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An annotated bibliographic and clinical directory of 146 books across the history and practice of psychotherapy and counselling. Entries contain draft descriptions, references and, where available, cover attributions.
Bibliographic details and source descriptions require further verification. A listed source or cover attribution does not by itself establish accuracy or permission to reproduce an image.
Entries do not give star ratings, do not rank books, and do not claim superiority of one therapeutic modality over another. They are educational reference records rather than commercial reviews, and they contain no affiliate links.
- Catalogued books
- 146
- Tradition categories
- 8
- Source-mapped claims
- 220
- Source records
- 481
Directory
146 books
- Cognitive & behavioural · Self-Help & Client WorkbookA Guide to Rational LivingIn A Guide to Rational Living (1961), Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper present a self-help approach that examines connections between thinking and emotion. This entry identifies the original Prentice-Hall edition.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceA Mind That Found Itself: An AutobiographyClifford Whittingham Beers’s 1908 memoir recounts his experience in psychiatric institutions in Connecticut and the abuse he witnessed. It became influential in his campaign for mental health reform in the United States.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographA Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment TheoryBy John Bowlby. His account of attachment theory and how it bears on parent-child relationships and clinical work.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographAcceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior ChangeA 1999 clinical book by Steven C. Hayes, Kirk D. Strosahl and Kelly G. Wilson introducing acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographAffect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the SelfAffect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self (2002) presents Peter Fonagy and colleagues’ account of mentalization, attachment and emotional development.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Clinical & Theoretical MonographAn Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and PracticeJohn McLeod’s introductory textbook surveys counselling and psychotherapy theory, research and practice. This record describes the sixth edition, published in 2019.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceAn Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and MadnessPsychologist Kay Redfield Jamison’s memoir describes her experience of bipolar illness alongside her career studying mood disorders. First published in 1995, it reflects on illness, treatment and disclosure.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Cultural & Historical CritiqueAsylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other InmatesIn Asylums (1961), sociologist Erving Goffman examines life in institutions, drawing in part on fieldwork at St Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, DC.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographAttachment and Loss, Volume 1: AttachmentBy John Bowlby. The 1969 foundational volume of the Attachment and Loss trilogy, reformulating human bonding through ethology, evolution and control systems.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographAttachment and Loss, Volume 2: Separation: Anxiety and AngerBy John Bowlby. The 1973 second volume of Attachment and Loss, examining separation distress, anxious attachment, anger and internal working models.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographBorderline Conditions and Pathological NarcissismOtto F. Kernberg’s 1975 book presents a psychoanalytic account of borderline conditions and pathological narcissism.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceBuilding a Life Worth Living: A MemoirMarsha M. Linehan’s memoir describes her experiences of psychiatric treatment and the development of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT).
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographChange: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem ResolutionPaul Watzlawick, John H. Weakland and Richard Fisch’s Change, first published in 1974, presents a problem-focused account of persistence and change in psychotherapy.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Clinical & Theoretical MonographChanging for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively ForwardChanging for Good (1994) introduces the transtheoretical model of behaviour change for a general audience. James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross and Carlo C. DiClemente describe stages and processes that they propose can help explain attempts to change habits.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Clinical & Theoretical MonographCharacter AnalysisWilhelm Reich’s Character Analysis presents his psychoanalytic account of character and resistance. Later editions also discuss his proposed relationship between psychological defences and muscular tension.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographClient-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and TheoryCarl R. Rogers’s 1951 book describes client-centred therapy and its implications for practice and theory.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideClues: Investigating Solutions in Brief TherapySteve de Shazer’s Clues (1988) describes solution-focused brief therapy and uses cases and a computer-assisted analysis to explore how solutions develop.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and BeyondJudith S. Beck’s clinical guide introduces cognitive behavioural therapy and its application in treatment. The third edition (2020) adds a recovery-oriented emphasis to the traditional CBT approach.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographCognitive Therapy and the Emotional DisordersIn Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders (1976), Aaron T. Beck expanded his cognitive model from depression to the full spectrum of neurotic disorders, introducing the concept of "cognitive specificity" (loss in depression, danger in anxiety, transgression in anger) and contrasting "automatic thoughts" with accessible conscious meaning.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems: What to Do When the Basics Don’t WorkIn Cognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems (2005), Judith S. Beck addresses the clinical impasses that arise when standard CBT protocols encounter entrenched personality pathology, alliance ruptures, chronic avoidance, or therapist cognitions that interfere with treatment.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCognitive Therapy of DepressionCognitive Therapy of Depression (1979), by Aaron T. Beck, A. John Rush, Brian F. Shaw and Gary Emery, presents a structured approach to cognitive therapy for depression.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographCognitive-Behavior Modification: An Integrative ApproachDonald Meichenbaum’s Cognitive-Behavior Modification (1977) presents an approach to behaviour change that attends to thinking and self-instruction. It includes discussions of self-instructional training and stress inoculation training.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality DisorderMarsha M. Linehan’s 1993 clinical guide describes dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) for borderline personality disorder, including a balance of acceptance and change.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCollaborative Case Conceptualization: Working Effectively with Clients in Cognitive-Behavioral TherapyIn Collaborative Case Conceptualization (2009), Willem Kuyken, Christine A. Padesky, and Robert Dudley address the notoriously weak inter-rater reliability of traditional case formulations by proposing a structured, three-level model (descriptive, cross-sectional, and longitudinal) grounded in collaborative empiricism and client resilience.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCompassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive FeaturesIn Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features (2010), Paul Gilbert provides a structured 30-point clinical manual for therapists, dividing Compassion-Focused Therapy into 15 theoretical features (evolutionary functional analysis, social mentality theory, forms and functions of self-criticism, fears of compassion) and 15 practical techniques (compassionate formulation, chairwork, imagery, and soothing rhythm breathing).
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideConjoint Family Therapy: A Guide to Theory and TechniqueVirginia Satir’s Conjoint Family Therapy (1964) presents an approach to working with families together. This entry identifies the 1964 publication.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographCounseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in PracticeIn Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice (1942), Carl R. Rogers presents his developing non-directive approach to counselling. The book contrasts directive and non-directive methods and includes a transcript of eight interviews with a client identified as Herbert Bryan.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideCounseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and PracticeThe ninth edition of Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice (2022) examines culture, counselling and social justice. The book developed from Counseling the Culturally Different, first published in 1981.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceDarkness Visible: A Memoir of MadnessWilliam Styron’s Darkness Visible (1990) recounts his experience of severe depression and recovery. His memoir considers the difficulty of communicating psychological pain and the stigma surrounding depression and suicide.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideDBT Skills Training ManualMarsha M. Linehan’s DBT Skills Training Manual presents skills used in dialectical behaviour therapy, including mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation and interpersonal effectiveness. The second edition was published in 2015.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideDepression in Context: Strategies for Guided ActionDepression in Context (2001), by Christopher R. Martell, Michael E. Addis and Neil S. Jacobson, presents a contextual behavioural activation approach to depression.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographDepression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical AspectsIn Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects (1967; republished in 1972 as Depression: Causes and Treatment), Aaron T. Beck reported the empirical and clinical studies that overturned the psychoanalytic "anger-turned-inward" hypothesis and established the cognitive model of depression: the negative cognitive triad, depressive schemas, and systematic logical errors.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceDibs in Search of Self: Personality Development in Play TherapyIn Dibs in Search of Self, first published in 1964, Virginia M. Axline presents an account of play therapy with a young child known as Dibs. The book describes her approach through a single case narrative.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographEgo Psychology and the Problem of AdaptationHeinz Hartmann’s account of ego psychology and adaptation was first published in German in 1939. David Rapaport’s English translation appeared in 1958.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographEmotion in Psychotherapy: Affect, Cognition, and the Process of ChangeLeslie S. Greenberg and Jeremy D. Safran’s Emotion in Psychotherapy (1987) examines emotion, cognition and processes of change in psychotherapy.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideEmotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their FeelingsIn Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings, Leslie S. Greenberg describes emotion coaching and the role of emotional awareness and transformation in therapy. The book first appeared in 2002; this entry identifies the 2015 second edition.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Cultural & Historical CritiqueEscape from FreedomIn Escape from Freedom (1941), Erich Fromm offers a social-psychological account of freedom, isolation and authoritarianism. This entry identifies the original US edition.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographExistence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and PsychologyEdited by Rollo May, Ernest Angel, and Henri F. Ellenberger, Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology (1958) introduced European phenomenological psychiatry and Daseinsanalyse (Ludwig Binswanger, Eugène Minkowski, Erwin Straus, Roland Kuhn) to North America, establishing existential psychotherapy as a major clinical discipline.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographExistential PsychotherapyIn Existential Psychotherapy (1980), Stanford psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom brought rigorous clinical structure to existential therapy, reformulating psychodynamic conflict around four "ultimate concerns" of human existence (Death, Freedom, Existential Isolation, and Meaninglessness) that generate existential anxiety and defensive psychopathology.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographExperiences in Groups and Other PapersWilfred R. Bion’s 1961 collection brings together papers on group experience and presents his account of work groups and basic assumptions.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideEye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and ProceduresFrancine Shapiro’s clinical manual presents eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, its theoretical framework and its treatment procedures.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideFamilies and Family TherapySalvador Minuchin’s Families and Family Therapy (1974) presents a structural approach to family therapy using clinical examples and session transcripts.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideFamily Based Services: A Solution-Focused ApproachInsoo Kim Berg’s Family Based Services: A Solution-Focused Approach (1994) describes an approach to work in child welfare and family services.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographFamily Therapy in Clinical PracticeMurray Bowen’s Family Therapy in Clinical Practice, first published in 1978, collects writings on his family systems approach.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Self-Help & Client WorkbookFocusingIn Focusing, first published in 1978, Eugene T. Gendlin describes a way of attending to an initially unclear bodily sense of a situation and sets out a series of focusing steps.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographGames People Play: The Psychology of Human RelationshipsEric Berne’s Games People Play (1964) describes recurring patterns of social interaction through the framework of transactional analysis.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideGenograms in Family AssessmentMonica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson’s 1985 book introduces genograms as a way to organise information gathered in family assessment.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographGestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human PersonalityPublished in 1951 by Frederick (Fritz) Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul Goodman ("PHG"), Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality is the foundational charter of Gestalt therapy, replacing intrapsychic splits with a holistic "organism/environment field" theory centred on creative adjustment at the contact boundary, present-moment awareness, and the interruptions to contact.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Self-Help & Client WorkbookGet Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment TherapyA 2005 self-help workbook by Steven C. Hayes with Spencer Smith introducing ideas and exercises associated with acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceGirl, InterruptedSusanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted (1993) recounts her stay at McLean Hospital as a teenager. Combining recollection with hospital records, the memoir questions psychiatric diagnosis and explores life on the ward.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideHelping Skills: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and ActionClara E. Hill’s Helping Skills presents a three-stage model of helping: exploration, insight and action. This record describes the fifth edition; Hill and Karen M. O’Brien wrote the 1999 first edition.
- Systemic & family · Self-Help & Client WorkbookHold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of LoveSue Johnson’s Hold Me Tight (2008) presents relationship ideas and conversations informed by emotionally focused couple therapy and attachment theory.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideInternal Family Systems TherapyRichard C. Schwartz and Martha Sweezy’s second edition presents internal family systems (IFS) therapy, a clinical approach that uses a model of parts and Self.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideInterpersonal Psychotherapy of DepressionInterpersonal Psychotherapy of Depression (1984), by Gerald L. Klerman, Myrna M. Weissman, Bruce J. Rounsaville and Eve S. Chevron, presents a time-limited approach to depression that focuses on current relationships and life events.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Clinical & Theoretical MonographIntroduction to Group-Analytic Psychotherapy: Studies in the Social Integration of Individuals and GroupsGrowing out of his pioneering wartime rehabilitation work with shell-shocked soldiers at Northfield Military Hospital in Birmingham, German-British psychoanalyst S. H. Foulkes (Siegmund Heinrich Fuchs) published Introduction to Group-Analytic Psychotherapy in 1948, founding Group Analysis, defining the therapist as a democratic "conductor" rather than an authoritarian leader, and conceptualizing the group as a communicative "matrix" in which therapy is carried out by the group itself.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographKeys to Solution in Brief TherapyWritten at the Brief Family Therapy Center (BFTC) in Milwaukee, Steve de Shazer’s Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy (1985) marks the pivotal transition from MRI problem-focused brief therapy to Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), arguing that solutions do not need to match the complexity or history of the complaint, that "resistance" is obsolete when therapists cooperate with client patterns, and that standardized "skeleton key" interventions (such as the Formula First Session Task) can unlock a wide array of problems.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Clinical & Theoretical MonographL’Automatisme psychologique: Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l’activité humainePierre Janet’s 1889 study describes experiments and clinical cases involving automatism, awareness and his account of psychological dissociation.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographLearning from ExperienceIn Learning from Experience (1962), Wilfred R. Bion presents a psychoanalytic theory of emotional experience and thinking, using concepts including alpha-function, reverie and containment.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographLiving at the Boundary: The Collected Works of Laura PerlsA collection of Laura Perls’s writings and clinical reflections on Gestalt therapy, edited by Joe Wysong and published in 1992.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Cultural & Historical CritiqueLove and WillRollo May’s Love and Will (1969) considers love, desire and will in the context of existential psychology.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceLove’s Executioner and Other Tales of PsychotherapyIrvin D. Yalom’s Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy (1989) presents ten psychotherapy narratives about relationships, loss and other existential concerns.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceMan’s Search for MeaningViktor Frankl’s account of his experience in Nazi concentration camps and his later presentation of logotherapy. This record identifies the 2006 Beacon Press edition.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideMaps of Narrative PracticeMichael White’s 2007 book describes narrative practice through different kinds of therapeutic conversations, illustrated with case material and diagrams.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographMating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic IntelligenceTranslated into nearly thirty languages, Belgian-born systemic and psychodynamic couple therapist Esther Perel’s Mating in Captivity (2006) examines the central paradox of modern romantic relationships: that the very ingredients that cultivate domestic love and security (predictability, egalitarian fairness, protective caretaking, and fusion) frequently suffocate erotic desire, which thrives on space, mystery, play, and the separateness of the Other ("fire needs air").
- Cognitive & behavioural · Self-Help & Client WorkbookMind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You ThinkDennis Greenberger and Christine A. Padesky’s Mind Over Mood is a cognitive behavioural workbook for readers working on their own or with a therapist. This record describes the second edition.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideMindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for DepressionZindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams and John D. Teasdale present mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), an eight-week group programme developed to help prevent depressive relapse. This record describes the second edition.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideMotivational Interviewing in Health Care: Helping Patients Change BehaviorStephen Rollnick, William R. Miller and Christopher C. Butler describe motivational interviewing in health care conversations. This record concerns the first edition, published in 2008.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideMotivational Interviewing: Helping People ChangeWilliam R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick’s third edition presents motivational interviewing as a collaborative approach to conversations about change. This entry describes the edition catalogued with a 2013 copyright date.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographNarrative Means to Therapeutic EndsMichael White and David Epston’s 1990 book describes narrative approaches to therapy and the use of writing in therapeutic work.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideNegotiating the Therapeutic Alliance: A Relational Treatment GuideJeremy D. Safran and J. Christopher Muran’s Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance (2000) presents a relational approach to understanding and addressing strains in the therapeutic alliance.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographObject Relations in Psychoanalytic TheoryIn Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory (1983), Jay R. Greenberg and Stephen A. Mitchell organized a century of psychoanalytic thought around a fundamental conceptual divide between the classical "drive/structure model" (Freud, Hartmann) and the "relational/structure model" (Sullivan, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Kohut), alongside mixed-model theorists (Klein, Kernberg).
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographOn Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of PsychotherapyIn On Becoming a Person (1961), Carl R. Rogers presents essays on psychotherapy, personal change and relationships. He describes the therapist attitudes central to his person-centred approach.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s NestKen Kesey’s 1962 novel follows patients on a psychiatric ward, narrated by Chief Bromden. It is a work of fiction that has prompted debate about institutions, authority and psychiatric treatment.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographParadox and Counterparadox: A New Model in the Therapy of the Family in Schizophrenic TransactionMara Selvini Palazzoli, Luigi Boscolo, Gianfranco Cecchin and Giuliana Prata present a family therapy model in Paradox and Counterparadox. This entry describes the 1978 English translation of their Italian work.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPatterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange SituationBy Mary D. Salter Ainsworth, Mary C. Blehar, Everett Waters and Sally Wall. This 1978 monograph reports a longitudinal study of infant attachment and the Strange Situation procedure.
- Systemic & family · Self-Help & Client WorkbookPeoplemakingVirginia Satir’s Peoplemaking, first published in 1972, discusses self-worth, communication and family relationships. A revised work appeared in 1988 as The New Peoplemaking.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPersonality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking, and CultureIn Personality and Psychotherapy (1950), John Dollard and Neal E. Miller draw together learning theory, psychoanalytic ideas and social science to develop an account of personality and psychotherapy.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPersuasion and Healing: A Comparative Study of PsychotherapyJerome D. Frank’s 1961 book compares psychotherapy with other forms of healing and considers features that therapies may share.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuidePlay Therapy: The Inner Dynamics of ChildhoodVirginia M. Axline’s Play Therapy: The Inner Dynamics of Childhood (1947) describes a non-directive approach to work with children. This entry identifies the Houghton Mifflin edition.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPlaying and RealityD. W. Winnicott’s Playing and Reality (1971) brings together writing on play, transitional phenomena, object relations and cultural experience.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPluralistic Counselling and PsychotherapyMick Cooper and John McLeod present a pluralistic framework for counselling and psychotherapy, emphasising collaboration about the client’s goals, tasks and methods.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and ParadoxesPaul Watzlawick, Janet Helmick Beavin and Don D. Jackson’s Pragmatics of Human Communication (1967) presents a systemic account of communication, interaction and paradox.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuidePrinciples of Intensive PsychotherapyFrieda Fromm-Reichmann’s Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy, first published in 1950, presents her psychoanalytic approach to the therapeutic relationship and intensive psychotherapy.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideProblem-Solving Therapy: New Strategies for Effective Family TherapyJay Haley’s Problem-Solving Therapy (1976) presents a family-oriented approach to identifying and addressing problems in therapy.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPsychoanalytic Studies of the PersonalityA 1952 collection of papers by W. R. D. Fairbairn developing an object-relations theory of personality.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPsychodrama (Volume 1)Jacob L. Moreno’s 1946 first volume of Psychodrama collects writings and material on the origins and practice of psychodrama.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPsychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in ContextIn Psychosomatic Families (1978), Salvador Minuchin, Bernice L. Rosman and Lester Baker set out a structural family therapy account of illness, including anorexia nervosa. The book is a historical contribution to family therapy, not proof that family patterns cause eating disorders.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPsychotherapy by Reciprocal InhibitionJoseph Wolpe’s Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition (1958) presents his theory of reciprocal inhibition and clinical work on anxiety.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuidePsychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Mentalization-Based TreatmentIn Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Mentalization-Based Treatment (2004), Anthony Bateman and Peter Fonagy translate developmental mentalization theory into a structured, empirically validated clinical protocol for borderline personality disorder (BPD), emphasizing the therapist’s "not-knowing stance" and the calibration of interventions to the patient’s emotional arousal.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Clinical & Theoretical MonographPsychotherapy Relationships That Work: Volume 1: Evidence-Based Therapist ContributionsThe first volume of the 2019 third edition, edited by John C. Norcross and Michael J. Lambert, examines research on therapist contributions to the psychotherapy relationship.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographReason and Emotion in PsychotherapyAlbert Ellis’s Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy was published in 1962. It presents his rational-emotive approach to the relationship between beliefs, emotions and behaviour.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Self-Help & Client WorkbookReinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great AgainWritten for clients and general readers by Jeffrey E. Young and Janet S. Klosko (1993), Reinventing Your Life translates Schema Therapy into the accessible concept of "lifetraps", self-defeating emotional and relational patterns rooted in childhood such as Abandonment, Mistrust and Abuse, Emotional Deprivation, Defectiveness, and Unrelenting Standards.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographRelational Concepts in Psychoanalysis: An IntegrationIn Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis (1988), Stephen A. Mitchell moved from historical critique to constructive synthesis, integrating British object relations, American interpersonal psychoanalysis, and self psychology into a unified "relational-conflict" model centred on the relational matrix.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographRelational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and CognitionRelational Frame Theory (2001), edited by Steven C. Hayes, Dermot Barnes-Holmes and Bryan Roche, presents a behaviour-analytic account of language and cognition.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideSchema Therapy: A Practitioner’s GuideJeffrey E. Young, Janet S. Klosko and Marjorie E. Weishaar present schema therapy in this 2003 clinical guide. The authors describe a model of persistent patterns and ways of working with them in psychotherapy.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographSteps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and EpistemologyCollecting thirty-five years of interdisciplinary essays by British anthropologist and cybernetician Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) is the epistemological bedrock of systemic family therapy, reprinting the famous 1956 paper "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia" (introducing the "double bind"), "The Cybernetics of 'Self': A Theory of Alcoholism," and his theory of "Deutero-Learning" (learning to learn) and "information as a difference which makes a difference."
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographStudies on HysteriaBy Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud. The 1895 Viennese clinical monograph introducing the cathartic method, the case of Anna O. and the origins of psychoanalytic psychotherapy.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality DisordersHeinz Kohut’s The Analysis of the Self (1971) presents a psychoanalytic account of narcissistic personality disorders and therapeutic relationships.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Cultural & Historical CritiqueThe Anatomy of MelancholyFirst published in Oxford in 1621 under the name Democritus Junior, Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy surveys the causes, symptoms and proposed remedies of melancholy through medical, philosophical and literary sources.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Cultural & Historical CritiqueThe Art of LovingIn The Art of Loving (1956), Erich Fromm presents a philosophical and social-psychological account of love as a practice. This entry identifies the first edition.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceThe Bell JarSylvia Plath’s novel follows Esther Greenwood, a young woman whose experience of mental illness unfolds in 1950s America. It was first published in 1963 under the name Victoria Lucas.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of TraumaBessel van der Kolk’s book discusses trauma, the body and approaches to recovery. It was first published in 2014.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of DominationIn The Bonds of Love (1988), Jessica Benjamin examines psychoanalysis, feminism and domination, including questions of recognition and independence in relationships.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Clinical Diary of Sándor FerencziWritten between January and October 1932 and published posthumously over fifty years later, The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi records his radical clinical experiments with severely traumatized patients, his restoration of real childhood sexual and emotional abuse to psychoanalysis, and his critique of cold, authoritarian analytic neutrality.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Clinical Treatment of the Problem ChildCarl R. Rogers’s 1939 book discusses clinical work with children in the context of child guidance.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Compassionate MindIn The Compassionate Mind (2009), British clinical psychologist Paul Gilbert integrates evolutionary psychology, attachment theory, affective neuroscience, and Buddhist contemplation to explain why human beings are so vulnerable to shame and self-criticism, introducing the three-system model of affect regulation (Threat, Drive, and Soothing/Affiliative) that underpins Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT).
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to LogotherapyOriginally drafted before Viktor E. Frankl’s deportation to Auschwitz, confiscated by the SS, and reconstructed from memory for publication in Vienna in 1946 (English translation 1955), The Doctor and the Soul is the foundational clinical textbook of Logotherapy ("Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy"), introducing noögenic neurosis, the triad of creative, experiential, and attitudinal values, paradoxical intention, and dereflection.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Dynamics of Therapy in a Controlled RelationshipJessie Taft’s The Dynamics of Therapy in a Controlled Relationship (1933) discusses therapeutic relationships and includes case records involving children.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Ego and the IdBy Sigmund Freud. His 1923 theoretical monograph introducing the structural model of id, ego and superego, reshaping psychoanalytic technique and defence analysis.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Ego and the Mechanisms of DefenceBy Anna Freud. Her 1936 foundational monograph of ego psychology, systematising psychological defence mechanisms and introducing identification with the aggressor.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideThe Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their PatientsIrvin D. Yalom’s collection of short reflections discusses psychotherapy and the relationship between therapist and client. The edition listed here is the 2003 Harper Perennial paperback.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Great Psychotherapy Debate: The Evidence for What Makes Psychotherapy WorkBruce E. Wampold’s The Great Psychotherapy Debate compares explanations for how psychotherapy works. The 2015 second edition, co-authored with Zac E. Imel, presents a contextual model alongside a discussion of research on treatments, therapeutic relationships and therapist effects.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Interpersonal Theory of PsychiatryBy Harry Stack Sullivan. Published posthumously in 1953, setting out his interpersonal field theory, developmental epochs, the self-system and the therapist as participant observer.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Interpretation of DreamsBy Sigmund Freud. His foundational treatise (published late 1899, postdated 1900) introducing the topographic model of the mind, manifest and latent dream content, and the dream-work.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical TalesOliver Sacks’s 1985 collection presents clinical narratives about people living with neurological conditions. The cases explore how neurological differences affect individual lives.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Maturational Processes and the Facilitating EnvironmentDonald W. Winnicott’s 1965 collection of twenty-three psychoanalytical papers articulates his core developmental theory: that inherited maturational potential can only unfold within a good-enough facilitating environment characterized by maternal holding, handling, and object-presenting.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Meaning of AnxietyRollo May’s The Meaning of Anxiety (1950) brings together philosophical, psychological and clinical perspectives on anxiety. This entry identifies the original Ronald Press edition.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Neurotic Personality of Our TimeBy Karen Horney. Her 1937 cultural and interpersonal revision of psychoanalysis, tracing neurotic anxiety to early relational insecurity and competitive cultural contradictions.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideThe New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual DysfunctionsHelen Singer Kaplan’s The New Sex Therapy (1974) presents an approach to sexual difficulties that combines behavioural exercises with attention to individual and relationship concerns.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceThe Noonday Demon: An Atlas of DepressionAndrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon combines personal experience, interviews and reporting on depression. This entry identifies the updated 2015 edition.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Power Threat Meaning Framework: Towards the Identification of Patterns in Emotional Distress, Unusual Experiences and Troubled or Troubling Behaviour, as an Alternative to Functional Psychiatric DiagnosisPublished in 2018 by the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology and led by clinical psychologists Lucy Johnstone and Mary Boyle alongside service-user/survivor researchers (Eleanor Longden, Jacqui Dillon, John Read, David Pilgrim, John Cromby), The Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) provides a comprehensive, evidence-based alternative to DSM and ICD functional psychiatric diagnosis, replacing the medical question "What is wrong with you?" with four interconnected questions examining how the negative operation of Power creates Threats, how personal and cultural Meaning shapes those threats, and what Threat Responses the person had to use to survive.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideThe Practice of Behavior TherapyJoseph Wolpe’s The Practice of Behavior Therapy (1969) presents a clinical approach to behaviour therapy. This entry identifies the first edition.
- Systemic & family · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideThe Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating ConnectionIn this 2019 third edition, Susan M. Johnson describes emotionally focused couple therapy, an approach that attends to attachment, emotion and patterns of interaction between partners.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideThe Psychiatric InterviewCompiled posthumously from his 1944–1945 Washington School of Psychiatry lectures and published in 1954, Harry Stack Sullivan’s The Psychiatric Interview is the classic treatise on clinical interviewing, defining the interview as a two-person interpersonal communication mediated by "participant observation," mapping its four sequential stages (Formal Inception, Reconnaissance, Detailed Inquiry, and Termination), and teaching clinicians to navigate the patient’s anxiety gradients and security operations.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Psycho-Analysis of ChildrenMelanie Klein’s 1932 book presents her psychoanalytic approach to working with children, including the interpretation of play.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Psychology of Personal Constructs (Volumes 1 and 2)George A. Kelly’s two-volume work, published in 1955, presents personal construct psychology and its applications to assessment and psychotherapy.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Restoration of the SelfHeinz Kohut’s The Restoration of the Self (1977) develops his psychoanalytic theory of the self and selfobject relationships.
- Clinical practice & common factors · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideThe Theory and Practice of Group PsychotherapyIrvin Yalom and Molyn Leszcz’s sixth edition discusses group psychotherapy, therapeutic factors and clinical practice. The first edition appeared in 1970.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Trauma of BirthOtto Rank’s 1924 book presents a psychoanalytic theory linking anxiety to the experience of birth and separation.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographThe Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of LogotherapyBased on lectures delivered at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Viktor E. Frankl’s The Will to Meaning (1969) presents his most systematic English-language synthesis of Logotherapy, organizing the approach around three philosophical pillars: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning of Life, alongside a sharp critique of homeostasis, pan-determinism, and "nothing-but-ness" reductionism.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Cultural & Historical CritiqueThe Wretched of the EarthDictated in the final months of his life while dying of leukaemia at age thirty-six, Martinican psychiatrist Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (1961; Les Damnés de la Terre) is the foundational text of decolonial psychiatry and liberation psychology, concluding in Chapter 5 ("Colonial War and Mental Disorders") with four landmark series of clinical psychiatric cases from Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria proving that colonialism is a systematic "breeding ground for mental disorders" for both the colonized and the colonial torturer.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceThe Yellow WallpaperCharlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story follows a woman whose physician husband prescribes rest while she becomes increasingly absorbed by the wallpaper in her room. First published in 1892, it draws on the author’s experiences while also using fiction.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Cultural & Historical CritiqueToward a New Psychology of WomenIn Toward a New Psychology of Women (1976; 2nd ed. 1986), psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Jean Baker Miller exposed how traditional theories of human development (Freud, Erikson, Mahler) treated male-normed separation and self-sufficiency as the pinnacle of maturity while pathologizing women’s orientation toward relationship and care as "dependency", launching Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) and demonstrating how dominant-subordinate power hierarchies distort psychological life.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Clinical & Theoretical MonographTraité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, ou la maniePublished in Paris in 1801 (and translated into English in 1806 as A Treatise on Insanity), French physician Philippe Pinel’s Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale ("Medico-Philosophical Treatise on Mental Alienation, or Mania") founded modern clinical psychiatry and the precursor of psychotherapy, condemning chains, bloodletting, and beatings at the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière hospitals, demonstrating that even in raving mania a healthy remnant of reason remains accessible, and introducing "moral treatment" (le traitement moral: psychological, humane, conversational, and occupational care).
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographTransactional Analysis in Psychotherapy: A Systematic Individual and Social PsychiatryEric Berne’s Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (1961) presents his approach to understanding personality and social interactions.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Clinical & Theoretical MonographTrauma and RecoveryFirst published in 1992, Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery examines connections between interpersonal violence, political violence and psychological trauma. It proposes a framework for understanding prolonged trauma and describes three phases of recovery.
- Trauma, body & expressive · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideTrauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to PsychotherapyIn Trauma and the Body (2006), Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton and Clare Pain describe sensorimotor psychotherapy, an approach that attends to bodily experience alongside thoughts and emotions in psychotherapy.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideTreating the Trauma of Rape: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for PTSDIn Treating the Trauma of Rape (1998), Edna B. Foa and Barbara Olasov Rothbaum present a cognitive-behavioural approach to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after rape.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographÜber den nervösen CharakterAlfred Adler’s 1912 work presents an early account of individual psychology. It appeared in English in 1917 as The Neurotic Constitution.
- Systemic & family · Clinical & Theoretical MonographUncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.Jay Haley’s Uncommon Therapy, first published in 1973, presents case descriptions and interpretations of psychiatrist Milton H. Erickson’s approach to therapy.
- Cognitive & behavioural · Treatment Manual & Clinical GuideUnified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Therapist GuideThe Unified Protocol therapist guide presents a transdiagnostic cognitive behavioural approach developed by David H. Barlow and colleagues for emotional disorders. It describes shared treatment principles rather than a separate manual for each diagnosis.
- Psychodynamic & attachment · Clinical & Theoretical MonographWandlungen und Symbole der LibidoCarl Gustav Jung’s 1912 work discusses symbolism and the concept of libido. Its English translation appeared in 1916 as Psychology of the Unconscious; Jung later revised the work as Symbols of Transformation.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographWhat Do You Say After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human DestinyEric Berne’s What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1972) presents his transactional-analysis account of life scripts and human relationships.
- Lived experience, memoir & fiction · Memoir, Fiction & Lived ExperienceWhen Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of ObsessionIrvin D. Yalom’s 1992 novel imagines an encounter between physician Josef Breuer and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in nineteenth-century Vienna.
- Humanistic, existential & experiential · Clinical & Theoretical MonographWorking at Relational Depth in Counselling and PsychotherapyDave Mearns and Mick Cooper’s 2005 book explores relational depth in counselling and psychotherapy, describing moments of close contact and engagement between people.
- Culture, power & critical voices · Cultural & Historical CritiqueWritings for a Liberation PsychologyEdited and translated by Adrianne Aron and Shawn Corne five years after Salvadoran social psychologist and Jesuit priest Ignacio Martín-Baró was assassinated by a U.S.-trained military squad in San Salvador in November 1989, Writings for a Liberation Psychology (1994) is the founding charter of Latin American Liberation Psychology (Psicología de la Liberación), calling on psychology to abandon North American individualistic scientism, adopt a "preferential option for the oppressed majority," and replace intrapsychic trauma models with "psychosocial trauma," Paulo Freire’s concientización, and the recovery of historical memory.
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Browse by category
Categories group books by therapeutic tradition or clinical domain. Because many seminal texts bridge multiple schools, each entry also cross-links to related approaches, people, timeline milestones, and companion books.
Clinical practice & common factors (15)
- An Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice
- Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward
- Helping Skills: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy of Depression
- Introduction to Group-Analytic Psychotherapy: Studies in the Social Integration of Individuals and Groups
- Motivational Interviewing in Health Care: Helping Patients Change Behavior
- Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change
- Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance: A Relational Treatment Guide
- Persuasion and Healing: A Comparative Study of Psychotherapy
- Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy
- Psychotherapy Relationships That Work: Volume 1: Evidence-Based Therapist Contributions
- The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
- The Great Psychotherapy Debate: The Evidence for What Makes Psychotherapy Work
- The Psychiatric Interview
- The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
Cognitive & behavioural (27)
- A Guide to Rational Living
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond
- Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders
- Cognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems: What to Do When the Basics Don’t Work
- Cognitive Therapy of Depression
- Cognitive-Behavior Modification: An Integrative Approach
- Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
- Collaborative Case Conceptualization: Working Effectively with Clients in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features
- DBT Skills Training Manual
- Depression in Context: Strategies for Guided Action
- Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects
- Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression
- Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking, and Culture
- Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition
- Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy
- Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again
- Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition
- Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide
- The Compassionate Mind
- The Practice of Behavior Therapy
- The Psychology of Personal Constructs (Volumes 1 and 2)
- Treating the Trauma of Rape: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for PTSD
- Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Therapist Guide
Culture, power & critical voices (10)
- Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates
- Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice
- Escape from Freedom
- The Art of Loving
- The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination
- The Power Threat Meaning Framework: Towards the Identification of Patterns in Emotional Distress, Unusual Experiences and Troubled or Troubling Behaviour, as an Alternative to Functional Psychiatric Diagnosis
- The Wretched of the Earth
- Toward a New Psychology of Women
- Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, ou la manie
- Writings for a Liberation Psychology
Humanistic, existential & experiential (22)
- Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory
- Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice
- Emotion in Psychotherapy: Affect, Cognition, and the Process of Change
- Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings
- Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology
- Existential Psychotherapy
- Focusing
- Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
- Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality
- Living at the Boundary: The Collected Works of Laura Perls
- Love and Will
- On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy
- Play Therapy: The Inner Dynamics of Childhood
- Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy
- The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child
- The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy
- The Dynamics of Therapy in a Controlled Relationship
- The Meaning of Anxiety
- The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy
- Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy: A Systematic Individual and Social Psychiatry
- What Do You Say After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny
- Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy
Lived experience, memoir & fiction (15)
A Mind That Found Itself: An Autobiography- An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
- Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir
- Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
- Dibs in Search of Self: Personality Development in Play Therapy
- Girl, Interrupted
- Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- The Anatomy of Melancholy
- The Bell Jar
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
- The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
- The Yellow Wallpaper
- When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession
Psychodynamic & attachment (28)
- A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory
- Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self
- Attachment and Loss, Volume 1: Attachment
- Attachment and Loss, Volume 2: Separation: Anxiety and Anger
- Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism
- Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation
- Experiences in Groups and Other Papers
- Learning from Experience
- Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory
- Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation
- Playing and Reality
- Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality
- Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Mentalization-Based Treatment
- Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis: An Integration
- Studies on Hysteria
- The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders
- The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi
- The Ego and the Id
- The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence
- The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry
The Interpretation of Dreams- The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment
- The Neurotic Personality of Our Time
- The Psycho-Analysis of Children
- The Restoration of the Self
- The Trauma of Birth
- Über den nervösen Charakter
Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido
Systemic & family (22)
- Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution
- Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy
- Conjoint Family Therapy: A Guide to Theory and Technique
- Families and Family Therapy
- Family Based Services: A Solution-Focused Approach
- Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
- Genograms in Family Assessment
- Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
- Internal Family Systems Therapy
- Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy
- Maps of Narrative Practice
- Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
- Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends
- Paradox and Counterparadox: A New Model in the Therapy of the Family in Schizophrenic Transaction
- Peoplemaking
- Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes
- Problem-Solving Therapy: New Strategies for Effective Family Therapy
- Psychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in Context
- Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
- The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions
- The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection
- Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.
Trauma, body & expressive (7)
- Character Analysis
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures
- L’Automatisme psychologique: Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l’activité humaine
- Psychodrama (Volume 1)
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- Trauma and Recovery
- Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
Browse by form and genre
Books about psychotherapy take distinct rhetorical forms: theoretical monographs, structured treatment manuals, client workbooks, institutional and cultural critiques, and first-person memoirs or teaching novels.
Clinical & Theoretical Monograph (79)
- A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change
- Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self
- An Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice
- Attachment and Loss, Volume 1: Attachment
- Attachment and Loss, Volume 2: Separation: Anxiety and Anger
- Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism
- Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution
- Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward
- Character Analysis
- Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory
- Cognitive Therapy and the Emotional Disorders
- Cognitive-Behavior Modification: An Integrative Approach
- Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice
- Depression: Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects
- Ego Psychology and the Problem of Adaptation
- Emotion in Psychotherapy: Affect, Cognition, and the Process of Change
- Existence: A New Dimension in Psychiatry and Psychology
- Existential Psychotherapy
- Experiences in Groups and Other Papers
- Family Therapy in Clinical Practice
- Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships
- Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality
- Introduction to Group-Analytic Psychotherapy: Studies in the Social Integration of Individuals and Groups
- Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy
- L’Automatisme psychologique: Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l’activité humaine
- Learning from Experience
- Living at the Boundary: The Collected Works of Laura Perls
- Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence
- Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends
- Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory
- On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy
- Paradox and Counterparadox: A New Model in the Therapy of the Family in Schizophrenic Transaction
- Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation
- Personality and Psychotherapy: An Analysis in Terms of Learning, Thinking, and Culture
- Persuasion and Healing: A Comparative Study of Psychotherapy
- Playing and Reality
- Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy
- Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies, and Paradoxes
- Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality
- Psychodrama (Volume 1)
- Psychosomatic Families: Anorexia Nervosa in Context
- Psychotherapy by Reciprocal Inhibition
- Psychotherapy Relationships That Work: Volume 1: Evidence-Based Therapist Contributions
- Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy
- Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis: An Integration
- Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition
- Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
- Studies on Hysteria
- The Analysis of the Self: A Systematic Approach to the Psychoanalytic Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination
- The Clinical Diary of Sándor Ferenczi
- The Clinical Treatment of the Problem Child
- The Compassionate Mind
- The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy
- The Dynamics of Therapy in a Controlled Relationship
- The Ego and the Id
- The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence
- The Great Psychotherapy Debate: The Evidence for What Makes Psychotherapy Work
- The Interpersonal Theory of Psychiatry
- The Interpretation of Dreams
- The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment
- The Meaning of Anxiety
- The Neurotic Personality of Our Time
- The Power Threat Meaning Framework: Towards the Identification of Patterns in Emotional Distress, Unusual Experiences and Troubled or Troubling Behaviour, as an Alternative to Functional Psychiatric Diagnosis
- The Psycho-Analysis of Children
- The Psychology of Personal Constructs (Volumes 1 and 2)
- The Restoration of the Self
- The Trauma of Birth
- The Will to Meaning: Foundations and Applications of Logotherapy
- Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, ou la manie
- Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy: A Systematic Individual and Social Psychiatry
- Trauma and Recovery
- Über den nervösen Charakter
- Uncommon Therapy: The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, M.D.
- Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido
- What Do You Say After You Say Hello? The Psychology of Human Destiny
- Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy
Cultural & Historical Critique (8)
Memoir, Fiction & Lived Experience (14)
- A Mind That Found Itself: An Autobiography
- An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness
- Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir
- Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
- Dibs in Search of Self: Personality Development in Play Therapy
- Girl, Interrupted
- Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy
- Man’s Search for Meaning
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
- The Bell Jar
- The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
- The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
- The Yellow Wallpaper
- When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel of Obsession
Self-Help & Client Workbook (7)
- A Guide to Rational Living
- Focusing
- Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
- Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
- Mind Over Mood: Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think
- Peoplemaking
- Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again
Treatment Manual & Clinical Guide (38)
- Clues: Investigating Solutions in Brief Therapy
- Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond
- Cognitive Therapy for Challenging Problems: What to Do When the Basics Don’t Work
- Cognitive Therapy of Depression
- Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder
- Collaborative Case Conceptualization: Working Effectively with Clients in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features
- Conjoint Family Therapy: A Guide to Theory and Technique
- Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice
- DBT Skills Training Manual
- Depression in Context: Strategies for Guided Action
- Emotion-Focused Therapy: Coaching Clients to Work Through Their Feelings
- Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy: Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures
- Families and Family Therapy
- Family Based Services: A Solution-Focused Approach
- Genograms in Family Assessment
- Helping Skills: Facilitating Exploration, Insight, and Action
- Internal Family Systems Therapy
- Interpersonal Psychotherapy of Depression
- Maps of Narrative Practice
- Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression
- Motivational Interviewing in Health Care: Helping Patients Change Behavior
- Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change
- Negotiating the Therapeutic Alliance: A Relational Treatment Guide
- Play Therapy: The Inner Dynamics of Childhood
- Principles of Intensive Psychotherapy
- Problem-Solving Therapy: New Strategies for Effective Family Therapy
- Psychotherapy for Borderline Personality Disorder: Mentalization-Based Treatment
- Schema Therapy: A Practitioner’s Guide
- The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients
- The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions
- The Practice of Behavior Therapy
- The Practice of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy: Creating Connection
- The Psychiatric Interview
- The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
- Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy
- Treating the Trauma of Rape: Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for PTSD
- Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Therapist Guide
Browse by historical era
See the full chronological timeline to trace all 146 books in order of first publication from 1621 to the present.
Pre-1919 · Asylum Reform & Early Psychoanalysis
Includes The Anatomy of Melancholy; Traité médico-philosophique sur l’aliénation mentale, ou la manie; L’Automatisme psychologique: Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l’activité humaine.
1920–1939 · Ego Psychology & Early Child Analysis
Includes The Ego and the Id; The Trauma of Birth; The Psycho-Analysis of Children.
1940–1959 · Object Relations, Existential & Client-Centred
Includes Escape from Freedom; Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice; Man’s Search for Meaning.
1960–1979 · Humanistic, Cognitive & Systemic Turn
Includes A Guide to Rational Living; Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates; Experiences in Groups and Other Papers.
1980–2009 · Evidence-Based, Trauma & Integrative Era
Includes Existential Psychotherapy; Counseling the Culturally Diverse: Theory and Practice; Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory.
2010–Present · Contextual, Pluralistic & Liberation Era
Includes Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features; Pluralistic Counselling and Psychotherapy; Unified Protocol for Transdiagnostic Treatment of Emotional Disorders: Therapist Guide.
Browse by reading level
Reading level indicates how much prior clinical or theoretical vocabulary a text assumes: introductory works are accessible to general readers and beginning students, intermediate texts suit trainees and informed readers, and advanced monographs address specialist clinicians and researchers.
Introductory level
Examples: A Guide to Rational Living; A Mind That Found Itself: An Autobiography; An Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice; An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.
Intermediate level
Examples: A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory; Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates; Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution; Client-Centered Therapy: Its Current Practice, Implications, and Theory.
Advanced level
Examples: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: An Experiential Approach to Behavior Change; Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self; Attachment and Loss, Volume 1: Attachment; Attachment and Loss, Volume 2: Separation: Anxiety and Anger.
Reading well
Books about therapy are written from a specific clinical and historical vantage point. A founder's monograph explains a modality in its originator's vocabulary, a treatment manual specifies session-by-session procedures for clinical trials, a sociological critique examines institutional power, and a memoir or case collection conveys the lived texture of suffering and recovery. Reading across these forms gives a balanced understanding.
Every entry pairs the primary book with a peer-reviewed empirical study, meta-analysis, or critical scholarly companion so readers can examine how the book's claims have been tested or contextualised in subsequent research.
A book cannot determine what a particular person needs. If you are in distress, contact a qualified health professional or your local emergency or crisis service.
Educational draft · Subject review pending