

• Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher

• Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay

• Group: How One Therapist and a Circle of Strangers Saved My Life by Christie Tate

• White Fragility by Dr. Robin DiAngelo

• Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria? by Dr. Beverly Tatum

• So you want to talk about race by Ijeoma Oluo

• Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino

• Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong

• Essay: White Privilege and Male Privilege by Peggy McIntosh

Time, Technology, and Attention

All of these pair well with the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma.

• Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman - Sometimes, a book hits you at the right time in life. This one resonated on a deep level, particularly as I transitioned from being a student to working full-time again.

• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

• The Shallows: What The Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr

• Digital Minimalism and Deep Work by Cal Newport

• On the Shortness of Life by Seneca

Sleep, Habits, and Other Psychology

• Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker - Read my diabetes summary of it here.

• Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath - The book that first alerted me to the idea of "Bright Spots." I'm forever grateful for this one.

• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

• Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

• The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin

• Lost Connections by Johann Hari

• How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan

• Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart by Gordon Livingston

Writing, Presenting, Business, Miscellany

• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser - My favorite all-time book about writing!

• A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger

• TED Talks by Chris Anderson

• Drive by Dan Pink - I read this so many years ago, but I still remember the main framework: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

• Bold by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler

• Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein - I read this years ago and loved it. A newly updated "final edition" was just released, which I'm excited to re-read.

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey - The Urgent vs. Important matrix has always stuck with me.

• The Three Body Problem, Death's End, The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu - An incredible science fiction trilogy.