The most recommended mental health books

This memoir depicts not only the manipulative and abusive relationship the author had with her coach but includes the excruciating experience of confronting her later in life and going through the process of prosecution.

As a reader, I felt Kristen’s confusion and despair as a young teenager, as well as her mixed emotions as she pursued justice and closure for years of suffering. My story never involved confrontation or litigation because my teacher passed away before I understood how he had hurt me. I ached for how hard this was for Kim and rejoiced at her eventual liberation.

Dean shares his insight into his esteemed military career in the British army where he conducted deployments to hostile environments, worked within counterterrorism operations in some of the most dangerous places in the world, and survived a horrific parachute accident.

As he leads others into his experiences, he discloses how he continued to fuel his journey of excellence five years after leaving the military by becoming the first man to cycle the Pan American Highway in under one hundred days while raising over a million dollars for mental health awareness charities. This book will inspire you to live a life of no excuses and to relentlessly pursue everything you want in life.

This is an excellent book on the social-ecological perspective and helping youth “navigate and negotiate the resources they need for their well-being.” Through his many books, Ungar challenges the traditional view of resiliency and something inherent in some people to overcome adversity. We can all have a role in helping build resiliency in youth.

This book helps you understand how to help youth feel empowered and competent, create a positive identity, and learn skills to best get their needs met in constructive and positively reinforcing ways. For workers who think that handholding is enabling, they will learn that spending time with our youth and developing navigation and negotiating skills is fundamentally important and something all youth need, not just youth whose lives have been an ongoing struggle.

Ungar has tabbed guides that can be printed and used to help learn 20 navigation and negotiating skills and to help workers develop… show more.

Will and are wonderful characters, childhood lovers who try to make a go of it again as adults. Since I am very much interested in how our past choices shape our current lives, I was drawn to this book right away. From first love to the pain of lost love, and then its possible return, NS Perkins does a great job showing the past vs present and how suffering has changed Will and Violet, and how the passage of time has perhaps healed some of that suffering. It’s all here; complicated and often painful family dynamics, mental health trouble, and the melodrama of high school romance!  

Jamison writes about bipolar disorder as a professor of psychiatry and as a person who suffers from the illness. This dual vision allows us to see the disorder in multifaceted ways. Jamison is particularly adept at explaining why bipolar sufferers are so tragically prone to attempt and commit suicide. I suffer from Bipolar 2 Disorder with mixed features, meaning that I can be depressed and manic at the same time. This is a dangerous combination. A depressed person is more likely to have suicidal ideation and a manic person has enough energy to make suicidal plans and carry them out. Jamison's book is vital for me to understand and manage my suicidal ideation.

I found Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry to be an extremely helpful collection of reports and alternative approaches from an international cast of mental health professionals, ex-patients, lawyers, and social scientists. Peter Stastny is a psychiatrist, documentary filmmaker, and a founder of the International Network Towards Alternatives and Rights-Based Supports; and Peter Lehmann is the founder of Peter Lehmann Publishing and co-founder of the Association for Protection against Psychiatric Violence. Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry includes exciting alternative visions along with concrete self-help and approaches for professionals.

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.”

As a young psychologist during the Vietnam War, Edward Tick served his country not by enlisting himself but through tireless efforts to help those who returned from war traumatized. This was the first book that helped me understand that posttraumatic stress is not just some “disorder” that I’d suffer from forever. Rather, it is simply the human mind’s normal—probably unavoidable—response to combat, and, Tick argues, there is also such a thing as posttraumatic growth. He examines how ancient and modern societies train their warrior classes, noting that the ritualistic civilian-to-soldier process (we’d call it “boot camp” or “basic training”) often lacks a necessary counterpart today: that is, a formal soldier-to-civilian process, and this only compounds the issues of PTSD and the American military-civilian divide.

Dr. Eger is an Auschwitz survivor and therapist who, at 96 years old, is also a social media influencer; she has a great Instagram account!

Her wisdom lies in her honesty; having helped 100s of people with their own issues, she admits she continues to work on herself and her ability to live with grief and trauma. She demonstrates a life-long commitment to not only helping others but also sharing what has helped her to live well alongside her sadness. She lives a happy life, which includes profound trauma from the past.

I love books that are written from the heart but with a professional slant, and this is the ultimate example! 

Receiving a dementia diagnosis at just 58 years old can be paralysing, but Wendy Mitchell chose a different path. Instead of preparing for the end, she embraced life with newfound determination.

Wendy became a passionate advocate and speaker for dementia awareness. Her remarkable journey includes earning two honorary doctorates and achieving many of her life's dreams, including becoming a published author to share her deeply personal story.

With engaging wit and unwavering courage, Wendy candidly narrates her daily battle with the illness. Her story is both heartwarming and inspirational, as she shows us that despite the challenges, dementia can also bring unexpected gifts alongside sorrow.

Wendy's character is endearing, and her resilience shines through, leaving readers with a profound sense of hope and a deeper understanding of the human spirit in the face of adversity.