Book & Movie Recommendations
Books, films, podcasts, and apps can all offer psychotherapists valuable tools for professional development and personal growth. These media provide opportunities to explore therapeutic themes, spark meaningful conversations, and offer a place for clients to see their struggles reflected in compelling narratives. Whether you're seeking resources for your own growth or looking for recommendations to share with clients, the articles in this collection offer recommendations for book, movies, podcasts, TV shows, and even memes that can deepen understanding and inspire change. Discover what therapy's thought leaders are reading, watching, and recommending.
An Anxiety Expert's Take on "The Anxiety Club" Documentary
What Comedians in Therapy Can Teach Us
4 Top Therapist-Recommended Movies (Part II)
From Sexual Healing to Facing Our Collective Shadow
A child-custody consultant wrestles with the question of what is a good enough mother. Read more
Chicago’s inner city has long been termed an “urban war zone.” A new book by acclaimed journalist Alex Kotlowitz reveals the personal stories of trauma... Read more
A book about two sets of mismatched twins testifies to the power of both heredity and family loyalty Read more
Review: Healing from Hate: How Young Men Get Into—and Out of—Violent ExtremismA look at how to help former skinheads, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and... Read more
There’s a surprisingly strong link between altruism and psychopathy. Read more
The Influential Mind: What the Brain Reveals About Our Power to Change Others. When it comes to truly changing minds, reasoning will get you nowhere. Read more
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl is best known for is his extraordinary first-person narrative about his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, as told in Man’s... Read more
By Richard Handler - Throughout history, humans have tried to make sense of the baffling, nonlinear fleetingness of dreams. In A History of Last Night's... Read more
The Voices Within: The History and Science of How We Talk to Ourselves Making sense of the particular internal mix of words, conversation, music, and images... Read more
There’s a crucial point in the parenting life cycle that’s not often discussed in the literature. Read more
A startling new book exposes how much more the military’s embrace of enhanced interrogation tactics in the war on terror was influenced by Hollywood, rather... Read more
Family physician and psychologist Leonard Sax insists that too many parents these days misunderstand the role they should play in their children’s lives. Read more
Sometimes it can be easier to argue about witch-hunts than risk confronting the dark, unsavory reality of child abuse. Read more
The new emphasis on the transformative power of trauma can be a template for false assumptions about the “gift” of suffering and the meaning of recovery. Read more
In her first book, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin tried to answer the question “How do I become happier?” With her new book on changing the habits... Read more
An investigation of some of history’s most famous creative teams leads to the conclusion that no artist is an island. Read more
A new book investigates the worldview of a range of fanatics who’ve dedicated their lives to holding onto to their antiscientific and antihistorical claims. Read more
The era of unchallenged male entitlement has come to an end, and many men are mad as hell. A new book provides context to help us deal with this anger in the... Read more
With his enormous success, Malcolm Gladwell has morphed from a darling underdog to a publishing juggernaut at whom it’s now trendy to sling insults. Read more
A new book examines how one man, under the guise of religious faith, kept his family isolated in a world of abuse and brutality, and how another family broke... Read more
Jared Diamond’s new book explores the many lessons modern cultures can draw from the wisdom of small-scale, preindustrial societies. Read more
More than 60 years after its Broadway debut, a classic play continues to cast a haunting spell. Read more
A surprise bestseller shows us the crucial roles that even minor habits can play in individual and group behavior. Read more
A new book about the power of keeping your mouth shut provides a much-needed corrective to our cultural enchantment with extroversion. Read more
Daniel Kahneman, the founder of behavioral economics, has written a comprehensive dissection of the reasoning mind, which should be on every therapist’s... Read more
What do we know today about the effectiveness of psychotherapy that we didn’t know 30 years ago? Even more important, how do we improve our treatments? Read more
When it comes to achieving excellence, author Daniel Coyle has found a common pattern of focused, guided practice and instruction that leads to success. Read more
.svg)