Building mental wellness on a foundation of strength
From Famine to Feast: My Thoughts About My Eating Disorder is the first book by K. Michelle Pahl, who you may know from her blog, From Famine to Feast – The Journey. The book includes her twelve most popular blog posts, and they were definitely popular for a reason. Together, they offer remarkable insights into… Continue reading Book Review: From Famine to Feast
The Anxiety and Depression Workbook by Michael A. Tompkins incorporate cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques to help you improve emotional flexibility. This is defined as "the ability to respond to life’s challenges with an appropriate level of emotion, and then to recover as these situations change." Sounds pretty good to me. Somewhat like Overcoming Avoidance,… Continue reading Book Review: The Anxiety and Depression Workbook
Remember by Lisa Genova is a non-fiction book that explores how we do, and don't, remember. Genova is a neuroscientist who's also the author of five fiction books, all of which I've read. They feature characters with neurological conditions like Alzheimer's (Still Alice) and Huntingdon's (Inside the O'Briens). The book begins by describing how memories… Continue reading Book Review: Remember
Your Wellness Toolbox by Ali Swift is a follow-up to her first book, My Wellness Toolbox, which I previously reviewed. Both books are based on her own experience of what has helped with depression and anxiety. This book contains 14 new tools, including descriptions of the circumstances struggling with her mental health in which the… Continue reading Book Review: Your Wellness Toolbox
Calm & Sense by psychotherapist Wendy Leeds is aimed at women dealing with anxiety. The author takes a very realistic perspective, encouraging readers to do what works best for them. She acknowledges that what works best may include medication, and doesn't insist that any specific strategy will work for everyone. I always find that kind… Continue reading Book Review: Calm & Sense
The Overcoming Avoidance Workbook by psychologist Daniel F. Gros aims to help you stop avoiding and start living. It takes a transdiagnostic approach, meaning it focuses on specific behaviours rather than the diagnoses in which they occur. The cover says that it's for anxiety, depression, or PTSD, but the focus is on anxiety and depression.… Continue reading Book Review: Overcoming Avoidance
Over the last three years (wow, has it been that long?), I've read and reviewed a lot of books. Here are a few quotes that stood out for me. No One Cares About Crazy People In No One Cares About Crazy People, Ron Powers intertwines a sweeping history of mental illness stigma with the stories… Continue reading Interesting Book Quotes from Past Reviews
But Deliver Me From Crazy by Katie R. Dale is a memoir of living with bipolar disorder. You may know Katie from her blog, Bipolar Brave. She also contributed a story about bipolar I to my book Making Sense of Psychiatric Diagnosis. The book begins when Katie was in high school, when her illness first… Continue reading Book Review: But Deliver Me From Crazy
When I begin reading Sexual Intellectual Female by Regina G. Hanson, things seemed to be going well. She explored a range of sexual orientations, pointed out the problems with abstinence-based sex ed, and challenged the pressure on women to have kids. Then the wheels fell off. She writes that author Gina Tomaine, in an article… Continue reading Advice to Authors: When In Doubt, Google It
21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari was recommended to me by Nick of Fiction & Ideas after I reviewed Timothy Snyder's book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. This will be even less of review than I usually do; more of a mental chewing over what I read. The… Continue reading Book Review: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century
