Here are 100 books that The Courage to Heal fans have personally recommended if you like
The Courage to Heal.
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My journey with mental health started young and has colored my life for as long as I can remember. So, I have a fascination with storytelling and time. Time is the container for stories. But for a long time, I didn’t understand the depth of what ‘story’ really is and how much it shapes everything. When I started to write my book and unravel how inseparable the story is from the mental health journey I’d been on, my appetite for writing that could help me understand that connection became and remains voracious. I hope these books are as impactful for you as they have been for me. Enjoy!
I’ve read this book over and over and highlighted something new every time. Somehow, through the lens of Nazi death camps, Frankl validates everyone’s suffering, including my own. I’ve always known that suffering is an inescapable part of the human experience, but this helped me understand that to the brain, it isn’t relative in the ways I always thought.
Furthermore, this book helped me understand that my coping mechanisms inform suffering’s hold on me. Stories are a coping mechanism, and I learned that redirecting my attention and creating my personal narratives around what is meaningful to me rather than the source of pain is key to the cage of suffering. This book changed how I understand the importance of purpose and the power of what I build my stories around.
One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.
I am always drawn to these remarkable books because they illuminate the intricacies of the human experience and the power of resilience. Sparrow in the Razor Wire captivates you with its message of hope and redemption, demonstrating that the human spirit can thrive even in adversity. The Power Elite challenges you to critically examine societal structures, igniting your passion for social justice and change. The 33 Strategies of War empowers you with strategic insights to navigate life's challenges and turn obstacles into opportunities. The Color Purple celebrates love and self-discovery, while Becoming Ms. Burton inspires you with stories of overcoming adversity and personal growth.
This is a powerful and moving novel that tells the story of Celie, an African American woman in the early 20th century who overcomes tremendous adversity. Through letters addressed to God and later to her sister, Celie shares her experiences of abuse, oppression, and isolation. However, her journey transforms as she discovers her own strength, resilience, and voice.
The relationships she forms with other women, particularly with the bold and independent Shug Avery, empower her to reclaim her identity and embrace her sexuality. Ultimately, it is a celebration of sisterhood, self-discovery, and the indomitable spirit of women, reminding us that love and hope can flourish even in the darkest of circumstances.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker's iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug…
I am a writer and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse. Since 1998, I have encouraged them to find their voice and use it through my organization, Time To Tell. Being isolated is foundational to our experience, and our culture perpetuates the isolation by often refusing to address it, acknowledge it, or expose it, as well as not listening to–nor believing–survivors. This forces us to remain silent. I am certain that telling is healing. I lead writing circles for survivors to experience community and get support and encouragement. I recommend all these books not only for the wisdom offered but also the direct experience of not being alone in the reading.
This was by far the most essential book in supporting my healing. Reading it at age 45, eight years into my recovery, so many times Herman described the exact thing I was either going through or had to go through to recover.
Explaining that being abused in a family was like being a prisoner of war blew my mind. Like a POW, seven-year-old me couldn’t escape. She helped explain so much of my trauma, my reactions, and my struggle and gave me a mountain of hope to climb!
When Trauma and Recovery was first published in 1992, it was hailed as a ground-breaking work. In the intervening years, Herman's volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the…
I’m a big fan of fiction that fills a need. While recovering from a broken pelvis, I wrote a book for my animal/adventure-loving fifth-grader. A year later, while in treatment for ovarian cancer, I wrote a series for my other daughter and teens/tweens who love musical theater but can’t find books set in that world. When the Harvey Weinstein nightmare erupted, I was horrified at the parallels in how naysayers treat victims of both incest and workplace harassment. I decided the world needed a novel exploring that, and taking readers into the minds of survivors. (Thankfully, I wasn’t recovering from an injury or disease while writing that one!)
The younger the victim, the more egregious the act seems. This true story is a riveting read. Dixon repressed childhood incest memories until, ironically, she became a nurse helping others with similar pasts. The book is an insightful look at how hidden pain manifests itself in our current lives regardless of what walls the mind has erected to protect us. Woven into the memoir is helpful advice for survivors, counselors, lawyers, and others working with abuse victims. I was mesmerized.
This story breaks new frontiers in what we know about repressed memories. It is a riveting account of horrific and humorous events of living in the aftermath of childhood sexual abuse. It is based on the author's personal experience and that of hundreds of patients she treated as a mental health professional. She weaves prevention recommendations into the book to help prevent child abuse.
I’m a big fan of fiction that fills a need. While recovering from a broken pelvis, I wrote a book for my animal/adventure-loving fifth-grader. A year later, while in treatment for ovarian cancer, I wrote a series for my other daughter and teens/tweens who love musical theater but can’t find books set in that world. When the Harvey Weinstein nightmare erupted, I was horrified at the parallels in how naysayers treat victims of both incest and workplace harassment. I decided the world needed a novel exploring that, and taking readers into the minds of survivors. (Thankfully, I wasn’t recovering from an injury or disease while writing that one!)
You would be forgiven for finding this memoir creepy and cringe-worthy. It is also bold and brave in its brash, brutally honest depiction of a sexual relationship between a woman in her twenties and her father. (I refuse to call it “love”.) The story is a raw example of how predators push through the permeable walls between right and wrong for their own gain. You may not agree with the young woman’s choices and you may not feel satisfied in the end, but you will accept her anguish and enter a world you hate to know exists.
From the bestselling author of THE BINDING CHAIR, a searing memoir of a four-year affair between the author and her father.
'My father takes my face in his hands. He tips it up and kisses my closed eyes, my throat. I feel his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck. I feel his hot breath on my eyelids.'
Kathryn Harrison's parents married aged 17 but were forced apart by disapproving parents within a year. By which time their only child, Kathryn, had been born. She was not to see her father again until she was ten. Instantly,…
I’m a big fan of fiction that fills a need. While recovering from a broken pelvis, I wrote a book for my animal/adventure-loving fifth-grader. A year later, while in treatment for ovarian cancer, I wrote a series for my other daughter and teens/tweens who love musical theater but can’t find books set in that world. When the Harvey Weinstein nightmare erupted, I was horrified at the parallels in how naysayers treat victims of both incest and workplace harassment. I decided the world needed a novel exploring that, and taking readers into the minds of survivors. (Thankfully, I wasn’t recovering from an injury or disease while writing that one!)
This hugely entertaining and thought-provoking novel tackles sexual harassment and cyberbullying in a fast-paced revenge tale. Three women in the early stages of successful careers seek to avenge a friend who fell victim to a celebrity’s advances only to be harassed a second time by multitudes of strangers online. We see fault and questionable behavior from the victim, the perpetrators, and the friends. As the book's description says, it's a fine line between justice and revenge. And, I might add, that line differs for every individual.
"Simply superb!" —MW Craven, bestselling author of The Puppet Show and The Curator "On point topical and beautifully written. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★" —Jo Spain, international bestselling author of The Confession
There's a fine line between innocence and guilt. An even finer line between justice and revenge.
Shy and sensible Laura prefers the company of her books to the real world – let alone that cesspit online. But when her best friend Emily becomes the victim of horrific cyberbullying, she makes it her all-engulfing mission to track down the worst culprits using her finely-tuned data skills.
I'm a veteran author, journalist, and journalism professor who has taught over 1000 students. At the age of 50, through a memoir I began writing, I fell down a rabbit hole of memory and began to suspect I had been sexually abused as a child. The man was a close family friend, who liked to call himself my grandfather. He did not speak English. My parents were immigrants and the usual difficulties of retrieving memories from childhood were complicated by the fact that they were all in the Czech language. For years I read everything I could find about childhood sexual abuse and then everything I could read about psychoanalysis.
This book narrates many kinds of trauma but the essay on sexual assault is worth buying the book.
A Canadian actor, director, and writer, Polley recounts her three-decade-long silence about Jian Ghomeshi, the hip, popular host of a hit CBC talk show. She moves from the ’90s to 2017, zeroing in on her flickering memories of assault, her reluctance to speak about it, her examination of that reluctance, her interrogation of other women in her situation, of lawyers, and her thoughts about it now.
It begins when she is outed on Twitter: “Wonder why Sarah Polley never spoke out about being assaulted by Jian Ghomeshi. #HerToo. She was the woman who stayed silent. Ask her.” Brilliant account of why women who are sexually abused do not speak out.
“A visceral and incisive collection of six propulsive personal essays.” – Vanity Fair
*A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice*Named a Most-Anticipated Book of 2022 by Entertainment Weekly, Lit Hub, and AV Club*
Oscar-nominated screenwriter, director, and actor Sarah Polley’s Run Towards the Danger explores memory and the dialogue between her past and her present
These are the most dangerous stories of my life. The ones I have avoided, the ones I haven’t told, the ones that have kept me awake on countless nights. As these stories found echoes in my adult life, and then went another, better way…
As a nurse, survivor, intuitive, and healer, when ministering to the sick, the injured, the traumatized, and the dying, I saw, sensed, and gained a deeper understanding of who we are as human and spiritual beings. I also witnessed the emotional, physical, spiritual, and psychological scars trauma leaves on survivors. How can we hold onto hope during challenging times? We need to expand our consciousness about the inhumanity that exists in our world. Stop saying, “How can that be? I don’t believe it.” We are on a human and spiritual journey to who we are. Stories are told to heal, to inform, to own our truths, and to offer hope.
There is no other book that I have gifted as often to friends. In The InvitationOriah challenges us to recognize what we ache for in this life. Her words encourage us to embrace our human experiences and be open to possibilities. She writes about finding hope in obstacles and connecting to the beauty in life. As a poet I was initially drawn to “The Invitation,” a poem Oriah wrote, which led to her writing this book. Her words inspire!
Shared by word of mouth, e-mailed from reader to reader, recited over the radio, and read aloud at thousands of retreats and conferences, "The Invitation" has changed the lives of people everywhere. In this bestselling book, Oriah expands on the wisdom found within her beloved prose poem, which presents a powerful challenge to all who long to live an authentic life. In a world of endless small talk, constant traffic jams, and overburdened schedules, "The Invitation" opens the door to a new way of life - a way of intimacy, honesty, and peace with ourselves, others, and the world around…
After finding out a close friend of mine had what was once called Multiple Personality Disorder, I set out looking for stories, only to find that, according to most fictional representations, my friend was likely to be a violent, amnesiac murderer. Fortunately, this is wildly inaccurate. Unfortunately, it's socially prominent, and enormously destructive. This has sparked a decade-long obsession (and close friendship), the result of which is my debut novel, When Fire Splits the Sky, which was released in November of 2022 by Unsolicited Press. My other writing has been nominated for the Rhysling and Best of the Net, and has appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction and F(r)iction, among others.
Some books are fascinating character studies. Others are riveting stories. When Rabbit Howls is somehow both.
Narrated by a woman’s alters (The Troops for Trudi Chase), this book really goes the extra mile in terms of forcing the reader to feel the lifetime impact of abuse both through the story being told, and the way that story is written on the page. I won’t spoil anything here, but it includes a brilliant, metafictional ending that has lingered with me for years now like a punch to the solar plexus.
A woman diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder reveals her harrowing journey from abuse to recovery in this #1 New York Times bestselling autobiography written by her own multiple personalities.
Successful, happily married Truddi Chase began therapy hoping to find the reasons behind her extreme anxiety, mood swings, and periodic blackouts. What emerged from her sessions was terrifying: Truddi's mind and body were inhabited by the Troops-ninety-two individual voices that emerged to shield her from her traumatizing childhood.
For years the Troops created a world where she could hide from the pain of the ritualized sexual abuse she suffered at the…
I'm a veteran author, journalist, and journalism professor who has taught over 1000 students. At the age of 50, through a memoir I began writing, I fell down a rabbit hole of memory and began to suspect I had been sexually abused as a child. The man was a close family friend, who liked to call himself my grandfather. He did not speak English. My parents were immigrants and the usual difficulties of retrieving memories from childhood were complicated by the fact that they were all in the Czech language. For years I read everything I could find about childhood sexual abuse and then everything I could read about psychoanalysis.
This is the first book I ever read about how, exactly, a classic psychoanalysis worked to cure a woman deeply damaged by childhood abuse.
It is set in France and written by an Algerian/French writer and academic, who seeks out psychoanalysis after physicians have given up on curing her symptoms. It is an intricate examination of how psychotherapy works and has become a classic text.
THE WORDS TO SAY IT by Marie Cardinal, translated by Pat Goodheart, Van Vactor & Goodheart Publisher, is in the words of Bruno Bettelheim "the best account of a psychoanalysis as seen and experienced by the patient." It is the story of a healing set against the events in Algeria. Taught in over seven hundred and fifty colleges and universities as a text, and in over fifteen different departments, literature at Harvard University and in courses in medical ethics at Yale Medical School. It has received rave reviews in The London Sunday Times and the New York Times Book Review,…
