Books From Your Therapist

In this episode we’re joined by therapist, author, and somatic practitioner Simone Saunders to explore what it means to truly feel our feelings and reconnect with our bodies. Simone shares how somatic therapy can help us understand safety, regulation, and connection as embodied experiences, and introduces the framework from her book Where Do You Feel That In Your Body?. We also dive into bell hooks’ The Will to Change and explore masculinity, emotional intimacy, and the ways patriarchy teaches men to disconnect from their emotions.

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In this episode, Amanda and Tara explore the “fawn” response to trauma—the lesser-known fourth F alongside fight, flight, and freeze. We discuss Meg Josephson’s Are You Mad at Me?, a trauma-informed guide to people-pleasing, boundaries, and the fear of disappointing others, before turning to Sally Rooney’s Normal People to explore how fawning, self-worth, intimacy, and class anxiety show up in fiction. Plus, we ask the big question: will Connell and Marianne ever learn to be honest about what they really need?

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This month, we're joined by award-winning journalist Amanda McCracken to talk about her debut book, When Longing Becomes Your Lover alongside the classic psychology text Love and Limerence by Dorothy Tennov.

In When Longing Becomes Your Lover, McCracken shares her personal experience with limerence and explores how this unfulfilled desire can quietly become central to our identity. The term limerence was introduced by Dorothy Tennov in her book, Love and Limerence. Through interviews and case studies, this book explores the obsessive thoughts, uncertainty and longing for reciprocation that characterise limerence, while distinguishing it from real love.

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This month we're joined by Dr. Juli Fraga, psychologist and co-author of Parents Have Feelings, Too, to explore emotional honesty, why repair matters more than perfection and how understanding our own emotions helps us raise emotionally healthy children.

Our second book is Orenda Fink's memoir The Witch's Daughter, a beautifully written exploration of mother-daughter relationships, intergenerational trauma, creativity, and resilience. Together we discuss emotional regulation, inherited family patterns, and how storytelling and music can help us make sense of complicated emotional lives.

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In this episode of Books From Your Therapist, we’re joined by therapist and author Dr. Han Ren to discuss her debut book The Hyphenated Life. Dr. Ren is committed to making mental health accessible and resonant, especially for historically overlooked communities and her book is a powerful reflection on navigating identity, belonging, and the complexities of living between cultures.

This conversation is paired with What My Bones Knowby Stephanie Foo, a deeply personal memoir on complex PTSD, trauma, and resilience. We discuss the power of storytelling in healing, the realities of living with trauma, and why understanding your past doesn’t always mean you’re free from it.

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In this episode, Amanda and Tara explore the powerful and often misunderstood difference between loneliness and being alone, and how to find a healthy balance between solitude and connection. The books we're talking about are: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and Alone: On Different Ways of Living by Daniel Schreiber. Through these works, we reflect on friendship, independence, aging, and the many forms love can take beyond romantic relationships.

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In this episode of Books from Your Therapist, we’re joined by therapist and author Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik to talk about her debut book Healing the Oppressed Body. Together, we explore how trauma healing can be reimagined through an anti-oppression lens, centring the experiences of those left out of mainstream mental health conversations. Andrea shares her approach to “oppression-based trauma,” and how compassion, freedom, and community can support deep, sustainable healing.

In the second half of the episode, we discuss The Loving Parent Guidebook by ACA WSO Inc. and explore the practice of reparenting. From inner child work to finding supportive community, this conversation offers thoughtful, practical entry points for anyone curious about healing in a more holistic and inclusive way.

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Content note: this episode includes discussion of trauma.

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This month, we’re diving deep into shame, mother wounds, and the stories women are finally telling out loud.

We sit down with author Melissa Petro to talk about her powerful debut, Shame on You. With fearless honesty, Petro unpacks the social systems that teach women we’re never enough. Blending investigative reporting, science, literature, and raw personal stories—including her own—she challenges the narrative of inadequacy and offers a bold, liberating way forward.

We also explore Mother Hunger by Kelly McDaniel, a groundbreaking look at how unmet childhood needs shape our adult relationships. McDaniel names and destigmatizes the pain of being “under-mothered,” connecting the dots between early trauma and destructive patterns—and, more importantly, offering practical tools for healing, self-understanding, and healthier love.

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This month we talk with Christine Droney, LCSW about grief, dealing with loss and life after death. The books we discuss are Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go by Gina Moffa and When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi.

After nearly two decades of clinical experience and her own journey after losing her mother to cancer, Gina Moffa knows all too well how disorienting, painful, and lonely grief can be. In Moving on Doesn’t Mean Letting Go, she offers a heartfelt, practical map through loss—one that can shift the pain of your grief even when things feel unpredictable and overwhelming.

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. When Breath Becomes Air is a profoundly moving memoir chronicling both his life and death.

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This month we talk with Oona Metz, LICSW about divorce, starting over and discovering yourself again. We discuss Oona's newly released book, Unhitched: The Essential Divorce Guide for Women and Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage by Heather Sweeney.

In Unhitched, nationally recognized divorce expert and therapist Oona Metz provides a compassionate yet practical roadmap through every stage of the divorce process. Filled with key takeaways, reassuring insights, and inclusive stories tailored for women in both heterosexual and LGBTQ+ relationships, Unhitched offers a reassuring guide to life before, during, and after divorce.

Camouflage is about a woman’s journey from being overshadowed by her husband’s military career to rediscovering her identity as a single mother entering a new stage in life. After camouflaging her identity to conform to the expected role of the supportive military spouse, Heather Sweeney emerged from the shadows of her husband’s Navy career to rediscover herself.

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This month we talk with Jenet Dove, LPC about overcoming imposter syndrome and building shame resilience. We discuss Jenet's book Turn the Volume Down on Imposter Syndrome Journal and I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't) by Brené Brown.

In the Turn Down the Volume on Imposter Syndrome Journal, Jenet unpacks seven key components on overcoming imposter syndrome & shares personal anecdotes and guidance alongside space for you to explore your own experiences. Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on shame, why we encounter it and how we can build up resilience to it.

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This month we talk with Zoë Hall, LMFT & LPCC about the intersection of spirituality and mental health. We focus on two books: The Awakened Brain by Lisa Miller and Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Patrice Somé.

The Awakened Brain is a groundbreaking exploration of the neuroscience of spirituality and a bold new paradigm for health, healing, and resilience. In Of Water And The Spirit, is the story of a renowned healer and shaman’s life-changing journey of discovery, healing, and wisdom.

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In this episode, Tara and Amanda dive deep into the theme of love — all kinds of love — through the lens of two iconic books: All About Love by bell hooks and Just Kids by Patti Smith. From radical self-love and friendship to art, grief, and romantic longing, they reflect on how these works have shaped their understanding of what it means to love and be loved. It’s an honest, layered conversation about how we give and receive love — and the stories that stay with us.

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In this episode we’re talking with Haley Graham, licensed clinical social worker. The books we chat about are I Don’t Want To Talk About it: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression by Terrence Real and Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner.

A bestseller for over 20 years, I Don’t Want to Talk About It is a groundbreaking and hopeful guide to understanding and destigmatizing male depression, essential not only for men who may be suffering but for the people who love them. Long Island Compromise is an exhilarating novel about one American family and the dark moment that shatters their suburban paradise, from the New York Times bestselling author of Fleishman Is In Trouble.

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In this episode, we’re talking to Jonah Bayer, LMHC. Jonah is a writer, podcaster, musician and Licensed Mental Health Counselor. We talked to him about his career change from working in music journalism to becoming a therapist, which he wrote about in this great article. The books we discuss are The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and Band People by Franz Nicolay.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, is a spiritual self-help book that emphasizes the importance of living in the present moment to achieve inner peace and enlightenment. The book suggests that much of human suffering stems from dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, and that by focusing on the "now," one can transcend these negative emotions and connect with their true self.

Band People offers a close look at the lives of working musicians who aren’t the center of their stage. Through interviews and incisive cultural critique, writer and musician Franz Nicolay provides a portrait of the musical middle class. Artists talk frankly about their careers and attitudes toward their craft, work environment, and group dynamics of being in a band.

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Also check out How Did We Get Weird with Vanessa Bayer and Jonah Bayer

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In this episode, we’re talking to licensed social worker, Nicholas Rissone. We talked to him about the books It's Not Always Depression by Hilary Jacobs Hendel and Decolonizing Therapy by Dr. Jennifer Mullan.

In It’s Not Always Depression, Hilary Jacobs Hendel tells stories of patients who came to her seeking treatment for depression but in fact none of them were chemically depressed. Instead, she found that they’d all experienced traumas in their youth that caused them to put up emotional defenses that mvasqueraded as symptoms of depression. Jacobs Hendel writes about how she used the Change Triangle to help lead these patients toward more joyful and fulfilling lives.

Decolonizing Therapy is an essential work that centers colonial and historical trauma in a framework for healing. This book illuminates that all therapy is—and always has been— inherently political. To better understand the mental health oppression and institutional violence that exists today, we must become familiar with the root of disembodiment from our histories, homelands, and healing practices. Only then will readers see how colonial, historical, and intergenerational legacies have always played a role in the treatment of mental health.

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Work with Amanda (California residents): https://www.amandathrockmorton.com/

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Pat Radical Therapist

Dr. Raquel Martin

5hahem

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In this episode, we sit down with psychologist, scholar and author Dr. Thomas Vance to discuss book: My Pocket Therapist Journal: Dating & Relationships. Dr. Vance brings his insights and culturally responsive approach to mental health to our conversation, sharing the inspiration behind his 7-week guided journal designed to help people heal from heartbreak, build self-awareness, and foster healthier, more authentic connections. We also discuss Financial Feminist by Tori Dunlap, a book that blends financial literacy with activism. We chat about how emotional well-being and money are deeply connected, particularly for women and marginalised communities, and what it means to build financial independence as a radical, empowering act.

Together, we unpack emotional patterns in dating, the importance of aftercare and how money can be both a source of stress and a tool for liberation. If you’d like to reach out with your own recommendations or are a mental health practitioner interested in coming on to share, you can email us at booksfromyourtherapist@gmail.com.

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This month, it's Amanda and Tara talking about the topic of burnout and ways to prevent it. We're discussing the book Burnout by Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA. We dive into the stress response cycle, what this is and how essential it is to completing the cycle. The second book we talk about is My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh. This book features a protagonist struggling with burnout who is trying to escape the world. It was fun discussing both books and finding the commonalities between them.

If you’d like to reach out with your own recommendations or are a mental health practitioner interested in coming on to share, you can email us at booksfromyourtherapist@gmail.com.

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This month we’re talking to Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming, author of How to Have a Happy Birthday. We chatted about why it's important to honour your birthday and celebrate yourself. The second book we discuss is Elizabeth Gilbert's inspirational Big Magic.

If you’d like to reach out with your own recommendations or are a mental health practitioner interested in coming on to share, you can email us at booksfromyourtherapist@gmail.com.

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This month we’re talking to Christina Taylor, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. Christina helps teens and young adults in North Carolina overcome their self doubt, perfectionism, anxiety and negative experiences, allowing them to embrace and love who they truly are. We talk to Christina about the books What Made Maddy Run by Kate Fagan and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.

If you’d like to reach out with your own recommendations or are a mental health practitioner interested in coming on to share, you can email us at booksfromyourtherapist@gmail.com.

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