Mental Health and Emotional Well-being
- The Happiness Trap – Acceptance and Commitment Therapy-based book, written for non-clinicians so it’s pretty accessible
- Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life – Also an Acceptance and Commitment-based book
- The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook – Usually used by clinicians but it has a TON of great information and skills for how to cope with difficult emotions
- Quiet – Great empowering book for the introvert-identified!
- Peace is Every Step – Amazing book that teaches you how to incorporate mindfulness into your daily life
- Radical Acceptance – Teaches the use of acceptance to reduce resistance to our emotions and therefore live a fuller life
- Don’t Let Anxiety Run Your Life: Using the Science of Emotion Regulation and Mindfulness to Overcome Fear and Worry
Finding Purpose
- Man’s Search for Meaning – Makes the argument that we are all inherently meaning-seeking and frames a psychological theory within the larger context of the writer’s experiences in the Holocaust; very powerful and influential book
- The Alchemist – Definitely a great read for teens, but it’s still a good read later in life
Relationships
- Attached – Highly recommend – helps break down attachment theory and how the way we connected to our parents affects all of our relationships
- The Five Love Languages
- Living and Loving After Betrayal: How to Heal from Emotional Abuse, Deceit, Infidelity, and Chronic Resentment
- Books by John Gottman
Relationships with Individuals Suffering from Significant Mental Health Issues
- Stop Walking on Eggshells: Taking Your Life Back When Someone You Care About Has Borderline Personality Disorder
- I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me
Children of Abusive/Critical/Difficult Parents
- Toxic Parents
- Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
- The Drama of the Gifted Child
Substance Use
- Over the Influence – Preeminent harm reduction literature; helps look at drug use in a very different, less pathologizing, and more compassionate way
- Dharma Punx – An autobiography by Noah Levine, an ex-punk/drug user who cultivated a Buddhist practice to escape a life of self-destruction
Trauma
- Seeking Safety – More so used by clinicians, but has worksheets and other helpful tools for coping with symptoms of trauma as well as concurrent substance use