If you’re a fellow bookworm like me, you might be entering the new year with a book list. One thing I was excited to see in the literary world in 2023 was the rise in conversations around mental health. After all, sharing stories and experiences from a vast array of perspectives is integral to destigmatizing the conversation and fostering greater inclusion around the topic.
I rounded up 5 of my favorite books about psychology and mental health from this year, for those who might want to learn more about the topic going into the new year!
1. An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness, a memoir by clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison, examines Jamison’s experience with bipolar disorder and its lasting impact on her childhood growing up. Specifically, it explores the impact the illness had on her professional life, self awareness, and relationships, chronicling her journey to seek proper treatment and the obstacles she encountered on the way.
2. The Color of My Mind: Mental Health Narratives from People of Color is a bilingual health book in English and Spanish. Containing 12 essays on cultural stigmas around mental health that shaped the writers’ experiences, it seeks to answer Latina mental health activist Dior Vargas’ central question: how do people of color experience mental illness?
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3. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk has been a buzzy book on social media for the past two years – and certainly for good reason. Written by a psychiatrist specialising in PTSD research, the book details how trauma reshapes both the mind and body and the scope of its impact.
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4. It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn excavates the lasting effects and cycle of inherited trauma – right down to how it alters one’s genes. It leads readers through a process of introspection and tackles ways to understand and unlearn generational trauma.
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5. Mental Health, Race, and Culture by Suman Fernando is a powerful critical analysis of the barriers to mental health resources amongst minority cultures and the impact of race on the mental health epidemic. Fernando covers theoretical perspectives as well as practical implications across different racial and cultural groups. It especially delves into new discourses in mental health, the mental health of low-income demographics, and non-Western psychiatry and practices.
