Books on Mental Health, Emotions, and Healing

Understanding mental health, emotions, and healing is important for everyone. Mental health management and understanding is not exclusive to those with a diagnosable mental illness. Emotions impact anyone with a brain. Healing is part of the human expierence. These are some of my favorite non-fiction reads on mental health, emotions, and healing that helped me understand my own mind.

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Author: Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman is a Harvard educated psychologist who is widely considered as the "father of emotional intelligence." This 1995 novel discusses decades of groundbreaking brain and behavioral research that still remains relevant today. This book helped me differentiate between my emotional and rational brain, helped me identify and manage my own emotions, and better read the emotions of others. 

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
Author: Bessel van der Kolk

Bessel van der Kolk is a Dutch psychiatrist and one of the world's foremost experts on trauma. This book provides a validating account of how trauma reshapes both the brain and the body and how to activate the brain's natural neuroplasticity and overcome trauma. 

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
Author: Mark Wolynn

Mark Wolynn is a world leader and educator in the field of family trauma. This book describes how traumatic experiences are past down through generations. These traumatic memories can live on in both gene expression and everyday language and impact both mental and physical health. Most importantly the knowledge in this book can help you break the cycle. 
 

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