Here are 100 books that Letting Go! fans have personally recommended if you like
Letting Go!.
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My super-power is making brain science accessible and entertaining for children and adults alike. I am living this out as an author, mental health counselor, and the founder of BraveBrains. In addition to training parents and professionals, I have the joy of sharing my passion and expertise through podcast appearances, blogs, and articles. The lightbulb moments are my favorite, and I'm committed to helping people bring what they learn home in practical ways. I write picture books because the magic of reading and re-reading stories light up the brain in a powerful way. But don’t worry…I always include some goodies for the adults in the back of the book.
This book lays a great foundation to help children understand their feelings (and the feelings of others). The author draws on her experience as a school counselor to expertly walk the reader through some essential social-emotional learning. The bright colors and clever illustrations keep kids engaged, and the activities throughout make this a fabulous title to use at home, school, or in the counseling office.
When a big feeling comes along…you can handle it! Teach kids ages 7 to 10 how to manage their feelings.
Sometimes, emotions like anger or jealousy or excitement can seem too big to keep inside. Me and My Feelings is here to teach kids that it’s okay to have big feelings! They will learn how to calm down those strong emotions so they don’t feel overwhelmed and can continue to take on the world.
This book gives kids the skills to stay in control―by breathing deeply, saying positive things to themselves, talking about their feelings instead of keeping them inside,…
My super-power is making brain science accessible and entertaining for children and adults alike. I am living this out as an author, mental health counselor, and the founder of BraveBrains. In addition to training parents and professionals, I have the joy of sharing my passion and expertise through podcast appearances, blogs, and articles. The lightbulb moments are my favorite, and I'm committed to helping people bring what they learn home in practical ways. I write picture books because the magic of reading and re-reading stories light up the brain in a powerful way. But don’t worry…I always include some goodies for the adults in the back of the book.
In my work in the world of mental health and trauma, anxiety is a common complaint. I love the positive (and scientifically accurate) portrayal of the function of anxiety in this whimsically illustrated book. “Sometimes your brain works so hard to protect you, it hits the panic button by mistake.” With this strengths-based framework woven into every page, Hey Awesome teaches kids how to be the boss of their brilliant and brave brains. A must-read for all children, and a lifeline for those who struggle with anxiety. And remember, “anxiety and courage always happen together.”
My super-power is making brain science accessible and entertaining for children and adults alike. I am living this out as an author, mental health counselor, and the founder of BraveBrains. In addition to training parents and professionals, I have the joy of sharing my passion and expertise through podcast appearances, blogs, and articles. The lightbulb moments are my favorite, and I'm committed to helping people bring what they learn home in practical ways. I write picture books because the magic of reading and re-reading stories light up the brain in a powerful way. But don’t worry…I always include some goodies for the adults in the back of the book.
Anger is so often protecting something tender underneath. When we teach children to dig deeper, to be curious about their angry feelings, we offer them a path to emotional health and better relationships. While many anger management programs (for kids and adults) neglect the nuances of anger’s protective function, this book delivers insightful lessons and activities to help children dig deep. The colorful layout and bright illustrations capture children’s interest even as they learn about this difficult topic. A great resource for turning on the calm and curious part of the brain that we are all working hard to help children develop.
Show anger who’s boss with this book of 50 fun activities about anger management for kids ages 6 to 11.
Anger is a normal emotion just like joy, sadness, and fear, but it can be difficult to know how to express those feelings in a good way. The Anger Management Workbook for Kids is filled with 50 playful exercises to help kids handle powerful emotions. Teach kids to stay calm and make better choices when they feel angry. Other workbooks about anger management wish they could be this fun!
This workbook about managing anger for kids includes:
My super-power is making brain science accessible and entertaining for children and adults alike. I am living this out as an author, mental health counselor, and the founder of BraveBrains. In addition to training parents and professionals, I have the joy of sharing my passion and expertise through podcast appearances, blogs, and articles. The lightbulb moments are my favorite, and I'm committed to helping people bring what they learn home in practical ways. I write picture books because the magic of reading and re-reading stories light up the brain in a powerful way. But don’t worry…I always include some goodies for the adults in the back of the book.
Mental health does not mean that we will feel happy all the time. This book helps children embrace a range of emotions, even some of those uncomfortable ones, like frustration and jealousy. The playful illustrations engage young readers about the abstract topic of emotions. It would be easy to get creative, helping children draw an image of their “happy” or “angry” feelings. Great conversation starter for elementary school students on managing a range of emotions.
Help Kids Understand and Value Their Emotions and Feelings
What do you do with all your feelings?
In Marcy's Having All the Feels, counselor and therapist Allison Edwards explores how sometimes feeling so many feelings doesn't feel so good at all.
Marcy wanted to be happy. Happy is all she wanted to be. But all her other feelings kept showing up and at the worst times! There was Frustrated and Angry, Sad and Embarrassed, and even Worried and Jealous. Her feelings were there as soon as she opened her eyes each morning, and they followed her around throughout the day.…
After life-threatening postpartum depression in the 1980s, I became a pioneer of maternal mental health in the U.S. I’ve helped moms and moms-to-be finally receive the support they deserve. Between masters’ degrees, Ph.D., teaching credentials, and becoming licensed as a clinical psychologist, I wrote four books and enjoy interviews on radio and TV. Training health professionals and my clients to develop a wellness strategy for motherhood has been my life’s passion. A few years ago I realized that during this movement, dads’ experiences had been disregarded and minimized, and my mission then shifted to parental mental health. Dad’s worries and needs are important too.
This is an honest and very direct look at how our society should include men in the discussion of becoming new parents and illustrates many examples of how men have been left out until now. Dads’ mental health is considered carefully which is very important to my mission. This small yet excellent book offers a gender-equitable, whole family viewpoint of parental mental health and increases awareness about best practices in the care of fathers and fathers-to-be.
The purpose of this book is to include men in the discussion about early parenthood, to foster a gender-equitable, whole family approach to parental mental health, and to increase awareness about best practices in the care for expectant and new fathers.
I’m a lifelong bibliophile who hated school until I took community college Psychology 101 when I was 16 years old. I was hooked! Psychology was the first field I encountered with applications in everything about the human condition. My life's work and joy have been understanding the interrelatedness of mind, body, spirit, brain, culture, and ancestry and how to live with values, meaning, health, and connection. I am a psychologist at Stanford University, a lifelong learner, an adventurer, and a professor, and I still cram in as much pleasure reading as possible. Books have always been my lifeline and can be a healing tool and guide accessible to all.
Legions of regular folks have grown up with parents or caretakers who were emotionally immature or unskilled. These family-of-origin deficits may or may not have met the criteria for outright abuse but caused lasting emotional harm to the kids. I love that this book uses clear language and validates the reality of countless readers.
A guide like this book explains unhelpful familial behavior patterns and explores ways to liberate the reader from automatically repeating dysfunctional history. Book clubs are springing up worldwide about this book. It’s also valuable to me in defining emotionally immature parents not as bad people but as people who lack the insight and skills to provide an emotionally supportive and healthy home.
Changing maladaptive family-of-origin patterns is incredibly hard work, and this gentle guide is a great intro to understanding the past to evolve an emotionally healthier present and future.
Are you one of the countless people who grew up with emotionally immature parents? If you suffer from this troubling parent/child dynamic, you may still recall painful moments from your childhood when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of maturity in an effort to "compensate" for your parents' behavior. And while you likely cultivated strengths such as self-reliance and independence along the way- strengths that have served you well as an adult-having to be the emotionally mature person in your relationship with your parent is confusing and even…
This is a topic that is very passionate for me since growing up in Toronto, and I never had any role models that look like me to look up to. I wanted to showcase powerful Asian women authors to show others what is possible and that we can also dismantle the negative stereotypes we still face. I want to be able to create better representation for Asian women in the media, and highlighting these amazing authors is a great way to showcase that.
This book has helped me learn to say that it's okay not to be okay and also be okay to ask for help when needed.
In Asian culture, when a problem arises we are told to never share our troubles and because of that we suffer in silence. There is no shame in seeking help or talking to a licensed mental health therapist. Help comes in many different forms and this book has helped me learn to be okay with talking about mental health.
A is for Authentic shines a spotlight on the mental health stigma in the Asian community. This book outlines the identity journey of a second-generation Korean American who is emboldened to share her perspective through a mental health lens as a practicing clinician. Her memoir is about bringing healing and instilling hope as a catalyst for impactful change in normalizing mental health and mental illness in the Asian community. The author embraces cultural confidence™ to bravely express the thoughts and emotions she uncovered over the years.
I write romance novels that are as much about the characters learning to love themselves as they are about people falling in love with each other. While most of my books are romantic comedies, that doesn’t stop my characters from facing some of the darkest parts of themselves and coming out on the other side feeling sure of their own worth. I often explore mental health topics, and I love to see other romance authors de-stigmatizing things like therapy, medication, and reaching out for support. The romance novels I’ve included below cover a wide range of subjects, but they all handle mental health with care, respect, and hope.
Living has all the best ingredients for an epic slow-burn romance: a shocking first encounter, two very different heroines from completely different worlds, a beautiful friendship that unfolds with care and heartwarming tenderness, and a simmering layer of tense attraction that will keep you turning the pages as fast you can to see the burn finally burst into flames. It’s also a story that handles the topics of grief and depression with respect and a poignancy that makes this story difficult to forget. I love romances that focus on the growth of the individual characters as much as the development of their relationship with each other, and Living does a beautiful job at balancing both.
During her morning exercise, yoga instructor Cam Saunders finds herself rescuing a young woman who has walked into the sea, seemingly intent on taking her own life. When the woman in question turns out to be a famous actress, Cam promises to keep her secret safe.
Six months later, America’s sweetheart Ella Temperley is working hard to get her life back on track, grieving the loss of her twin sister and fighting a deep depression. Despite her fame, she feels alone in the world and keeps thinking of the woman she owes her life to.
My name is Jess, and I'm a writer, designer, and illustrator based in South Yorkshire, UK. I have always found navigating my feelings and emotions tricky, even from a very young age. Labeled as 'too sensitive,' I would often find that I felt and reacted to things more deeply than others did. In my mid 20s I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety and began going to therapy, this is where I leant a wealth of things about myself and began to find ways to cope and better deal with how I travelled through life.
Becoming a Mum was one of the biggest changes and challenges I have ever faced. The constant mixture of emotions, the worries, the guilt, it can feel incredibly overwhelming, and it all makes its mark.
This book is a gentle antidote to all those feelings. It offers helpful insight and advice to a wide and varied list of emotions, and it’s helpfully categorized so you can find the one you need quickly. A book that has offered me a lot of comfort (and still does) in amongst the parenting fog.
'A beautiful and informative companion of a book... Her compassion and guidance for a mother's mental health is invaluable' Giovanna Fletcher
'An essential read for new mums' Fearne Cotton ____________________________
The Little Book of Calm for New Mums will share advice and support on issues that new mothers face, from A for Anger, to I for Insomnia, providing an empowering pep talk for those days when new mothers need it most.
Psychotherapist and mother of three, Anna Mathur, will support readers through the rollercoaster of feelings that come with being a new mum and provide expert advice based on her…
According to my mother, my first words were, “what’s that?” and I believe that’s indicative of the level of curiosity with which I try to approach life. That curiosity led me to write books about how we can better love ourselves and each other when depression is gumming up the works. Talking about mental illness is hard, and I aim to make it easier. I’m not a doctor or therapist. I am best described as a “sex writer with a theatre degree” and I like to say my work focuses on sex, mental health, and how none of us are broken.
We've reached the only actual “how to do mental illness” book on this list and it’s an all time favorite of mine.
Skoczen is not a doctor or a therapist and isn’t afraid to drop a couple of f-bombs when talking about mental health… so, yeah, he’s a lot like me, which may be part of why I love this book so much.
Engaging, reassuring, and full of concrete strategies for navigating depression both as someone with it and as someone who loves someone with it, I have recommended this book for years.
"Probably the best self-help book on depression I’ve ever read." — Joe Rhinewine, Director and Psychologist, Portland Mindfulness Therapy
Funny, insightful, and relentlessly honest, The No-Bullshit Guide to Depression is the manual for life with depression that everyone should have been given. It's the toolbox you need to build a life you love.
The No-Bullshit Guide to Depression covers day-to-day truths like how food, sleep, and sex get weird and practical insights like how to handle social relationships. It delves into the deep dark places and talks about how to survive the suicidal thoughts that can come with the worst…
