These 8 books helped me overcome trauma, rebuild my life and become a therapist

I never believed self-help books could make much difference. Then grief, anxiety and burnout changed everything. These are the titles that genuinely helped me heal – and ultimately led me to train as a psychotherapist

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Life can throw curveballs. In my mid-twenties, I was pretty happy-go-lucky, flying through life without a great deal of care. Then, a series of unfortunate events came my way, and left me having to rebuild myself as a person. Grief, addiction concerns, depression, panic disorder, PTSD, and burnout. A whole suite of issues at once. 

As reading had always been a solace for me, I took to books (alongside therapy) to try and understand more about what had happened to me, how to heal, and how to rebuild. Of the dozens of books that could be described as self-help (a genre I would have dismissed in the past), these were the ones that had a huge impact on mental health, perspective, and even my career – motivating me to write about health and well-being, and to begin training as a psychotherapist. 

The Chimp Paradox – Prof. Steve Peters

The Chimp Paradox is a wildly popular book, especially with athletes and sports-minded people due to the author, psychiatrist Professor Steve Peters, working mainly with elite sportspeople. The book is an incredibly accessible look into mind management. From beginning to realise that you can dialogue with the thoughts in your mind, through to being able to change your outlook and behaviour patterns. Few books are able to have such a direct impact on how we think, and it can be applied to many psychological difficulties, small or large. I found this especially helpful for anxiety.

Main topic: Mind management    
Price: $20.00 / £14.99
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Tarcher (USA) / Vermilion (UK)
Available here

No Bad Parts – Richard Schwartz 

Internal Family Systems (IFS) have been touted by many as a revelation in trauma-based therapy. This book by the creator of IFS is a clear, accessible guide to this form of therapeutic thinking and treatment. The idea hasn’t got anything to do with your family members – it’s about who we are being made up of a variety of “parts” (the movie Inside Out was inspired by this) that have their own personalities and reactions to traumatic events, and a core “self”. It explains how these parts do their best to help you through hard times but that sometimes their method of help can be, unhelpful! The idea is that by tapping into our “self” (which is unaffected by trauma) and dialoguing with these parts, we can heal them, and in turn find balance again. While slightly “out there” initially, a chapter or two into this book and you will find your compassion for yourself grow exponentially, and will understand why you did those things you did in response to trauma (though some critics say this works less well for deeply complex trauma). 

Main topic: Processing trauma 
Price: $19.99 / £16.99
Length: 240 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Essentials (USA) / Vermilion (UK)
Available here

When the Body Says No – Gabor Maté

This is another example of a book that has influenced mainstream conversations but has in some cases, been forgotten as the source. When the Body Says No is all about mind-body connection, and how stress, mental illness, and trauma can have very physical consequences including chronic illnesses and cancers, alongside their psychological damage. If ever a book could encourage you to slow down and take stress management seriously, it is this. 

Main topic: Stress
Price: $21.99 / £12.99
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: Wiley (USA) / Vermilion (UK)
Available here

Attached – Amir Levine

Relationships are a bedrock of life. We are social creatures, we evolved as social creatures – we have depended on group living, working within teams, and communicating with others for survival. Attached, which mainly centres on romantic relationships but can be applied to friendships and family dynamics also, is essential reading for anyone who feels they might be struggling with having healthy, functioning relationships. It delves into attachment theory, and will likely explain to you why you react to relationships the way you do, what this means, and what tools there are to help you find a healthy functional approach to relationships going forward.

Main topic: Relationships    
Price: $20.00 / £10.99
Length: 305 pages
Publisher: Tarcher (USA) / Bluebird (UK)
Available here

The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease – Marc Lewis

Marc Lewis’ book on addiction has a title that can make many feel uncomfortable, but he is a Neuroscientist who has himself gone through addiction (and written an entire book on that too) so he is coming at the topic with both life experience and academic rigour. The Biology of Desire also focuses on telling stories of addiction, using these examples to help demonstrate his argument, which is that the brain is highly adaptable and therefore treating mental health issues like addiction as a disease is missing the point, and perhaps getting in the way of recovery. 

Main topic: Addiction
Price: $14.99 / £10.99
Length: 256 pages
Publisher: PublicAffairs (USA) / Scribe (UK) 
Available here

How To Be A Stoic: Ancient Wisdom for Modern Living – Massimo Pigliucci

Modern psychology can be considered to date back to 1879, when German scientist Wilhelm Wundt opened the world’s first experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Leipzig. Previously, it was meshed in with other studies of the mind such as philosophy. Stoicism, however, was born roughly 2300 years ago and stood the test of time. How To Be A Stoic is the best I, a bit of a staunch Stoic, have read for bringing the teachings into the modern world. I feel they make a wonderful compendium to many elements of behavioural psychology and philosophical-leaning forms of psychotherapy, and find myself referring to this book as much as any.  

Main topic: Stoicism / Lifestyle 
Price: $18.99 / £16.99
Length: 288 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (USA) / Rider (UK) 
Available here

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams – Matthew Walker

If you want to bore your mates to sleep for months because you can’t stop talking about a specific topic, make it this book about sleep and dreams (as you’ll see, sleep is very good for them anyway so it’s worthwhile). Why We Sleep is a revelatory book that crossed from being a niche science interest into one of the most important, referenced, and influential books for health-conscious people everywhere. You will not believe how important sleep is. 

Main topic: Sleep
Price: $19.00 / £12.99
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Scribner (USA) / Penguin (UK) 
Available here

Your Best Year Yet – Jinny Ditzler

This is, truthfully, the sort of book I liked least until I read it. Part memoir, part educational with case studies, part workbook. So often, these can feel like a watered-down version of therapy. But not here. I now re-read and work through Your Best Year Yet once a year (usually the few weeks before my birthday) and find it incredibly helpful for thinking through my values, my goals, and how I plan to actually achieve them. I’m not sure if I’ve had the best years of my life (so far) since reading this book, but they have been the most transformative and actually, the most grounding.

Main topic: Transformation 
Price: $9.99 / £9.99
Length: 210 pages 
Publisher: Hachette (USA) / HarperCollins (UK) 
Available here