60 Books That Are Favorites of Therapists

Kathryn November 4, 2024

favorite sixty books of therapists

We asked our associate therapists about their favorite books. We asked them to provide books that are related to therapy as well as those that aren’t. After all, sometimes the most helpful books in our lives are fiction, memoir, and even children’s books. Together, these sixteen associate therapists named 60 different favorite books, which we’ve rounded up here for you today. Below the complete list you can find the full answer from each therapist, along with links to interviews to learn more about each of them.

60 Favorite Books Among Our Associate Therapists

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
A General Theory of Love by Lewis, Amini, and Lannon
Acting for Real by Renee Emunah
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson
All About Love by bell hooks
Already Free by Bruce Tift
Anatomy of Anxiety by Ellen Vora
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love by Levine and Heller
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Circe by Madeline Miller
Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland, 1939-1945 by Edward Reicher
Decolonizing Therapy by Jennifer Mullen
Desolation Angels by Jack Kerouac
Grief is Love: Living with Loss by Marissa Renee Lee
Guardians of Being: Spiritual Teachings from Our Dogs and Cats by Eckhart Tolle (art by Patrick McDonnell)
Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson
How Emotions are Made by Lisa Feldman Barrett
I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness by Claire Vaye Watkins
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Mate

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Learning from Experience by Marilyn Charles
Long Life, Honey in the Heart by Martín Prechtel
Love’s Executioner by Irwin D. Yalom
Mating in Captivity by Ester Perel
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem
Necessary Targets: A Play by Eve Ensler
Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker
No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Power, Resistance and Liberation in Therapy with Survivors of Trauma: To Have Our Hearts Broken by Taiwo Afuape
Queer Nature: A Poetry Anthology
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab
Smoke by Ivan Turgenev
Sweat: A Play by Lynne Nottage
The Authoritative Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk
The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor
The Dance of Intimacy by Harriet Lerner
The Deepest Peace by Zenju Earthlyn Manuel
The Empyrean Series by Rebecca Yarros
The Heart of Trauma by Bonnie Badenoch
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
Toward Psychologies of Liberation by Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman
Transmogrify: 14 Fantastical Tales of Trans Magic
Tuttle in the Balance by Jay Wexler
Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett
Upstream by Mary Oliver
What You Are Looking for Is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Your Body Speaks Its Mind by Stanley Keleman

16 Therapists Share Their Favorite Books

Find out more about each of the therapists and the books that they have recommended!

Brooke Hein answered:

Related to therapy, I like the books “Tiny Beautiful Things” by Cheryl Strayed, “Anatomy of Anxiety” by Ellen Vora, “Grief is Love: Living with loss” by Marissa Renee Lee, “How Emotions are Made” by Lisa Feldman Barrett, “My Grandmother’s Hands” by Resmaa Menakem, and “Mating in Captivity” by Ester Perel

As for non therapy books, I currently can’t put down the Empyrean Series by Rebecca Yarros. I like a book that feels like a complete escape from my everyday life (dragons are a plus!). I’m also a poetry lover, one of my favorites right now is “Queer Nature: A poetry anthology”.

Read Brooke Hein’s complete interview here.

Cynthia Martin answered:

Long Life, Honey in the Heart by Martín Prechtel
No Bad Parts by Richard Schwartz

Read Cynthia Martin’s complete interview here.

Elizabeth Dausch answered:

Currently: “Guardians of Being: Spiritual Teachings from Our Dogs and Cats” Words by Eckhart Tolle & Art by Patrick McDonnell
Anything by Anne Lamott

Read Elizabeth Dausch’s complete interview here.

Kaye Reeves answered:

Toward Psychologies of Liberation by Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman
Learning from Experience by Marilyn Charles
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Tuttle in the Balance by Jay Wexler

Read Kaye Reeves’ complete interview here.

Mark Resch answered:

One of my favorite therapy books is “No Bad Parts” by Richard Schwartz because he clearly lays-out an approach that can help us see parts of ourselves in a way that allows us to get insights that are very different from the stories that we often tell about ourselves.

Favorite Non-therapy books? I really liked reading “Circe” by Madeline Miller. This book is a fictionalization of the lives of some of the characters from Greek mythology that really brought them to life for me.

Read Mark Resch’s complete interview here.