(Part 2) Best psychology counseling books according to redditors

Oh yeah, I know that feeling. I was stuck in that hell for years. My escapes were Netflix binges and unfinished craft projects.

I read a ton of self-help books over the years trying to find a way to overcome this. Some were helpful to me, some weren't. What I learned is first, you need to figure out what is behind your actions, or lack thereof. Once you figure this out, you can take steps to overcome it.

Is your inability to finish things due to perfectionism? Fear? Avoidance? Shame? Self-hatred? Lack of discipline? Try and work out what underlies your issues with completing things.

Here are a few books you might find helpful.

Break Free: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in 3 Steps

Beat Fear: The Science of Overcoming, Managing, and Using Fear to Live on Your Own Terms and Break Free of your Mental Prison

The Science of Self-Discipline: The Willpower, Mental Toughness, and Self-Control to Resist Temptation and Achieve Your Goals

The Disciplined Mind: Strengthen Your Willpower, Develop Mental Toughness, Control Your Thoughts, and Get Rid of Your Inner Critic

Biological Psychology by James Kalat is really good. I know it's a textbook, but it's really not boring. If you have an okay background already, this ought to balance accessibility with a bit of depth pretty well.

(Also, a used and/or older edition would suffice.)

I had exactly the same issue for years (and still do, but to a lesser extent). I frequently do presentations at work that generally take about 8 hours to prepare, but I'd procrastinate until a couple of hours before the presentation. This time got shorter and shorter and shorter, sometimes it would be down to literally just a few minutes and I'd have do the presentation entirely off the cuff.

Things are now starting to improve, and I'm back up to perhaps 2 or three hours of preparation. That's still 5 hours of procrastination, but it's a big improvement.

The things that have helped me most are:

• The Adult ADHD Toolkit, or if that's too basic, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Adult ADHD: An Integrative Psychosocial and Medical Approach
  
• The Productivity Planner
  
  There's much more to both books that this, but the #1 technique for me from both books was that every night before I go to bed, I write down ONE thing that I will do tomorrow, and then I make sure that I will do it when I said. At first (and still now sometimes), I still procrastinate. For the first few days, I often started the task at about 2am, because I'd been putting it off, but gradually that time has been getting earlier.
  
  I also track my productivity using a number of homegrown metrics. I enjoy doing that, so it's a form of procrastination but it also forces me to be honest about progress (or lack of it) and provides additional motivation as I want to improve in last week's score.

Sure you can. https://www.amazon.com/Memory-Warp-Repressed-Arose-Refuses-ebook/dp/B077HPWFGC

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One study found they could "recover" false memories of an attack in 56% of people after just 3 sessions with an interviewer. http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1023%2FA:1022344128649

Es gibt Persönlichkeitsstörungen, die man Menschen ansehen kann wie eine körperliche Krankheit. Natürlich können sie es nicht zu 100% sagen, aber dass die Universität so etwas sagt, was ihren Ruf schädigen könnte, spricht auch viel.


Es gibt auch viele Wissenschaftler, die über Narzissmus und Psychopathie geforscht haben, die "normalen" Menschen empfehlen sich das Wissen über Ferndiagnosen anzueignen, damit sie selbst nicht Opfer dieser Menschen werden. Joe Navarro hat lange als Agent beim FBI gearbeitet und ist es jetzt Spezialist für Körpersprache und hat da ein sehr gutes Buch drüber geschrieben. Kann ich nur jedem empfehlen, der es sich schwer tut staubtrockene Fachliteratur zu dem Thema zu konsumieren.



Ich finde es sehr gut, dass die Debatte um Persönlichkeitsstörungen größer geworden ist. Es sind nämlich nicht Parteien, Ideologien, Religionen, die das Hässliche im Menschen zeigen, sondern Persönlichkeitsstörungen und psychische Krankheiten wie Narzissmus.

This one is solid. Earlier editions are good, too

• How to Lie with Statistics by Darrell Huff is a quick and fun read that will sharpen your ability to identify fraudulent claims.
  
  
• My favorite stats book for people who are not math-geeks is Statistical Methods for Psychology by David Howell
  
  
• The particular technique used in the paper is somewhat beyond beginner level. A third good book to read might be Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models by Andrew Gelman

I have had some success with both, mainly #2 coupled with IF/OMAD. IF/OMAD worked because I found that the end of the day was when I would most want to snack and overeat. My eating window was 4p-8p. Since you're already putting/keeping food at the forefront of your mind, it kind of made me a bit more mindful as I ate.

Even though my binges were not necessarily about the food (ie I wasn't doing it because I was hungry or even because the food was all that satisfying or it made me feel better) the appetite suppressants seemed to help not because they made me less hungry (which I really wasn't anyway), but they made food a bit more unappealing.

Currently I am on antidepressants and I have yet to have a binge during the 4 weeks since I've started. Prior to getting anything prescribed, I took St Johns Wort for a couple months and it helped A LOT, though not as well as the prescription meds, for my depression and anxiety. I then decided to give SAM-e a try, and it works a bit better, but is more expensive.

The antidepressants have quieted my mind and taken away a lot of things that drove me to "cope" through binging. If you happen to have Kindle Unlimited, I highly recommend this book I found it much more helpful than the CBT exercises my therapist was giving me.

Not all therapists are the same. It does help educate yourself about the different types of therapists out there, and different degrees. Someone with a PhD is going to have different training and approach than someone trained as an MFT (marriage and family therapist). There are a ton of different degrees, and knowing the differences can save you a lot of time in finding someone who is a good fit for you.


I agree with the other commenter finding a therapist who you feel comfortable with is most important. A good therapist can help you wade through all the stuff/feelings/barriers you described and help you narrow down some goals and give you the skills you need to get there.


It's never a bad idea to call potential therapists and ask them about their approach, how they might work with you, what their availability is. Just by talking with someone you can usually get a good sense of whether or not you'd feel comfortable with them. Therapists can be busy, so don't be afraid to leave a message and they will call you back.


I wrote a whole book about how to find a therapist who is a good match for you, it's called Talk It Out (here is the link).


I'm happy to answer more questions about how to find a therapist here.

All of his books are good, but I'd recommend Why Therapy Doesn't Work, first of all, as well as The Nature of Unhappiness since they're both two-books-in-one collections. Power, Interest, and Psychology was his last book, though, and it's his most complete, at least from a theoretical perspective. Taking Care, which is in Why Therapy Doesn't Work, is my personal favorite.

Like most have posted already, existentialism wont be a brief experience. You mentioned that clients are seeing the world as meaningless. I would suggest looking at Motivational Interviewing. This would be a brief form of therapy that you can incorporate some existential teachings. I describe existentialism as my cornerstone to therapy but I use CBT/MI as my main voice. There are some good books that will give you some specific means of existential therapy. I have used these:
Skills in Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy: Van Deurzen,
Existential Counselling & Psychotherapy in Practice: Van Deurzen,
and dont forget Yalom

There are a lot of existential philosophers that wrote novels like camus and sartre (my favorite) that will help with your understanding of existentialism.

Psychiatric Interviewing by Shawn Shea, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder by Marsha Linehan, and CFT Made Simple by Russell Kolts.

Plenty of others ... what sort of specific topics are you interested in?

For counseling a client I recommend https://www.amazon.com/Synthesis-Counseling-Astrology-Professional-Manual/dp/156718734X

The reason I recommend SCA is because Noel masterfully integrates/synthesizes his astrological wisdom seamlessly with his knowledge of modern psychology. The emphasis is about as much or more of what you know about life than what you need to know about astrology. This is the most helpful book in my library.

Best of luck,

HVA

This is the textbook we use in my program. It gives an overview of many theories, including a brief history of each, and challenges students to think about utilizing multiple theoretical approaches. I don't think I have read any non-textbooks about it but that doesn't mean they don't exist.

NurtureShock: New Thinking about Children

Parenting From the Inside Out

The Whole-Brained Child

Definitely recommend this book for a really useful guide to the interpersonal approach for beginning clinicians. It's expensive but it's worth it.

You might like www.emotionallyvague.com, it seems inline with your question.

For more advanced ideas about this look into Bioenergetic Analysis.

Some free documents about that approach can be found here.

Bob Hilton has a nice book available on Kindle about "relational somatic therapy" here

In general somatic therapies like bioenergetics, hakomi, somatic experiencing work with embodied emotional experience. Note that bioenergetics and its descendants such as core energetics and hakomi come from a Freudian psychoanalysis perspective (by way of Wilhelm Reich, in particular his books "Character Analysis" and "The Function of the Orgasm"), while somatic experiencing comes from an ethological neurobiological perspective.

Embodied Cognition is also looking at this from a more cognitive perspective.

1. BA psychology, MA psychology, PhD in progress - counseling psychology (a clinical or applied specialty)
   
   
2. Just general for undergrad, and counseling psych
   
   
3. 11 years (geeze)
   
   
4. yes of course, with a BA you can advance in a company just like anything else. For instance I started out as a case manager, then a supervisor, then after my addictions certification began facilitating group treatment on the clinical team.
   
   
5. email, poster presentations, convention symposia, peer-reviewed journal articles, pop-psych periodicals
   
   
6. not really, although I've only been in the clinical realm. I suppose the important, must-attend conferences are different for each specialty, and within each individual area of interest.
   
   
7. Yes, statistical analysis packages (e.g. SPSS, SAS, R), online literature searches (e.g. psychinfo, google scholar), email, citation software (e.g. endnote, mendeley), online journal submission portals (e.g. scholar one), telecounseling, and many more have made things easier and more accessible.
   
   
8. These are different for each specialty, for me: DSM-5, Interpersonal Process in Therapy, and Existential Psychotherapy.
   
   
9. A grant writing class, publishing class, presentation class, and addictions curriculum would improve things.
   
   
10. Well you'll learn by doing, but these would help in preparation to enter the field.
    
    
11. Addictions treatment
    
    
12. A BA/BS may not get you in the mental health field. Be okay with this, or be prepared to take on postgraduate study.

If you did not struggle with stats in undergrad, I would not worry about it, to be honest.

I was also out of school for 4 years before starting and I did not have any difficulties with the statistics classes we started with. My intro stats classes in grad school covered much of the material that we did in undergrad, just more in-depth, more variations on the tests, and we were expected to understand the math behind the equations more fundamentally.

If it happens to be helpful, my first two quarters of stats had these textbooks:

Statistical Methods for Psychology - https://www.amazon.com/Statistical-Methods-Psychology-David-Howell/dp/0495597848/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523397437&sr=8-2&keywords=statistical+methods+for+psychology&dpID=51T8KyWmliL&preST=_SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

and

Design and Analysis: A Researcher's Handbook - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0135159415/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_3?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A17LQ734FP5YDC

Please do not pay lots of money for them.

If it is at all helpful (aka not stressful), I also took a pic of my "map of statistical analyses", which basically has the non-fancy statistics - https://imgur.com/xw6cGxM Do NOT look at this and be like "oh no!". Look at it and be like, "Oh yeah, an ANOVA (Analysis of Variance) is a thing that exists."

If you do decide to spend a little time reviewing, I strongly recommend not spending a lot of time on it and not feeling worried about it. This is your time to unwind a bit and you should enter your program feeling chill and relaxed if it all possible. You got it because you are smart, passionate, and hard working, and, as a result, you will do fine in statistics.

• Rick Perlstein, Nixonland
  
• Frederick Clarkson Eternal Hostility
  
• Jeff Sharlet The Family
  
• Michelle Goldberg Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
  
• Chris Hedges American Fascists
  
  There are more, but I forget them at the moment, and I really can't speak highly enough of the ones I've listed already. Nixonland is more a study of the conservative movement in general, and damned thorough one too. The rest are more focused on the religious right proper. I'd start with Eternal Hostility and The Family and work your way from there.

I think everyone should review his book:
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Art-Solution-Focused-Counseling-Second/dp/1556203322/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1368692523&sr=1-2&keywords=mastering+the+art+of+solution-focused+counseling

This is more a textbook than a light read, but it's by far the best "intro" sort of neuroscience text I've come across. Very readable, and strikes a good balance between simplicity and complexity.
http://www.amazon.com/Biological-Psychology-James-W-Kalat/dp/0495603007/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302796831&sr=1-2