Recommended Reading Resources

At Kathleen Coughlin, LCSW, we have curated a collection of recommended reading resources to support your mental health, emotional wellness, and personal growth. We believe that education, self-awareness, and lifelong learning are important components of overall well-being. While therapy provides individualized support and guidance, many individuals also benefit from books, podcasts, articles, and other educational resources that reinforce what they are learning throughout the counseling process.

Furthermore, self-help resources can provide valuable insight between therapy sessions, helping individuals better understand their thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and relationships. Whether you are actively participating in counseling or simply seeking information to support your personal development, these resources can serve as a helpful complement to your journey.

To learn more about me and the services I offer, please submit a request through our practice portal.

Why Self-Help Resources Can Be Helpful

Research has shown that learning about mental health concerns and evidence-based coping strategies can empower individuals to make meaningful changes in their lives. In addition, educational resources can increase self-awareness, improve emotional regulation, strengthen communication skills, and promote healthier relationships.

For many people, reading about experiences similar to their own provides reassurance that they are not alone in their struggles. As a result, self-help materials often help individuals feel more informed, hopeful, and confident as they navigate challenges, stressors, and life transitions.

Building Self-Awareness and Resilience

Beyond providing information, educational resources can encourage reflection and personal insight. By learning new perspectives and practical coping skills, individuals often develop greater resilience and confidence in managing life’s challenges. Consequently, many people find that ongoing learning supports both emotional wellness and long-term personal growth.

Topics Covered in Our Resource Library

To support a wide range of personal needs and interests, we have compiled resources addressing numerous mental health and wellness topics, including:

• Anxiety and chronic stress
• Burnout and emotional exhaustion
• Depression and mood concerns
• Grief and loss
• Relationship challenges
• Divorce and co-parenting
• Parenting and family dynamics
• Self-esteem and confidence
• Boundaries and communication skills
• Personal growth and self-discovery
• Women’s mental health
• Addiction and recovery
• Leadership and professional development
• Emotional wellness and resilience

Many of these resources also include practical exercises, worksheets, mindfulness techniques, and real-world strategies that can be applied to everyday life.

Supporting Growth Beyond Therapy

In many cases, continued learning can enhance progress and accelerate personal growth. For example, books and educational materials often introduce new perspectives, coping skills, and problem-solving approaches that can strengthen the work being done in counseling.

Expanding Learning Between Sessions

Another benefit of self-help resources is that they can help individuals develop language to describe experiences that may otherwise be difficult to articulate. They can also offer practical tools that support healthier habits, improved communication, and greater emotional awareness. Consequently, many people report feeling more empowered and better equipped to navigate life’s challenges after engaging with educational materials that resonate with their experiences.

Finding the Right Resource for You

Because every person has unique goals, experiences, and challenges, not every resource will be the right fit for everyone. Therefore, we encourage you to explore topics that align with your current needs, interests, and stage of personal growth.

Choosing Resources That Match Your Goals

You may find that different books and educational materials become helpful at different points in your journey. Whether you are seeking support for anxiety, stress management, relationship concerns, grief, personal growth, or major life transitions, our goal is to provide trusted resources that encourage learning, healing, and positive change.

Our Commitment to Ongoing Learning

We regularly review and update this collection as new books, podcasts, and educational materials become available. In addition, we welcome recommendations from clients, professionals, and community members who have discovered resources that have positively impacted their lives.

Share Your Recommendations

Our hope is that this resource library serves as a valuable starting point for individuals seeking practical tools, meaningful insights, and additional support on their path toward emotional wellness. If you have a resource that you believe may benefit others, we welcome your suggestions and feedback.

Disclaimer

Please note that the information and resources provided on this page are intended for educational and informational purposes only. They are not a substitute for professional mental health treatment, medical advice, diagnosis, or individualized therapy services. If you are experiencing a mental health emergency or require immediate assistance, please contact emergency services, call 911, or reach out to an appropriate crisis resource.

Addictions in Family Systems

• An Addict in the Family: Stories of Loss, Hope, & Recovery
• Chronic Hope: Families and Addiction
• Chronic Hope: Parenting the Addicted Child
• Courage to Change: One day at a time
• Documentary: Pleasure Unwoven – Dr. Kevin McCauley
• YouTube Dr. Kevin McCauley
• PodCast – Andrew Huberman

Anger

• When Anger Hurts: Quieting the Storm Within

Anxiety

• The Subtle Art of not giving a F….

Business Books – Also see Leadership Books below

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Card Deck
• The Richest Man in Babylon
• Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the rich teach their kids about money
• Mini Habits
• Thinking, Fast, and Slow
• How to win friends and influence people
• From Impossible to Inevitable
• Built to last
• The Art of Negotiation
• Start with Why
• Mindset
• The 4-hour workweek
• The Intelligent Investor

Children

• Growing Friendships: A Kids’ Guide to Making & Keeping Friends

Coparenting / Divorce

• Children of the Self-Absorbed – Nina Brown
• Co-Parenting After Divorce: A GPS for Healthy Kids – Debra K. Carter
• Co-Parenting Handbook – Karen Bonnett
•  Custody Chaos, Personal Peace – Jeff Wittmann
• Divorce Poison – Richard Warshak
• Divorce Book for Parents – Vicki Lansky
• Ex-Etiquette for Parents – Jann Blackstone-Ford and Sharyl Jupe
• For Better or for Worse – Mavis Hetherington
• How to avoid the divorce from hell – and dance together at your daughter’s wedding – M. Sue Talia
• Joint Custody with a jerk, raising a child with an uncooperative Ex – Julie Ross and Judy Corcoran
•  Learning from Divorce – Christine Coates and E. Robert LaCrosse
• Mom’s House, Dad’s House – Isolina Ricci
• Putting Children First – JoAnne Pedro-Carroll
• Parenting After Divorce – Phil Stahl
• Parenting Apart: How Separated and Divorced Parents Can Raise Happy and Secure Kids – Christina McGhee
• Stepfamilies – James H. Bray and John Kelly
• The Good Divorce – Constance Ahrons
• 101 Ways to be long-distance Super Dad or Mom – George Newman
• Your Divorce Advisor – Diana Mercer and Marsha Kline Pruett
• The Smart Stepmom: Practical Steps to Help You Thrive! – Ron Deal & Laura Petherbridge
• Through the Eyes of Children – Janet Johnston, Karen Breunig, Carla Garrity, and Mitchell Baris
• Trapped in the Mirror – by Golcomg
• Tug of War – Harvey Brownstone

Dating, Relationship, and Marriage

• The Relationship Cure – 5 Step Guide to Strengthen Your Marriage – John Gottman
• The 5 Love Languages
• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love
• Smart Couples Finish Rich.  9 steps to creating a rich future for you and your spouse
• The Magic 5 hours – The relationship cure – 5 step guide to strengthen your marriage – John Gottman
• The Upside-Down Marriage: 12 Ways to Keep Your Marriage Right Side Up – by Jim Keller
• Sacred Marriage – by Gary L. Thomas
• Love and War:  Finding the Marriage You’ve Dreamed of – by John Eldredge, Stasi Eldredge
• How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage – by Milan Yerkovich, Kay Yerkovich
• The Emotionally Destructive Marriage – How to find your voice and reclaim your hope (Christian support)
• Fierce Intimacy – Terry Real
• Why Does He Do That? – Lundy Croftman
• Rising Strong, The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution
• Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend
• The Seven Levels of Intimacy by Matthew Kelly
• Getting the Love you Want by Harville Hendrix and Hellen LaKelly Hunt
• Marriage on the Rock: A Guide for discovering God’s design for your dream marriage
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parent
•  The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values, and Spiritual Growth
•  Should I Stay or Should I Go? – Lundy Croftman

Debt Free

• Debt Free Living – Larry Burkett
• The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness – Dave Ramsey
• The Total Money Makeover Workbook – Dave Ramsey
• Margin:  Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives
• Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want

Depression

• The Art of Happiness – Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler
• The Secret
• The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want
• The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World: Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu

Divorce Pre-School Age – Elementary Age

• Dinosaurs Divorce – Laurie Krasny Brown & Marc Brown
• Where is Daddy? – Beth Goff
• My Mother’s House, My Father’s House – C.B. Christiansen
• My Family’s Changing – Pat Thomas
• Two Homes by Claire Masurel
• At Daddy’s on Saturdays – Linda Girard
• Why are we getting a divorce? Peter Mayle
• When My Parents Forgot How to Be Friends – Jennifer Moore-Mallinos
• A Smart Girl’s Guide to Her Parents’ Divorce: How to Land on Your Feet When Your World Turns Upside Down
• Why did you have to get a divorce? And WHEN can I get a Hamster? – Anthony E. Wolf
• Why Do Families Change?

Divorce Teens and Pre-Teens

• It’s not the end of the world – Judy Blume
• When Divorce Hits Home – Bath & Thea Joselow
• What in the World Do You Do When Your Parent’s Divorce? A Survival Guide for Kids – Kent Winchester & Roberta Beyer
• Divorce is Not the End of the Word: Zoe ‘s & Evan’s Coping Guide for Kids – Zoe Stern

Emotional Self-Help Books

• Emotional Agility, Susan David
• The Gifts of Imperfection: Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are, Brene Brown
• Attached:  The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love

Family Issues

• The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World: Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu
• Attached:  The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love

Grief

• The Other Side of Sadness – George Bonanno
• The Grief Recovery Handbook
• When Bad Things Happen to Good People
• How to go on living when someone you love dies
• The Power of Now
• The Wild Edge of Sorrow
• The Rebellious Widow – A Practice Guide to Love and Loss After Loss
• The After Grief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss
• It’s OK That You’re Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture that Doesn’t Understand
• Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief:  A Revolutionary Approach to Understanding and Healing the Impact of Loss
• Bearing the Unbearable
• A Matter of Death and Life

Grief – Child Loss

• Loved Baby
• No Matter How Small:  Understanding Miscarriage and Stillbirth
• Signs:  The Secret Language of the Universe
• The Baby Loss Guide – Zoe Clark Coates Instagram
• This is a Pregnancy and Baby Loss
• You Are Not Alone:  Love Letters from Loss Mom to Loss Mom
• From Father to Father:  Letters from Loss Dad to Loss Dad

Grief – Christian Faith

• A Grace Disguised by Gerald Sittser

Infertility

• Body Belief:  How to heal autoimmune diseases, radically shift your health & learn to love your body more, Aimee Raupp
• Chill out and get healthy:  Live clean to be strong and stay sexy, Aimee Raupp
• Hilariously Infertile, One Woman’s Quest to Help Women Laugh Through Infertility
• If at First, You Don’t Conceive: A Complete Guide to Infertility from One of the Nation’s Leading Clinics
• Inconceivable
• Infreakinfertility:  How to Survive When Getting Pregnant Gets Hard
• Making Babies
• Spiritual Fertility:  Integrative Practices for the Journey to Motherhood
• The Baby Loss Guide: Practical and Compassionate Support with a Day-by-Day Resource to Navigate the Path of Grief
• The Ten-Year Club: A Decade of Infertility and Us
• The Impatient Woman’s Guide to Getting Pregnant
• The Underachieving Ovary
• Waiting for God to Fill the Cradle:  One Month Devotional for Couples
• When God Says “Wait”
• Yes, You Can Get Pregnant:  Natural ways to improve your fertility now and into your 40’s, Aimee Raupp

Intimacy

• Buddha’s Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy – https://drcherylfraser.com/

She has a Podcast – Sex, Love and Elephants

• Attached:  The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love

Leadership

• Dare to Lead, Brene Brown
• Rising Strong, The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution
• The Miracle Morning: The 6 Habits that will transform your life before 8 AM

Life Planning

• Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want
• Rising Strong, The Reckoning, The Rumble, The Revolution
• Attached:  The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love

Male Health

• The Way of the Superior Man: A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire
• Buddha’s Bedroom: The Mindful Loving Path to Sexual Passion and Lifelong Intimacy – https://drcherylfraser.com/ – She has a Podcast – Sex, Love and Elephants

Narcissism

•  Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
• Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare – Shahida Arabi
• Children of the Self-Absorbed
• Emotional Blackmail – Susan Forward, PhD
• Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving & Thriving with the Self-Absorbed
• Healing from Hidden Abuse
• Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers
• Narcissistic Mothers: Theresa Shahida – How Being the Daughter or Son of a Narcissistic Mother Affects Your Feelings & Your Life.
• One Mom’s Battle Divorcing a Narcissist
• Healing from Hidden Abuse
• Power: Surviving and Thriving after narcissistic abuse: Essays on Malignant Narcissist & Recovery – Shahida Arabi
• Psychopath Free: Recovering from emotionally abusive relationships with Narcissist & Sociopaths & Other Toxic People
• Psychopath Free – Jackson MacKenzie
•  Should I Stay or Should I Go? A Guide to Knowing if Your Relationship Can and Should Be Saved – Lundy Croftman
• The Covert Passive Aggressive Narcissist – Debbie Mirza
• The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us
•  The Safest Place Possible – Debbie Mirza
• The Verbally Abusive Relationship
• The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists
• Setting Boundaries will set you free: Ultimate guide to telling the truth, creating connection & finding freedom
•  Why Does He Do That? – Lundy Croftman
•  Will I ever be enough

Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviors

• Overcoming Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors: Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment for Hair Pulling & Skin Picking
• Brainlock for OCD

Parenting

• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents – Lindsay C. Gibson, PhD
• Relational Parenting:  Going Beyond Your Child’s Behavior to Meet Their Deepest Needs
• Positive Discipline for Toddlers – Jane Nelsen

Self-Improvement 

• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
• How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
• Raving Fans – Ken Blanchard
• Women & Self-Esteem
• The 4 Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz
• The Power of Now – Eckart Tolle
• Your best life now – Joel Osteen
• Untethered Soul – Michael Singer
• Reinventing Your Life:  The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again
• The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
• Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
• You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
• The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
• You Can Heal Your Life – Louise Hay

Self-Improvement 

• Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment & How It Can Help You Find – Keep – Love
• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
• How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie
• Raving Fans – Ken Blanchard
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
• You are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
• The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
• The 4 Agreements – Don Miguel Ruiz
• The Power of Now – Eckart Tolle
• Your best life now – Joel Osteen
• Women and Self-Esteem
• Untethered Soul – Michael Singer
• Reinventing Your Life:  The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again
• The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
• Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want
• You Can Heal Your Life – Louise Hay

Spiritual Books

• Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity is a Self-Help
• You Can Heal Your Life – Louise Hay

Trauma and Healing

• A Practical Guide to Complex PTSD – Compassionate Strategies to Begin Healing from Childhood Trauma
• Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD Manual
• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving – A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma
• Drama of the Gifted Child
• Getting Past Your Past
• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors
• Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope & Recovery in a Violent World
• Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body
• Feel It Heal It Let It Go (Includes prompts to journal) – Nicole Musap
• Feelings Buried Alive Never Die
• Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery: Take-Charge Strategies to Empower Your Healing
• Highjacked Your Brain: How to Free Yourself When Stress Takes Over
• It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
• It’s Not You, It’s What Happened to You: Complex Trauma & Treatment
• Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love & Recovery in the Aftermath of War
• Rethinking Trauma Treatment: Attachment, Memory Reconsolidation, & Resilience
• Taming the Fire Within: Life After War
• The Body Keeps the Score – Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
• The Body Remembers
• The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity
• The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
• The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships
• The Post Traumatic Growth Guidebook: Practical Mind-Body Tools to Heal Trauma, Foster Resilience & Awake Potential
• Toxic Parents: Susan Forward, Ph.D
• Transforming Living a Legacy of Trauma
• Trauma & Memory by Peter Levine
• Trauma Through a Child’s Eye
• Trauma & Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
• You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay
• Waking the Tiger
• What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, & Healing
• You Can Heal Your Life – Louise Hay