Books Recommended by a Therapist 2024 [Master List]

With a name like Prologue, you had to know we like a good mental health book around here! While a lot of important work is done within the walls of the therapy room, it’s at a maximum of one hour per week. There are 167 more hours you can use to deepen and solidify your progress, and reading is a versatile and meaningful way to do that.

Self-help books probably come to mind first, sensibly. Books in this category are aimed directly at helping people understand something about themselves and take action to work on it. If you’re working on healthy attachment, for example, your therapist may recommend Hold Me Tight by Sue Johnson. It will beautifully supplement that work because it directly teaches attachment concepts you can apply to your life.

However, as a lover of literature and believer in the healing and connecting power of story, I must also point out that analyzing the themes of memoir, fiction, and poetry can also deepen therapeutic work. While it’s not directly a mental health book, White Oleander may also be a great read for someone working through attachment trauma for certain family of origin concerns. Perhaps the characters remind you of people in your real life. Understanding those reactions may help you make peace with that relationship. Also consider what draws you to certain genres. Does fantasy help you believe in something greater than yourself? Does chick lit teach you about female friendship?

Since our focus here at Prologue is relationships, the recommendations below generally have themes under that umbrella. Clicking on each book will take you to my review and analysis of it, so you can decide for yourself if it’s likely to strengthen your progress, or simply entertain you! If I haven’t written a review of a particular book on this list yet, clicking the link will take you to Bookshop.org, a lovely organization that donates a portion of their proceeds to keeping small independent bookstores alive. These will be affiliate links, though please know that I am only recommending mental health books that I genuinely have read myself and endorse.

Self Help

The self-help books included in this category are mostly about relationship-building skills. This refers to relationships with romantic partners, between parents and children, as well as one’s relationship with themselves. They are listed in alphabetical order.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay Gibson

Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown

Fair Play by Eve Rodsky

I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz

The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron

The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aron

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John and Julie Gottman

The State of Affairs by Esther Perel

Memoir

Memoirs can be great mental health books because they help us understand things that we may never experience ourselves. This helps us build empathy for others and therefore increase our capacity to give grace and support. Again, many of these books have themes related to relationships, even if they don’t appear that way at first. For example, while Educated is about Westover’s quest for education, she grapples with the question of whether this journey will leave her too different from her family, and what that would mean about her as a person. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone may appear to be about a therapist coming to terms with being in therapy herself, but themes of relationship abound as she grapples with boundaries, a breakup with her own partner, and her fondness for her own clients.

An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy

Because We Are Bad by Lily Bailey

Educated by Tara Westover

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry

From Scratch by Tembi Locke

Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

Inheritance by Dani Shapiro

Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottleib

Paris: The Memoir by Paris Hilton

Rabbit Heart by Kristine Ervin

The Woman In Me by Britney Spears

Fiction

Even fiction can provide great mental health support, especially regarding relationships. Each of the books below tackles relational themes such as marriage, grief, vulnerability, and the depths of parental love.

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

Eleanor Oliphant Is Perfectly Fine by Gail Honeyman

Happy Place by Emily Henry

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

I’ll Give You The Sun by Jandy Nelson

In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

Landline by Rainbow Rowell

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt