Best Books About Therapy

Dr. Richard Byng runs a program helping ex-convicts, many of whom experienced severe childhood trauma, reintegrate into society. But he's found constantly probing their traumatic memories to be counterproductive. "Quite the opposite," he argues. For those with trauma, the healthiest approach is often to acknowledge it briefly, then pivot to focusing on the present.

Byng criticizes a culture of therapy that assumes everyone benefits from talking through their pain. The insistence on "processing" can make trauma loom larger. Some do best moving forward without dwelling on the past. Even for the traumatized, a level of healthy repression is often necessary to functioning.

Section: 1, Chapter: 3

Today's teens have less in-person interaction and laughter with friends than ever. Their time is heavily scheduled and surveilled by hovering adults. School has become a vortex of "trauma-informed" emotional labor, not academics.

Immersed in the therapeutic worldview, many are quick to pathologize setbacks as mental health crises. Inundated with morbid messages, death by suicide feels like a looming specter. Learned helplessness is endemic as teens marinate in their diagnosis of brokenness.

Anxious parents outsource the heavy lifting of mentorship and guidance to paid professionals. But while well-meaning, therapy is often a flimsy backstop against the ennui of a medicated, artificially prolonged adolescence. Atrophied by overaccommodation, young adults feel stranded between childhood and independence.

The path forward is the same as it's always been: embracing the bog-standard discomforts of the human condition and growing the hell up already.

Section: 3, Chapter: 12

Despite a 75-year surge in mental health treatment availability and sophistication, rates of anxiety and depression in young people have swelled. A "treatment-prevalence paradox" has emerged, where expanded access to therapy and medication has not reduced mental illness prevalence as expected.

Therapists argue this is because today's youth face unprecedented stressors compared to previous generations, such as smartphones, social media, the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, and climate change fears. But the author contends that adolescent mental health has been slipping since the 1950s, long before these modern issues existed. She suggests that perhaps the mental health complex itself, in pathologizing normal stress, inhibiting coping skills, and creating dependence, is part of the problem rather than the solution.

Section: 1, Chapter: 12

Many people are familiar with the "five stages of grief" model - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. While these experiences are common after loss, modern research suggests grief is not a linear progression with clearly defined phases. It's much messier than that.

• Emotions oscillate, sometimes rapidly. You might feel at peace one moment and in despair the next.
• There is no timeline for grief. Pressuring yourself or others to "move on" by a certain point can compound suffering.
• Grief is individual. Your relationship to the loss is unique, so don't compare your process to others.
• Cultural beliefs shape grief. Rituals and norms around expressing grief vary across societies.
• Grief is a natural response to loss, not a disorder to be cured. Feeling waves of sadness doesn't mean you're broken.

Instead of conforming to a rigid model, be open to your own unfolding experience. Find small ways to honor the loss while continuing to engage with life. With time and self-compassion, grief softens its edges and becomes integrated into a fuller story.

Section: 4, Chapter: 15

When gripped by emotional pain, the natural instinct is to try to make it go away as quickly as possible. This avoidance often backfires, prolonging suffering or causing it to resurface more intensely later. A more effective approach:

• Recognize emotions aren't facts, but sensations that come and go when you allow them to run their natural course
• Turn toward pain with curiosity, openness and self-compassion rather than criticism or resistance
• Get to know your patterns - what situations trigger you and how do you typically react?
• Have a toolbox of healthy self-soothing strategies to ride out intense feelings safely

Painful emotions are an inevitable part of life - you can't control what arises, but you can build resilience in how you respond.

Section: 3, Chapter: 10

Anxiety is often misunderstood as a sign that something's wrong with your brain. But anxiety is your brain's alert system for danger. It's meant to mobilize you into action - think fight, flight or freeze. The problem arises when your threat detector is oversensitive, perceiving catastrophe where there is none. To recalibrate your anxiety:

• Recognize false alarms. Your brain is wired to prioritize safety, but not all fears are facts. Examine the odds your worst case will occur.
• Externalize it. Give your anxiety a name or visualize it as an overprotective friend. Creating distance helps you think critically about the message.
• Use it as a messenger. What is your anxiety trying to tell you? Maybe there's a problem to be solved or a boundary to be enforced.
• Aim for the middle path. A life well-lived includes some risk. You're looking for the sweet spot between recklessness and complete avoidance.

Your anxiety, at its core, thinks it's keeping you safe. Befriend it, don't banish it.

Section: 6, Chapter: 22

The fear of death is a universal human experience. For some, it's a distant abstraction easily compartmentalized. For others, death anxiety colors every facet of life, leading to a range of psychological issues. Mortality fears may masquerade as health anxiety, phobias, panic, OCD and more.

Why is death anxiety so mentally destabilizing? Existential psychologists argue it's the ultimate unknown. We can't control the fact of our eventual demise nor the circumstances around it. Death renders everything we've worked for seemingly meaningless. It threatens our fundamental need for permanence and self-preservation.

Section: 6, Chapter: 26

Communal rhythmic activities and theater can serve as powerful tools for trauma recovery. Moving together to a shared beat fosters a sense of attunement, connection, and empowerment - experiences often shattered by trauma. Theater allows survivors to safely express and transform their stories through embodied role-play and collective creation. By physically experimenting with new possibilities, they can reclaim a sense of agency and spontaneity. These expressive arts tap into the emotional brain and invite the whole self into a space of witnessed authenticity. They remind trauma survivors of their capacity to create beauty and meaning from the fragments of pain.

Section: 5, Chapter: 20

"The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves" - Elvin Semrad

Van der Kolk's teacher Elvin Semrad taught that the biggest obstacles to healing are the denial, lies and self-deceptions trauma survivors tell themselves to avoid the painful truth of their past. Being honest with oneself about one's experience and feelings is an essential first step in recovery.

Section: 1, Chapter: 1

Van der Kolk presents the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model as a paradigm for restoring inner harmony after trauma. In IFS, the psyche is viewed as a system of interacting "parts" with different roles and agendas. Trauma disrupts this inner ecology, causing parts to become polarized and disconnected from the core Self.

The goal of IFS therapy is to reestablish the Self's innate leadership and compassion. The Self is the seat of clarity, confidence and curiosity - it is not identified with any one part but can create space for all. From this empowered center, the individual can open a dialogue with the protective parts that carry trauma burdens.

Exiles are the wounded parts that become frozen in time, bearing the pain, terror and shame of trauma. Managers are the preemptively controlling parts that try to safeguard against further wounding. Firefighters are the impulsive, self-destructive parts that try to extinguish overwhelming emotions.

IFS teaches people to embrace all their parts with understanding and empathy. As the Self grows more robust, it can help exiles to heal, managers to relax, and firefighters to discover new roles. By honoring each part's positive intention and releasing it from extremes, the system moves toward balance and wholeness.

Section: 5, Chapter: 17