r/therapists · 2022

Most-mentioned books in r/therapists during 2022

This page ranks books by exact tracked mentions in r/therapists within the published source unit for 2022. Counts come from the reconciled subreddit-by-month matrix; a source unit may be a bounded sample.

Books ranked

102

Tracked mentions in 2022

Sort by upvotes = sum of comment scores on recognized mentions

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk spent his career arguing trauma changes the nervous system, and r/CPTSD made the book its shared vocabulary for what happened to them.

11 in 2022

The Happiness Trap

Russ Harris

A psychologist walks readers through Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, arguing the chase for constant happiness is what makes people miserable.

8 in 2022

Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors

Janina Fisher

A trauma therapist argues the parts of you that feel broken are actually surviving, and gives you a framework to stop fighting them.

7 in 2022

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

Pete Walker

Pete Walker names a fourth trauma response beyond fight, flight, and freeze: fawn, the instinct to appease the person who's hurting you.

5 in 2022

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

Sue Johnson

A couples therapist maps every recurring fight back to one question neither partner is asking out loud: are you there for me?

5 in 2022

Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men

Lundy Bancroft

A domestic-violence counselor spent years running batterer-intervention groups, then wrote down the excuses so readers could recognize them faster.

5 in 2022

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

Lindsay C. Gibson

A psychologist sorts adults raised by emotionally immature parents into internalizers who blame themselves and externalizers who blame everyone else.

4 in 2022

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Gabor Maté

A Vancouver physician treats addicts in the Downtown Eastside and builds a case that addiction is trauma's echo, not a moral failure.

4 in 2022

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

A psychiatrist survives three concentration camps and concludes the ones who lived weren't the strongest, they were the ones who still had a reason to.

4 in 2022

#10

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

Lori Gottlieb

A therapist goes to therapy: Lori Gottlieb tracks four patients across a year while her own life cracks open on someone else's couch.

4 in 2022

#11

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

Richard C. Schwartz

A therapist explains why the voice in your head that hates you is just another part trying, badly, to protect you.

4 in 2022

#12

The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy

Irvin D. Yalom

Irvin Yalom's clinical manual for group therapy, built from decades of practice, covering everything from curative factors to termination.

4 in 2022

#13

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation

Suzette Boon

A skills workbook for patients and clinicians treating trauma-related dissociation, built around structured exercises and psychoeducation about dissociative parts.

3 in 2022

#14

Set Boundaries, Find Peace

Nedra Glover Tawwab

A therapist breaks down why people-pleasing isn't kindness and gives clients the language to say no without explaining themselves.

3 in 2022

#15

The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization

Onno van der Hart

A structural dissociation textbook by van der Hart, Nijenhuis, and Steele that clinicians recommend alongside EMDR and parts-work training.

3 in 2022

#16

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Gabor Maté

A physician argues that trauma is the hidden engine of most chronic illness, and that Western society is the primary carrier.

3 in 2022

#17

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

Emily Nagoski

Two sisters explain why finishing your to-do list won't fix exhaustion — and what completing the stress cycle actually requires.

2 in 2022

#18

DBT Skills Training Handouts and Worksheets

Marsha M. Linehan

Marsha Linehan's official worksheet companion for DBT skills training, used by clinics to put distress tolerance and emotion regulation into clients' hands.

2 in 2022

#19

Feeling Good

David D. Burns

David Burns hands depressed readers a list of ten named thinking errors and a worksheet to catch themselves making one.

2 in 2022

#20

Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Marshall B. Rosenberg

Marshall Rosenberg's script for expressing needs without blame, surfaced 144 times across trauma and therapy subreddits over seven years.

2 in 2022

#21

The Gifts of Imperfection

Brené Brown

Brené Brown's shame-and-wholehearted-living framework, as recommended by therapists and CPTSD readers who have actually used it.

2 in 2022

#22

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Stephanie Foo

A radio producer gets diagnosed with complex PTSD at thirty and spends the rest of the book finding out what actually treats it.

2 in 2022

#23

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment

Amir Levine

A psychiatrist and a researcher apply neuroscience to dating: figure out your attachment style, then stop being surprised by your relationship patterns.

1 in 2022

#24

Attachment Disturbances in Adults

Daniel P. Brown

A Harvard psychologist's clinical manual on repairing adult attachment wounds, built around a guided meditation protocol called Ideal Parent Figure.

1 in 2022

#25

Codependent No More

Melody Beattie

A 1986 self-help classic that names the pattern of losing yourself in someone else's crisis and tells you how to stop.

1 in 2022