Recommendations based on "The Portable Therapist Wise and Inspiring Answers to the Questions People in Therapy Ask the Most..."

In this unique and transformational guide to healing, bibliotherapist and counsellor Bijal Shah explores the restorative power of reading. Bibliotherapy traces the history of how therapeutic reading evolved - including the important role played by the best writers such as the Stoics, Montaigne, Eliot and Wordsworth. In doing so, Bijal offers first-hand stories from clients who have found solace in great works of literature when struggling with grief, relationships or illness. Full of practical advice and insights into how bibliotherapy really works, Bijal offers an A to Z reading list of books for every mood and need. A much-needed reminder of how comforting and life-changing reading can be, Bibliotherapy is a sumptuous celebration of books that will invite you to see them as more than just an escape, but a legitimate form of self-care.'Utterly fascinating. I have long felt that books can be medicine. Now I understand why. Read this book. Feel better.' Beth Kempton, bestselling author of Wabi Sabi: Japanese wisdom for a perfectly imperfect life'One of the most fascinating books that I have read in years! Beautifully written and full of insights, this book demonstrates the healing power of stories and how you can transform your life through bibliotherapy.' Simon Alexander Ong, bestselling author of Energize, international keynote speaker and award-winning coach.

Free Your Energy: The Path to Freedom, Mental Clarity, and a Life of Enjoyment is a book that explores many emotions and ideas. It gives the reader stories, reflection points, mantras, and acts as a guide to discover their own path to freedom. Mental freedom is a topic schools need to talk about, it’s something we should talk about with friends, and we should use introspection to discover what traps us from reaching our potential. There are some ideas, places, and people that we must let go of in order to be free. There are also, connections that we need to improve, enhance and add value to. Humankind has always searched for meaning and purpose, and for a lot of us, that question creates stress and anxiety. In Free Your Energy, we discover our own path to have mental clarity, to create and cultivate a deeper sense of purpose and we figure out how to simply enjoy life. The writer, Sylvester McNutt III, does not tell you how to think or feel; he simply uses an introspective storytelling style to spark your brain, allowing you to create your own path. Free Your Energy will water, nourish, and challenge you. Free Your Energy hopes to be the spark that helps you create the life you deserve.Explored Writings:Chapter 1: Break Up with the I-Am-Not-Enough Mind-Set — 6Chapter 2: Imagine Feeling Like You Are Already Free — 45Chapter 3: Understanding Fear Is the Key to Freedom — 88Chapter 4: Free Your Mind from Thoughts and Beliefs That Hold You Back — 116Chapter 5: Understanding Conflict: A Path to Freedom and Reduced Ego — 144Chapter 6: To Be Free You Must Detoxify Your Life — 206Chapter 7: Cultivate Meaningful Connections — 231Chapter 8: How to Stop Overthinking and Trust Your Intuition — 274Chapter 9: Honor Your Energy — 303

Kristin Neff, Ph.D., says that it’s time to “stop beating yourself up and leave insecurity behind.” Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind offers expert advice on how to limit self-criticism and offset its negative effects, enabling you to achieve your highest potential and a more contented, fulfilled life.More and more, psychologists are turning away from an emphasis on self-esteem and moving toward self-compassion in the treatment of their patients—and Dr. Neff’s extraordinary book offers exercises and action plans for dealing with every emotionally debilitating struggle, be it parenting, weight loss, or any of the numerous trials of everyday living.

A neuroscientist’s powerful framework for enhancing quality of life through the regulation of four key hormones: Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, and Endorphins.The brain’s ability to change and adapt is one of the most powerful tools we can harness to create positive changes in our lives. Renowned neuroscientist and co-founder of Neurify, TJ Power, believes in the human ability to optimize and rewire brain chemistry to unlock one’s full potential. However, to do so, one must first implement a series of practical, life changing strategies.The Dose Effect reveals the secrets of our brain chemistry, offering simple and accessible ways to make modifications to your lifestyle that can transform your brain. Drawing on clinical expertise and cutting-edge science, Power explores how biohacking your brain can not only enhance cognitive performance but also improve the aspects of your life that ultimately control a happier, healthier, and more productive lifestyle.The Dose Effect proves the intrinsic connection between lifestyle factors and mental and physical wellbeing Split into four sections, this essential guidebook provides the most effective techniques for understanding the key hormones that rule our thinking and our behaviors:1. Dopamine, the motivation and reward drug of the brain.2. Oxytocin, the “Great Facilitator of Life.”3. Serotonin, the “Confidence Chemical.”4. Endorphins, the chemical warriors responsible for reducing stress and pain.Research-driven and deeply inspiring, Power’s revolutionary strategies allow readers to harness behaviors and practices to improve mental health, manage stress, elevate mood, and promote overall wellness. His key findings include the influence of effortful activity on dopamine production, the significance of social connection in oxytocin levels, the value of connecting with nature and maintaining gut health for optimal serotonin levels, and the beneficial effects of physical exertion and laughter on endorphin release. By emphasizing the importance of understanding and optimizing our brain chemistry, this revolutionary book offers a path to a more fulfilled and meaningful life for all that are willing to take the first step.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER · INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLERFrom Dr. Nicole LePera, creator of "the holistic psychologist"—the online phenomenon with more than two million Instagram followers—comes a revolutionary approach to healing that harnesses the power of the self to produce lasting change. As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Nicole LePera often found herself frustrated by the limitations of traditional psychotherapy. Wanting more for her patients—and for herself—she began a journey to develop a united philosophy of mental, physical and spiritual wellness that equips people with the interdisciplinary tools necessary to heal themselves. After experiencing the life-changing results herself, she began to share what she'd learned with others—and soon "The Holistic Psychologist" was born.Now, Dr. LePera is ready to share her much-requested protocol with the world. In How to Do the Work, she offers both a manifesto for SelfHealing as well as an essential guide to creating a more vibrant, authentic, and joyful life. Drawing on the latest research from a diversity of scientific fields and healing modalities, Dr. LePera helps us recognize how adverse experiences and trauma in childhood live with us, resulting in whole body dysfunction—activating harmful stress responses that keep us stuck engaging in patterns of codependency, emotional immaturity, and trauma bonds. Unless addressed, these self-sabotaging behaviors can quickly become cyclical, leaving people feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and unwell.In How to Do the Work, Dr. LePera offers readers the support and tools that will allow them to break free from destructive behaviors to reclaim and recreate their lives. Nothing short of a paradigm shift, this is a celebration of empowerment that will forever change the way we approach mental wellness and self-care.

"Analyzes life as we are living it, and the analysis is truthful and profound."-- New York Times Loneliness, boredom, These are the complaints that Rollo May encountered over and over from his patients. In response, he probes the hidden layers of personality to reveal the core of man's integration--a basic and inborn sense of value. Man's Search for Himself is an illuminating view of our predicament in an age of overwhelming anxieties and gives guidance on how to choose, judge, and act during such times.

Have you ever met a relaxed woman? Would you like to become one?Feminist psychologist Nicola Jane Hobbs draws on the latest science and extensive therapeutic experience to dispel the myth that relaxing is lazy and show women how to reclaim rest as a path to healing, freedom, and joy.We have become a society of rushing women, overburdened women, exhausted women. Women whose lives are plagued with stress, guilt, and burnout. We try so hard to do it all—to be the perfect partners, mothers, daughters, colleagues, friends—only to end up feeling not good enough, unappreciated, and lonely. But it doesn’t have to be this way.In The Relaxed Woman, psychologistNicola Jane Hobbs explores how stress negatively impacts our minds, bodies and relationships, and illuminates a path towards reclaiming relaxation as a form of liberation. Weaving together neuroscience and psychology with inspirational stories from women who are discovering the transformational power of rest for themselves, Nicola guides us on a journey to becoming relaxed women: women who have untangled their sense of worth from their productivity, who can rest without guilt and anxiety, who trust their intuitions, honor their needs, and live by their deepest values.Filled with simple rest rituals we can weave into our busy lives, healing practices to help regulate our nervous systems, and practical strategies to support us in navigating the unavoidable stressors of life, The Relaxed Woman is an empowering, restful guide for all of us who long to live more joyful, authentic lives. Because we deserve more than being constantly exhausted. We deserve to be relaxed women, women who know our worth and our power—women who, together, can change the world.

The landmark work on how to connect your mind and body to reduce stress and lead a more fulfilling, healthy, and complete life—now revised and updated Featuring a preface from Thich Nhat Hanh “This wise, deep book is essential, unique, and, above all, fundamentally healing.”—Donald M. Berwick, M.D., president emeritus and senior fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement Stress. It can sap our energy, undermine our health if we let it, even shorten our lives. It makes us more vulnerable to anxiety and depression, disconnection and disease. Based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this classic, groundbreaking work—which gave rise to a whole new field in medicine and psychology—shows you how to use medically proven mind-body approaches derived from meditation and yoga to counteract stress, establish greater balance of body and mind, and stimulate well-being and healing. By engaging in these mindfulness practices and integrating them into your life from moment to moment and from day to day, you can learn to manage chronic pain, promote optimal healing, reduce anxiety and feelings of panic, and improve the overall quality of your life, relationships, and social networks. This revised edition features results from recent studies on the science of mindfulness, a new Introduction, up-to-date statistics, and an extensive updated reading list. Full Catastrophe Living is a book for the young and the old, the well and the ill, and anyone trying to live a healthier and saner life in our fast-paced world.

'Deeply informative, moving, wise and full of love' Alain de Botton Everyone says they want to be happy. But that's much more easily said than done. What does being happy actually mean? And how do you even know when you feel it? Across the millennia, philosophers have thought long and hard about happiness. They have defined it in many different ways and come up with myriad strategies for living the good life. Drawing on this vast body of work, in Happy Derren Brown explores changing concepts of happiness - from the surprisingly modern wisdom of the Stoics and Epicureans in classical times right up until today, when the self-help industry has attempted to claim happiness as its own. He shows how many of self-help's suggested routes to happiness and success - such as positive thinking, self-belief and setting goals - can be disastrous to follow and, indeed, actually cause anxiety. This brilliant, candid and deeply entertaining book exposes the flaws in these ways of thinking, and in return poses challenging but stimulating questions about how we choose to live and the way we think about death. Happy aims to reclaim happiness and to enable us to appreciate the good things in life, in all their transient glory. By taking control of the stories we tell ourselves, by remembering that 'everything's fine' even when it might not feel that way, we can allow ourselves to flourish and to live more happily.

The ultimate positive, practical guide to menopause. 'The 'Artists Way' of menopause' Sophie Fletcher, author of the bestselling Mindful Hypnobirthing, Mindful Mamma and Mindful Menopause It's time to re-frame menopause. Perimenopause can sometimes feel like the rug has been pulled from under our feet and this can leave us feeling disempowered and lost. Second Spring is a new kind of menopause book, bringing the radical notion that with small changes and a clear-eyed look at what's no longer serving you, you can reclaim your vitality and joy in life. Second Spring offers a new vision for menopause, mapping the psychological phases and showing how this period in your life can be a time of personal growth. Like your slightly sweary best friend, Kate Codrington guides you through managing physical challenges with lifestyle changes and understanding what might be causing them. Whether you choose a natural route, HRT or a combination of both, there's a wealth of self-care practices available here to soothe your symptoms. These include journaling prompts, practical tips and soulful enquiries real-life solutions for managing symptoms with kindness, helping you to become the person you always longed to be. What we need in challenging times is not shame or pushing through, but to treat ourselves with care and compassion.