For licensed psychologist Dr. Katie Boyd, who has been practicing in St. Louis for the past nine years, it’s important that her patients can find support and sustain self-improvement daily, not just during sessions. One approach that she regularly uses to achieve this goal is bibliotherapy, the practice of recommending books and materials that patients can read in between sessions to further grow and heal.
“Client sessions are usually once a week, or once every other week, and I’ve found that using bibliotherapy is really helpful,” Boyd says. “It helps keep in mind the things they're supposed to be working on in between sessions, as well as solidify the learning of the concepts that we talk about in our sessions.”
We recently caught up with Boyd to learn about her top 10 favorite self-help books, including those she and her patients have enjoyed over the years. Boyd believes that these 10 books are valuable and enriching reads for anyone, especially given how much change and unrest has occurred this year.
“These are also books that I recommend for anybody to read, really—I think they’re good self-help books in a general sense,” she says. “I like to suggest books that are enjoyable to read, so these books aren’t dry, boring, or hard to read. In fact, a lot of the books on this list are as entertaining as they are informative, and all of these books have even helped me personally.”
Listed in no particular order, here are Boyd’s top 10 self-help books for living your best life.
1. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns
“David Burns is a psychiatrist, and his book Feeling Good is a classic. It’s an older book, but it's a good one. It talks about how to identify and change the thoughts that you have that make you feel badly and how to change those thoughts in order to feel better. So it's kind of a classic cognitive therapy book.”
2. The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom by Don Miguel Ruiz
“This is a great quick read. Ruiz talks about wisdom from the ancient Toltec people of Mexico, and it's a code of conduct for how to transform your life and to experience true happiness and love. This book has been really personally transformative for me. The concept that I quote from that book the most often in therapy is the agreement to not take things personally. That's such an important lesson for all of us to learn. Ruiz says that nothing anyone else ever does is because of you and that we should take nothing personally. That's such a powerful message for everyone.”
3. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
“Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability and shame is so important. She talks about breaking through our need to put up a facade of perfection and to be able to be vulnerable with each other. That's actually how we connect and bond with other people: through our vulnerabilities. Our society tends to want to act like everything's OK and put on that facade of perfection, and that actually keeps us distant from one another. I would recommend all of Brené Brown’s books—she’s great.”
4.Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
“This is a classic. Frankl is a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. The book talks about existentialism, and he writes about how, no matter the difficult circumstances we're facing in life, when we have a meaning or a ‘why’ for what we're going through, we can better navigate it, get through it, and survive. I think that could be really important for people right now; given all the hard times that people are going through. Frankl suggests that having a ‘why,’ or meaning, is how we are resilient. It’s about identifying your purpose in life, your meaning.”
5. The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate by Gary Chapman
“The Five Love Languages talks about how we all have a different ‘language’ in which we express and receive love. There are five different love languages that we rank in terms of importance, and that order is different for each individual. This applies to all relationships, not only romantic: It applies to parent-child relationships, it applies to friendships, even co-worker relationships, and it's such a great way to think about how we give and receive love and show that we care about others. The bottom line is that we should be showing others love or caring in their own language. Our tendency is to show love in our own language, and if that's not a match for the person we're showing love to, if their language is different from ours, they won't feel the love that we're trying to show. Being able to identify what someone else’s love language is, the important people in our lives, and to give them love in their own language, is really helpful in relationships.”
6. Untamed by Glennon Doyle
“This is the newest book on my list. Glennon Doyle talks about how to live authentically, and she touches on how we, especially women, are socialized to be pleasing and agreeable and inauthentic as a result. She writes so well, and her stories are so entertaining to read. She's very vulnerable and shares her own personal struggles. I recommend this to those who feel they struggle with people-pleasing.”
7.Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes
“This is actually not a self-help book; it’s a memoir. It has such a great message, though, that it ends up reading sort of like a self-help book. Through her own story, there's a message about living life to the fullest and not playing small because of fear. It's interesting to see someone who's been so successful—Rhimes is a hugely successful television producer and screenwriter—and then read her behind-the-scenes story. I think that's valuable for people, because we can tend to look at everyone else and think that they've got it all together, but to see someone so successful and then to hear what’s inside, she’s wrought with introverted, anxious thoughts and doesn't want to put herself out there; it normalizes the fact that we all have thoughts like that sometimes, which could hold us back if we let them.”
8. The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh
“This is my go-to introduction to mindfulness for my clients. Mindfulness is a practice of being more aware of and living in the present moment. I use mindfulness with almost every client who I work with; research shows it's beneficial for anxiety and depression, and everyone, I think, can benefit from learning these concepts and practices. This is a quick, short, very pleasant read that is a great overview of mindfulness.”
9. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
“Obviously, based on the title, this book is not for everyone. But what I like about this book is it's sort of a counterintuitive self-help book; it's a self-help book for people who hate self-help. His raw, real, tell-it-like-it-is style is a completely different approach to self-help, and that's refreshing. A lot of people who consider themselves to be realists, or maybe even a little cynical, this sort of a book is great for them. A lot of my clients appreciate his approach, which is very raw, real, and direct.”
10.You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
“You Are a Badass is extremely motivating. She's got a direct, real approach in talking about how to not let self-doubt stop you, and how to ‘just take the leap’ in life. We all have limiting thoughts, whether that’s something that we learned in childhood or messages we've received along the way about what we can and can't do. We develop these ceilings in our mind in terms of our thoughts about what we can’t do, and Sincero talks about how to identify those limiting beliefs and break through them to realize you can take a big leap.”
