10 Books I'd Recommend to Almost Anyone

We could all use a little psychoeducation -- aka information on our thoughts, feelings, unconscious, and relationships. Below are 10 great reads for better understanding attachment, trauma, community, conflict, and ourselves that I recommend to my clients as a therapist in Oakland, CA. 

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy by Jessica Fern

Even if you never plan on exploring polyamorous relationships! Fern provides a concise and easy to understand summary of attachment theory that will be helpful to anyone in any kind of human relationship. 

I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World Show Details By Kai Cheng Thom

I'm obsessed with Thom's writing and thinking. This short book is an intimate collection of poetry and essays exploring harm, violence, and marginalization in community from a non-punitive lens, holding the nuance of the human condition. 
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My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem

Menakem's work not only explores racism in America but explored racialized trauma from a body-centered perspective providing useful exercises for everyone with trauma. 

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver

Not just for marriages, this book is a compact breakdown of how to build strong, secure relationships based on decades of research. 

Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom by Rick Hanson
 
Neuroscience can be quite a complex topic, but this book breaks gives you the basics of what you need to know to better understand your internal processing and how to work with your brain. 

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff

Neff and her team applied clinical research to basic exercises to improve your relationship with yourself. Neff's concept is simple but the results are profound.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma Bessel Van der Kolk

This book uses scientific research to demonstrate how trauma restructures the mind and body. Experiencers of trauma find the book validating and helpful in their owb healing. 

Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach 

Coming from a Buddhist perspective, Brach demonstrates how self-judgement/criticism/hatred keep us unfulfilled, limited, and in distress. Brach also provides exercises in unlearning these unhelpful thought patterns. 

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model By Richard Schwartz 

Schwartz approaches all parts of ourselves as good intentioned, wanting the best for us, even when causing harm and disruption in our lives. Approaching our difficult parts from this perspective creates huge shifts.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb 

​It's common for people to be curious about what happens in therapy, how therapy works, and what the heck therapists are thinking. In this funny, warm memoir Gottlieb reveals just that.  

“In search of relationship safety, our attachment system is primed to seek the answers to certain questions regarding our partners . . . If I turn towards you, will you be there for me? Will you receive and accept me instead of attack, criticize, dismiss or judge me?. . . Can we lean into and rely on each other?” —from Polysecure

“Models of justice that centre punishment do not prevent abuse but only react to it, and they don't offer a pathway toward healing for either perpetrators or survivors. Nor do they acknowledge the dual reality that a great many perpetrators are themselves survivors.” —from I Hope We Choose Love

“Trauma is also a wordless story our body tells itself about what is safe and what is a threat.” —from My Grandmother's Hands

“Every time you take in the good, you build a little bit of neural structure. Doing this a few times a day—for months and even years—will gradually change your brain, and how you feel and act, in far-reaching ways.” —from Buddha's Brain

"​Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first step toward reconnecting with who we really are and what it means to live fully." —from Radical Acceptance

“Our parts can sometimes be disruptive or harmful, but once they’re unburdened, they return to their essential goodness." —from No Bad Parts

Looking from a trauma therapist in Oakland, CA? Learn more here.

Looking for a queer couples therapist in Oakland, CA? Learn more here. 

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