Stand Tall Little Girl is a memoir by Hope Virgo that focuses on her experience with anorexia nervosa. If you’re active on social media, you may recognize Hope from her Dump the Scales campaign to stop weight from being used as a barrier to mental health services for people experiencing eating disorders. Throughout the book, Hope […]
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Shattered by the Darkness by Gregory Williams is a heart-wrenching account of childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by the author’s father over many years. The book contains detailed descriptions of sexual abuse, sometimes with multiple abusers. There’s nothing gratuitously graphic in the descriptions; still, readers who’ve had similar abuse experiences should carefully consider whether they’re at
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Getting By: Understanding Lifelong Depression is a memoir by Jack Trelance that explores his experiences with depression. The author has lived with depression since his teens, and admits to planning his first suicide attempt at age 14. He describes his first suicide attempt at age 25, and afterwards he didn’t feel sadness but rather “a slow-burning
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Dealing with Depression: Simple Ways to Get Your Life Back is written by clinical psychologist Jan Marsh. It offers strategies that readers can use either alone in milder forms of depression or in conjunction with medication or psychotherapy. The book incorporates concepts from several therapeutic approaches, including cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and compassion-focused
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Your Mental Health and You is written by Sandy Pace, whose blog I’ve followed for some time. He has a degree in psychology, lives with ADHD, and has experienced addiction. The book covers various areas of your life and your thinking where you could make changes to promote better mental health. It’s immediately clear how
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Good Reasons for Bad Feelings by Dr. Randolph M. Nesse digs into the science of evolutionary psychiatry to understand why mental illness persists, He explains that while the illnesses themselves aren’t evolutionary adaptations, our vulnerabilities to them may have had evolutionary purposes. He takes the rather refreshing approach of acknowledging both the good and the bad
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Ghosts Within: Journeying Through PTSD is written by former war zone journalist Garry Leech. It covers his journey with post-traumatic stress disorder in response to the horrors his work exposed him to. The book describes some of the traumatic events the author experienced. This took a few forms: as descriptions of flashbacks, as part of
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The Gifts of Imperfection is the third book that I’ve read by Brené Brown. I was not disappointed. This book offers a set of guideposts toward Wholehearted living, which involves “engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.” The guideposts include cultivating self-compassion, cultivating a resilient spirit, cultivating calm and stillness, and finding meaningful
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Written Off: Mental Health Stigma and the Loss of Human Potential by Philip T. Yanos wasn’t available from the local public library, so I got a copy from the nearby university library. That difference in availability gives some indication of the nature of the book. I didn’t think it was overly textbookish, but at the
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The Happiness Diary: Practice Living Joyfully by Barbara A. Kipfer guides you through various self-reflection exercises and prompts to connect with the potential for happiness that already exists in your life. It’s designed to be used as a notebook and written in, and each page is beautifully illustrated. I’m always a tad wary of happiness-promoting
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