r/therapists · 2023

Most-mentioned books in r/therapists during 2023

This page ranks books by exact tracked mentions in r/therapists within the published source unit for 2023. Counts come from the reconciled subreddit-by-month matrix; a source unit may be a bounded sample.

Books ranked

203

Tracked mentions in 2023

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.

20 in 2023

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.

19 in 2023

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.

15 in 2023

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.

14 in 2023

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.

12 in 2023

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.

11 in 2023

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.

11 in 2023

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.

10 in 2023

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.

10 in 2023

#10

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.

9 in 2023

#11

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.

8 in 2023

#12

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.

7 in 2023

#13

Atlas of the Heart

Brené Brown

Brené Brown catalogs 87 human emotions with research definitions so readers can name what they actually feel instead of guessing.

5 in 2023

#14

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 2023

#15

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.

5 in 2023

#16

What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

Bruce D. Perry

Oprah and Bruce Perry reframe mental illness as injury: not 'what's wrong with you' but what was done to you, and whether the brain can be rewired.

5 in 2023

#17

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.

4 in 2023

#18

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.

4 in 2023

#19

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 2023

#20

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.

3 in 2023

#21

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma

Peter A. Levine

A trauma therapist's account of the body finishing what fight-or-flight started, built around 'felt sense' exercises and a three-part brain model.

3 in 2023

#22

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky

A neuroscientist traces one punch backward through hormones, childhood, evolution, and culture to explain why anyone throws it at all.

2 in 2023

#23

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 2023

#24

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 2023

#25

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 2023