Welcome to an insightful journey through the '26 Best Mental Health Books of 2023,' written by Muhiuddin Alam on the book recommendations and reviews site, ReadingAndThinking.com.
Over the years as a leading authority on literary expertise, I've created numerous articles on the topics of Health Fitness Books, many of which can be found on this site.
I have received many requests to recommend some of the mental health books. In response, I'm pleased to offer my expert recommendations in this article.
I will recommend you best mental health books in 2023 in this post, which is based on my in-depth study and testing in this field. Such as This Is Depression, We've Been Too Patient, This Too Shall Pass, Black Pain, Own Your Self, and Be Calm.
These aren't the only books on this topic. Below, you'll find 26 books with detailed descriptions of each of these outstanding resources, helping you make well-informed decisions to choose best-selling mental health books.
If you need some positive content to consume then these mental health books are for you.
All in all, a person's mental health is very important to oneself, and ensuring one's mental health is also the primary task of people.
People must adhere to a healthy and scientific lifestyle, and explain their inner depression in a reasonable and timely manner so that they can be mentally and physically healthy.
Please pick at least one book according to your needs, according to the description that I gave, and if it suits you,
Related Topics: Health & Fitness Books
1. This Is Depression
This Is Depression: A Comprehensive, Compassionate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Understand Depression by Diane McIntosh
This is depression, psychiatrist, Dr. Diane McIntosh shares what she's experienced in the last 20 years. she's been working with patients who have been diagnosed with depression. she takes readers through common causes of depression and the diagnosis process for depression.
And the many possible treatment options an individual may be prescribed her take on the topic is not only founded in research but her use of stories shared by patients also provides real-life examples for anyone experiencing depression in their own life.
this book is a necessary guide for anyone who faces depression whether their own or loved ones in their life.
2. We've Been Too Patient
We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health--Stories and Research Challenging the Biomedical Model by L. D. Green
We've been too patient as a collection of 25 stories and essays that portray the unfortunate reality of many who have been diagnosed with a mental illness editors Kolechia Ubozo consultant and keynote speaker and led green advocate and author diligently curated stories of mental health experiences all in an attempt to break the stigmas that so easily surround the mental health space.
These stories while in many cases hard to stomach shed light on experiences of medication electroconvulsive therapy involuntary hospitalization and other traumatic events that can forever alter someone's life their discussion of the systemic problems within mental health care educates readers to empower writers and breaks stigmas.
3. This Too Shall Pass
This Too Shall Pass: Stories of Change, Crisis and Hopeful Beginnings by Julia Samuel
Psychotherapist Julia Samuel uses hours of conversations with patients to showcase how individuals adapt differently in the face of hardship backed by academic medical research in her analysis of the story.
She shares clearly explains how mental health is different for every person yet the prioritization of positive mental health should remain the same.
4. Black Pain
Black Pain: It Just Looks Like We're Not Hurting by Terrie M. Williams
Mental health advocate Terry Williams knows that black people are hurting, she knows because she is one of them in black paint. Williams addresses the topic of depression a topic that is still taboo, especially in the black community with down-to-earth discussions.
Williams tackles emotional pain and how it uniquely affects the black experience encouraging women and men to seek the help they need without feeling ashamed having experienced depression first-hand after overworking herself as the head of a demanding public relations company.
Williams knows what it takes to finally come to terms with your inner sorrow she reminds us that we are brave, not cowardly for facing our traumas head-on and finding solutions with the help of others.
5. Own YourSelf
Own Your Self: The Surprising Path Beyond Depression, Anxiety, and Fatigue to Reclaiming Your Authenticity, Vitality, and Freedom by Kelly Brogan
While medication is a common method for handling mental health disorders holistic psychiatrist Kelly Brogan MD offers alternatives.
she discusses how the symptoms we face in mental illness are not always in need of fixing but instead need to be processed accepted and then healed with non-medicated methods with research to back her up.
She lays out how to identify factors find transformative emotional opportunities and find ways to heal your mind from within dr brogan believes that when there is a prioritization of self-care individuals will find themselves with clearer sharper mental health.
6. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
Therapist Lori Gottlieb got a taste of her own medicine when after an incident that left her shaken and confused, she found herself on the therapy couch.
She has the education to be a doctor but now her experience has made her the patient as well her perspective expands to understand and feel both sides of a therapy appointment in her witty endearing story of self-discovery.
She discusses the truths and lies we all tell ourselves examining the harm they can cause when allowed to be out of control maybe you should talk to someone who will make you feel heard while encouraging you to open up and reach out to the people who are there to listen.
7. Your Happiness Toolkit
Your Happiness Toolkit: 16 Strategies for Overcoming Depression, and Building a Joyful, Fulfilling Life by Carrie M. Wrigley LCSW
Carrie Maxwell Wrigley has been a counselor for 30 years her career has largely been focused on providing applicable steps for individuals struggling with their mental health your happiness toolkit follows this focus.
It provides a simple understanding of what depression is and what feeds or fights that depression she provides a self-assessment model to help individuals identify what their depression is.
And she offers 16 self-help tools that help them overcome it and find happiness your happiness toolkit is a guide for both those experiencing psychological issues and loved ones trying to help them along the way.
8. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Made Simple: 10 Strategies For Managing Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Panic, And Worry by Seth J. Gillihan
Cognitive-behavioral therapy made simple takes the concept of mindfulness to the next level with its 10 strategies for improving an individual's mental health.
Author, Seth J. Gilligan's Ph.D. focuses on effective tools like identifying negative thoughts that allow individuals to find relief from their anxiety and depression while each tool is thoroughly backed with research the book serves as an easy-to-read manual full of small simple steps that lead to success.
9. Be Calm
Be Calm: Proven Techniques to Stop Anxiety Now by Jill Weber PhD
Jill Weber Ph. D. is a clinical psychologist who helps people of all backgrounds manage their anxiety become takes all that knowledge and divides it into three sections feelings, behaviors, and thoughts each section takes the main anxiety symptom an individual finds themselves.
Facing and providing an explanation for that symptom techniques to control it and a path to finding intercoms are easy to read understand and apply to your life no matter what situation you find yourself in.
10. Own Your Anxiety
Own Your Anxiety: 99 Simple Ways to Channel Your Secret Edge by Julian Brass
Anxiety coach Julian Brass's career has been spent guiding individuals toward empowerment in the face of anxiety own your anxiety provides readers with tools that focus on what they are able to control positive action and motivation instead of viewing anxiety as a disorder to be ashamed of brass encourages
readers to look at their anxiety as an intimate aspect of who they are to be shaped not hidden he combines medical research and personal experiences to provide a resource that leads readers toward a healthier happier life.
11. Attitude Is Everything
This book is clearly about how your attitude can change everything in your life it depends on how you are looking at things and if you can just change your attitude change your perspective from looking at everything in a negative way to shifting towards a positive attitude a positive perspective your life can also change at a great level.
I recommend this book highly for beginners because it's thin the language is very easy and the author is literally just talking to you it is so candid that you will have so much fun reading it.
12. Notes on a Nervous Planet
This book is so good but I don't highly recommend it to people who are not avid readers of self-help books, you can start with it's not like the language stuff or something but the entire layout the entire structure of the book is very different from like any other general book.
This entire book has been written in the format of notes itself it's like the author is taking one paper every single day and writing notes on our nervous planet and the author has talked about all the mental health issues we are having right now.
How we have so much information to consume right now, which is boggling to our brains, and how we must be very choosy about the kind of content we are consuming.
The author has also given examples of his own life experiences which really makes the book very very relatable and towards the end, the author also gives us practical things that we can do in order to take care of our mental health.
which is why I love this book so much it is easy to read it has the philosophy but it also has practicality so if you want to read something like this if you want to read something on mental health if you want to read about information consumption and everything please pick this book.
13. The Four Agreements
The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz
This book is a little fear to recommend as a mental health book but at the same time, it talks about the four things that you're supposed to accept you're supposed to understand about the world and about yourself, and once you agree to these just simple four things your life will change.
It is a very short book honestly speaking but I still won't recommend it to beginners in the reading world fine if you are trying it try it at you know at your own risk like it's not like to talk or something like that.
It's a very thin book also but at the same time the principles that the book has talked about are so so heavy on the head and they're so so important I would name the principles but if I say the principles right now then there is no point of reading the book at all.
14. What to Say When You Talk to Yourself
This book is like just like the title suggests it's about what you are supposed to tell yourself when you are talking to yourself now listen to me guys, especially during quarantine or even in general days of our life there are so many times when there is nobody else that we are talking to we are just talking to ourselves in our mind so many times,
we have so many voices of our own and at other times, we have the voices of other people in our heads but it is talking to us as if we are talking to ourselves and self-positive talk is extremely important.
If you want to have good mental health this book will teach you step by step how you are supposed to talk to yourself how to do self-positive talk and what kind of effects it can have on your life.
If you are a beginner in the reading world it will take you a little bit of time to like get into the book and read it and finish it specifically but it is such a good book and it is so important that I highly recommend it to everybody.
15. Peace Is Every Breath
This book will teach you how you don't even need to like to do big things in your life in order to meet Bheem mindful or in order to be peaceful and calm when I read the book I was so amazed as to how the author has explained step by step in your entire day.
When you can do the smallest things that will help you to be mindful and it will help you to have amazing mental health again it is so easy it is so practical the language also is so easy therefore yes I recommend it to anybody to read it.
16. Why You're Still Stuck
This book I read this in February I guess and it is one of the best first books ever that I have read on being stuck, this book won't tell you the basic things that you know you're supposed to find what motivates you and then go towards it and all those kind of things like that.
This book will actually just dive into your brain it will take a deep dive into your brain it will start opening it slowly and slowly and you will realize why you are still stuck in your life now.
Why I am recommending this book here is that the language is easy but the content is amazing.
Secondly, I feel like because we're staying at home, there can be so much anxiety and you may feel so much like you're not doing anything like you're not achieving enough maybe, or like you're not going out so you're not doing anything for your life and all those kind of things.
On the other hand, there may be so many people who will be at home right now and reflecting upon their lives and they'll be like, what am I even doing in my life is this really what I want to do they will feel stuck in their life how that is where this book comes into play and it is one of the worst books out there that will help you to become unstuck.
17. Turtles All the Way Down
I'm following John Green's "Incomparably Wonderful Pain" to pursue his new work-"Turtles All the Way Down". In the beginning, I was overwhelmed by the author's description of the obsessive-compulsive disorder-like stream of consciousness. I have to say that John has a lot of experience in describing the inner feelings of people with obsessive-compulsive disorder or anxiety.
Throughout the book, the heroine has been struggling with the "Spiral of Thinking". When the "Spiral of Thinking" breaks out, one after another devastating thoughts will pop up in her mind. Can't get rid of it. In an interview with us on Monday, Green said that the reason why he described the terrible thoughts of the protagonist in detail was that it reminded him of himself.
Green said: "When I fall into the spiral of thinking', the real problem is not whether I can break free at this moment, but that I may not break free for the rest of my life. I will be bound by it for the rest of my life. It fights until the day I die. This is terrible."
Whether it is for Green or the characters in his works, explaining and expressing to others the mental illness he is experiencing is a core difficulty. Throughout the book, Aza tries her best to explain her inner experience to the people around her.
Green said: "In the face of pain, language will appear pale and weak, which is why pain is always a lonely experience." Aza did not express pain directly but chose to use the metaphor of "spiral of thinking" to refer to it. generation.
A member of the group named Jason had a similar performance. He himself suffered from anxiety and depression. Jason asked Green how he came up with such a metaphor.
Green said that the inspiration came from a painting by Raymond Pettibon: "When I saw this painting, I thought to myself, that's it, that's how it feels.'"
In the book, people around Aza—including her mother, her best friend, and the person she has a crush on—have different reactions to her illness: some want to cure her desperately; some treat her as nothing. You're welcome; some seem to be very indifferent.
Green wanted to show how hard it is to watch the person he loves struggling with mental illness, and "can't stop the pain, and even have no way to deal with all this"-this is how difficult it is.
For himself, Green hopes that people around him can be patient. He said: "The best partner will always tell me that no matter how uncomfortable you or your loved one are, you will always be rewarded with warm care. Be patient and let your loved ones know Everything will pass, and spring will always come.
As I grew older, I gradually realized that when you try to accept your imperfect self, the world also accepts you unknowingly.
18. Daris the Great is Not Okay
I bought it in the new book section of the bookstore in 2018 and bought a Paperback by the way. I didn't expect it to be watched until three years later. The serial episodes were released, and even the movies were arranged. It was basically an Iranian-style introduction. My favorite plot may be the part about interacting with my father.
Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He's a Fractional Persian—half, of his mom's side—and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life.
Darius has never really fit in at home, and he's sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn't exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes.
Soon, they're spending their days together, playing soccer, eating value, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city's skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he's Darioush to Sohrab.
Adib Khorram’s brilliant debut is for anyone who’s ever felt not good enough—then met a friend who makes them feel so much better than okay.
19. Watch Over Me
Mila is used to being alone. Maybe that’s why she said yes to the opportunity: living in this remote place, among the flowers and the fog and the crash of waves far below.
But she hadn’t known about the ghosts.
Newly graduated from high school, Mila has aged out of the foster care system. So when she’s offered a job and a place to stay at a farm on an isolated part of the Northern California Coast, she immediately accepts. Maybe she will finally find a new home, a real home.
The farm is a refuge but also haunted by the past traumas its young residents have come to escape. And Mila’s own terrible memories are starting to rise to the surface.
Watch Over Me is another stunner from Printz Award-winning author Nina LaCour, whose empathetic, lyrical prose is at the heart of this modern ghost story of resilience and rebirth.
Nina LaCour grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her first job was at fourteen in an independent bookstore, and she has since worked in two others. She has tutored and taught in various places, from a juvenile hall to a private college. She now teaches English at an independent high school.
Nina lives in Oakland, California with her wife and their two cute cats. Visit her online at www.ninalacour.com.
20. Highly Illogical Behavior
Sixteen-year-old Solomon has agoraphobia. He hasn't left his house in 3 years. Ambitious Lisa is desperate to get into a top-tier psychology program.
And so when Lisa learns about Solomon, she decides to befriend him, cure him, and then write about it for her college application.
To earn Solomon's trust, she introduces him to her boyfriend Clark, and starts to reveal her own secrets.
But what started as an experiment led to a real friendship, with all three growing close. But when the truth comes out, what erupts could destroy them all.
Funny and heartwarming, Highly Illogical Behavior is a fascinating exploration of what makes us tick, and how the connections between us may be the most important things of all.
21. How It Feels to Float
Biz knows how to float, right there on the surface--normal okay regular fine. She has her friends, her mom, and the twins. She has Grace. And she has her dad, who shouldn't be here but is.
So Biz doesn't tell anyone anything--not about her dark, runaway thoughts, not about kissing Grace or noticing Jasper, the new boy. And not about seeing her dad. Because her dad died when she was seven.
But after what happens on the beach, the tethers that hold Biz steady come undone. Her dad disappears and, with him, all comfort. It might be easier, better, and sweeter to float all the way away?
Or maybe stay a little longer, find her father, and bring him back to her. Or maybe--maybe maybe maybe--there's a third way Biz just can't see yet.
Debut author Helena Fox tells a story about love, grief, and inter-generational mental illness, exploring the loss of the hard and beautiful places that can take us, and honoring those who hold us tightly when the current wants to tug us out to sea.
22. Every Last Word
Samantha McAllister looks just like the rest of the popular girls in her junior class. But hidden beneath the straightened hair and expertly applied makeup is a secret that her friends would never understand: Sam has Purely-Obsessional OCD and is consumed by a stream of dark thoughts and worries that she can't turn off.
Second-guessing every move, thought, and word makes daily life a struggle, and it doesn't help that her lifelong friends will turn toxic at the first sign of a wrong outfit, wrong lunch, or wrong crush.
Yet Sam knows she'd be truly crazy to leave the protection of the most popular girls in school.
So when Sam meets Caroline, she has to keep her new friend with a refreshing sense of humor and no style a secret, right up there with Sam's weekly visits to her psychiatrist.
Caroline introduces Sam to Poet's Corner, a hidden room and a tight-knit group of misfits who have been ignored by the school at large.
Sam is drawn to them immediately, especially a guitar-playing guy with a talent for verse, and starts to discover a whole new side of herself.
Slowly, she begins to feel more "normal" than she ever has as part of the popular crowd . . . until she finds a new reason to question her sanity and all she holds dear.
23. Look Me In The Eye: My Life With Asperger’s
This book has a place that makes people think, moves people, and makes people warm.
Growing up author John Elder looked back at his own experience when he was a child and found that Asperger had such a profound impact on every aspect of his life as a child, and social problems have deeply troubled him since he was a child.
Fortunately, he was smart enough, focused, and studious enough, and his skills were enough to make up for his emotional intelligence flaws and barely live a life.
His family is a mystery in my mind. His father's alcoholism is getting more and more fierce, and his mother's mental problems are getting worse.
As a university professor with a stable job, why did John's father drink a little alcohol every day to drink in cans every day? Because of alcoholism, my temper became grumpy, and it was terrible to start abusing children.
Every time he thinks of the scene where he uses Varmint's forehead to extinguish the smoke, he feels creepy and deeply saddened.
My supervisor said that raising a child with autism is a very stressful thing, which will seriously affect the marriage relationship.
Of course, John's parents themselves are very traumatized people, and it is normal for them to affect the marriage relationship.
When he grew up, John learned to reconcile with his father. He remembered that he had a happy life when he was a child. It is really hard to accept the parents who hate and love him like this.
Asperger himself does not have much concept of social cues. Adding to the alcoholic father and the mother with mental problems, everything becomes more incomprehensible, because the feedback from the outside world to him is inconsistent, and he does not know how to deal with it. all of these.
Fortunately, he passed everything safely in ignorance. He has neither gone bad into prison nor has he been tainted by the dirty environment.
He is still immersed in his own world, doing what he likes to do and staying away from the things that make him uncomfortable.
It's also great for John to have a younger brother, at least they can depend on each other in the hardest years. They are all good storytellers, and this is really inherited from their parents' good intelligence and language skills.
When reading the epilogue, I really felt warmed up. After 50 years of ups and downs, John can finally feel society like an ordinary person, reflect on life, and write this paragraph:
With the insight gained from writing the book, I now believe my parents did the best they could under tough circumstances.
They were both damaged as children, and my brother and I grew up damaged as a result.
But the damage is not always permanent, nor is it always passed down from one generation to the next. I'm Okay today, and so is my brother.
24. An Untamed State
Roxane Gay is a powerful new literary voice whose short stories and essays have already earned her an enthusiastic audience.
In An Untamed State, she delivers an assured debut about a woman kidnapped for ransom, her captivity as her father refuses to pay her husband fights for her release over thirteen days, and her struggle to come to terms with the ordeal in its aftermath.
Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, and by all appearances a perfect life.
The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port-au-Prince estate.
Held captive by a man who calls himself "The Commander," Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom.
As it becomes clear her father intends to resist the kidnappers, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.
An Untamed State is a novel of privilege in the face of crushing poverty, and the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce.
It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places.
An Untamed State establishes Roxane Gay as a writer of prodigious, arresting talent.
25. The Year of Magical Thinking
"It turns out that before the sadness begins, none of us will know what it is like." We are still on the way to life, but we have to face death. Joan Didion’s mourning work was praised as soon as it was published in the United States.
The author did not excessively exaggerate the nobility of the object of mourning in a lyrical and nostalgic way.
Instead, he chose a more exquisite and peculiar writing technique, completely disrupting the narrative before and after death, deliberately as close as possible to a real one, while facing the serious illness of the lover, the woman's seeing, thinking, feelings, and thoughts.
It was during my undergraduate course in creative writing that the teacher gave me this sample essay. I can still be overwhelmed by the author's sudden grief in an instant.
"Life changes quickly. Life changes instantly. You sit down and eat, and the life you know is over." Documents that dare not reopen, bloody nights with missing memories, lights on and off in the emergency room, messy footsteps, all these make up the traces of Joan Didion’s sudden loss of her husband.
That’s the sorrow. Suddenly, the accustomed life collapsed. The author must have consulted a large number of books on medicine, psychology, philosophy, and so on that study sorrow.
She even raised her own question as to why human beings should let time pass to heal sorrow, just as sorrow is inevitably healed by time.
"I want more than one night's memories and sighs. I want to scream. I want him to come back."
Joan Didion is surprisingly sensible and calm at the most superficial level, but behind this, she, However, the shoes of the dead were kept for a year.
After accepting the fact that death is irreversible, Didion reveals her true desires to our readers.
This impossible thought came closest to the essence of sorrow, disordered breathing, choked throat, untouchable old place, as well as the early snowfall and the gift that only John gave her.
How was she then? Unexpectedly, he only had twenty-five nights left to spend. "We want to forget the fate of death, but we can't do it."
Didion apparently spent a lot of time and energy this year reorganizing the memories of John's death and before, which is indeed doubly tormenting. The results are gratifying.
The long-lasting pain must not end, but as Didion said, when the year was about to end, she suddenly discovered that she had to end the time keeping track of what she did a year ago today. Method-After that, a year ago, today is no longer a day without John.
She thought about mourning, and at the same time, she truly realized that she was getting older and dying is the true value of life, and the essence of the sorrow caused by mourning is self-mourning, which is self-pity.
So she can come out because she bravely admits that this kind of self-mourning will end sooner or later.
"We try to keep the dead alive so that they can be with us. If we are to live alone, sooner or later we will abandon the dead, let them go away, let them die. Let them sink under the water." This did not make it easy.
However, I think Didion finally found the answer. In the memory of the deceased, her beloved people kept whispering their vows of love to her and their daughter-
"I love you, and love for one more day." Not enough." I know that loving you is the most vulgar word, but how can I stop talking?
26. Mental Health Awareness
Mental Health Awareness: What You Need to Know about Mental Illness (Mental health awareness, mental illness, symptoms, and signs, diagnosis, treatments, drugs) by Patricia A. Carlisle
This book contains information on what causes Mental illness and other factors about how to maintain healthier mental health.
Millions of Americans live with various types of mental illness and mental health problems. Mental illness refers to a wide range of mental health conditions and disorders that affect your mood; thinking and behavior.
Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and addictive behaviors. Many people have mental health concerns from time to time.
But a mental health concern becomes a mental illness when ongoing signs and symptoms cause frequent stress and affect your ability to function A mental illness can make you miserable and can cause problems in your daily life, such as at work or in relationships.
In most cases, symptoms can be managed with a combination of medications and counseling (psychotherapy).
Mental illness is any disease or condition that influences the way a person thinks, feels, behaves, and/or relates to others and to his or her surroundings.
Although the symptoms of mental illness can range from mild to severe and are different depending on the type of mental illness, a person with an untreated mental illness often is unable to cope with life’s daily routines and demands.
Check out more Mental Health Books on Amazon.com
Conclusion of the best mental health books in 2023
If you are willing to buy any of these best mental health books 2023 yes these are my recommendations this is what I have to say about mental health right now.
I hope you enjoyed the article and you will pick up at least 2 books for yourself that will help with your mental health problem.
Please do share the article if you think it is helpful so that it can help other people too.
