Why am I passionate about this?

As a police psychologist and mystery writer—I call myself a shrink with ink—I love to read how other authors portray therapists in their novels. It’s challenging to bring tension, action, and conflict to a 50-minute session that primarily involves quiet conversation, perhaps salted with tears. I started out writing non-fiction. Then I got tired of reality and began writing mysteries inspired by real police officers and their families. Writing fiction was harder, but more fun. Sometimes it’s been therapeutic. I especially enjoy the opportunity to take potshots at cops who treated me poorly, incompetent psychologists, and two of my ex-husbands.


I wrote

Book cover of Burying Ben

What is my book about?

A young rookie cop commits suicide and leaves a note blaming his therapist, police psychologist Dr. Dot Meyerhoff. Desperate to…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of By Blood

Ellen Kirschman Why did I love this book?

I absolutely loved this novel, not just for the craft (the writing is beautiful), but for the suspense created when a troubled man eavesdrops on a psychologist’s sessions.

Fascinated with one particular client, he gets deeply and actively involved in her search for identity and her ties to Nazi Germany. As a practicing psychologist, I tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to imagine how I would handle a similar situation.

Set in my town, 1970’s San Francisco during a tumultuous era marked by psychedelics, feminism, and the Zodiac killer, I even recognized the building where Ullman’s fictional psychologist practices because some of my colleagues have offices there.

By Ellen Ullman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked By Blood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the acclaimed American novelist and memoirist Ellen Ullman, By Blood is a gothic noir novel that explores questions about fate, identity and genetics in the guise of a gripping psychological thriller.

"Delicious and intriguing" Daily Telegraph

A professor is on leave from his post a leave that may have been forced upon him. He may or may not be of sound mind. To steady himself, he rents an office in San Francisco. It is 1974, a time when free love and psychedelic ecstasy have given way to drug violence and serial killings. Through the thin office walls, the professor…


Book cover of The Therapist

Ellen Kirschman Why did I love this book?

What happens when a client turns on a therapist? I hope I never find out.

I picked up Helene Flood's novel out of curiosity. As a writer, I wanted to know how Flood turns two people sitting in a room quietly talking into a plot that will hold readers' attention. I don’t want to give anything away, except to say her book deftly and accurately shows a clinician using her training to solve a terrible crime and save herself.

It was easy for me to identify with both the protagonist and the author. Flood and I are both practicing psychologists specializing in trauma. I’m grateful for a good read and a reminder to screen potential clients carefully.

By Helene Flood, Alison McCullough (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Therapist as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the mind of a psychologist comes a chilling domestic thriller that gets under your skin.

"Creepy, compelling and very well written" Harriet Tyce

At first it's the lie that hurts.

A voicemail from her husband tells Sara he's arrived at the holiday cabin. Then a call from his friend confirms he never did.

She tries to carry on as normal, teasing out her clients' deepest fears, but as the hours stretch out, her own begin to surface. And when the police finally take an interest, they want to know why Sara deleted that voicemail.

To get to the root…


Book cover of The Topeka School

Ellen Kirschman Why did I love this book?

I was eager to read Ben Lerner’s fictional rendition of his mother’s life.

Harriet Goldhor Lerner, psychologist and writer, was a role model for my own self-help books. She gave advice without sounding pompous. She was modest, compassionate, avoided psychobabble, and was vocal about the restraints society places on women.

Ben’s novel was full of revelations I later verified to be true.

I was appalled to learn how much criticism his mother got from her colleagues for popularizing complex psychoanalytical concepts. Sad to learn she received threatening phone calls by men who held her responsible for their failed marriages because she encouraged women to take their own interests as seriously as they do others.

It was disturbing to learn popularity generated so much personal and professional jealousy. 

By Ben Lerner,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Topeka School as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of '97. His parents are psychologists, his mom a famous author in the field. A renowned debater and orator, an aspiring poet, and - although it requires a lot of posturing and weight lifting - one of the cool kids, he's also one of the seniors who brings the loner Darren Eberheart into the social scene, with disastrous effects.

Deftly shifting perspectives and time periods, The Topeka School is a riveting story about the challenges of raising a good son in a culture of toxic masculinity. It is also a…


Book cover of Speed Shrinking

Ellen Kirschman Why did I love this book?

I love books with sardonic humor, especially those that poke fun at psychologists and other mental health professionals. I do it in my own novels.

Most clinicians are earnest, compassionate, and ethical. But like every other profession, we have some bad apples who give psychology a bad name and deserve all the jokes and cartoons and late-night comedy sketches we get.

Shapiro’s book is about a neurotic writer with a weight problem who searches for a new therapist after her long-time clinician leaves town. Applying speed dating to her protagonist’s search for a shrink was the perfect vehicle for taking jabs at my profession.

I laughed more than I cringed. It was, for me, an opportunity to look at myself and my colleagues from the client’s point of view. 

By Susan Shapiro,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Speed Shrinking as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?




“Proust had a cookie. Susan Shapiro has a cupcake—and a really hilarious book.”

—Patricia Marx, author of Him, Her, Him Again, the End of Him

 

In Susan Shapiro’s laugh-out-loud funny fictional debut Speed Shrinking, Manhattan self-help author Julia Goodman thinks she’s got her addictive personality under control. Then her beloved psychoanalyst moves away at the same time her husband takes off to L.A. and her best friend gets married and moves to Ohio.


            Feeling lonely and left out, Julia fills in the void with food, becomes a cupcake addict, and blimps out. This is a huge problem—especially since she’s about…


Book cover of The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self

Ellen Kirschman Why did I love this book?

I first read this book in the mid-1990s as I was honing my skills as a therapist.

It hit me hard, as if the author, a psychiatrist, had been a fly on the wall of my childhood home. Miller holds no punches about what drives some people to become clinicians.

Part One of her book is titled “The Drama of the Gifted Child and How We Became Psychotherapists.” It helped me get clear about my choice of career. It was painful reading, but critical to my skills as a clinician and my own mental well-being. I’ve never forgotten it.

Whether you are a therapist, thinking about becoming one, or want to read a book that tears the cover off the myths of childhood, this is essential reading. 

By Alice Miller,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Drama of the Gifted Child as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Why are many of the most successful people plagued by feelings of emptiness and alienation? This wise and profound book has provided thousands of readers with an answer,and has helped them to apply it to their own lives.Far too many of us had to learn as children to hide our own feelings, needs, and memories skillfully in order to meet our parents' expectations and win their "love." Alice Miller writes, "When I used the word 'gifted' in the title, I had in mind neither children who receive high grades in school nor children talented in a special way. I simply…


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of Burying Ben

What is my book about?

A young rookie cop commits suicide and leaves a note blaming his therapist, police psychologist Dr. Dot Meyerhoff. Desperate to find out the real reasons behind Ben Gomez’s death, Dot’s quest for the truth exposes a tangle of sordid secrets. At stake is her job, her reputation, her self-confidence, and her license to practice. Getting to the truth isn’t easy. The cops at Kenilworth PD, including the chief, are uncommunicative, suspicious, and contemptuous of therapy. Pitting herself against forces who want her to fail, she never gives up her search for the truth until justice is served and Dot’s twice-broken heart is healed. 

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Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

By Mimi Zieman,

Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Mimi Zieman Author Of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an OB/GYN, passionate about adventuring beyond what’s expected. This has led me to pivot multiple times in my career, now focusing on writing. I’ve written a play, The Post-Roe Monologues, to elevate women’s stories. I cherish the curiosity that drives outer and inner exploration, and I love memoirs that skillfully weave the two. The books on this list feature extraordinary women who took risks, left comfort and safety, and battled vulnerability to step into the unknown. These authors moved beyond the stories they’d believed about themselves–or that others told about them. They invite you to think about living fuller and bigger lives. 

Mimi's book list on women exploring the world and self

What is my book about?

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up the East Face without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits and digs deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.


Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

By Mimi Zieman,

What is this book about?

The plan was outrageous: A small team of four climbers would attempt a new route on the East Face of Mt. Everest, considered the most remote and dangerous side of the mountain, which had only been successfully climbed once before. Unlike the first large team, Mimi Zieman and her team would climb without using supplemental oxygen or porter support. While the unpredictable weather and high altitude of 29,035 feet make climbing Everest perilous in any condition, attempting a new route, with no idea of what obstacles lay ahead, was especially audacious. Team members were expected to push themselves to their…


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