Best Popular Psychology Counseling Books of 2025

The Self-Love Workbook for Women is a practical and inspiring guide that helps women of all ages build self-esteem, improve relationships, and embrace who they are. The book offers a variety of exercises rooted in mindfulness and positive psychology that will help readers let go of limiting beliefs and tap into their emotions. The empowering affirmations interspersed throughout the book will boost positivity and nurture self-love. This workbook is an excellent resource for women, counselors, and group facilitators interested in growing self-love. Megan Logan's approach is easy to read, step-by-step, and includes helpful exercises and assessment tools. This book is a timely and essential guide for those struggling with eating and body image disorders.

All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks is a powerful and timeless book that explores the meaning and importance of love in our society. hooks argues that our culture has failed to provide a model for learning how to love, leading to a loveless society that lacks care, compassion, and unity. Through her incisive insights, she offers a new path to love that is sacred, redemptive, and healing for individuals and the nation. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the transformative power of love and learn how to create a more loving and just world.

This book offers a groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations. Mark Wolynn, an acclaimed expert in the field of inherited family trauma, provides fresh and powerful tools for relieving the suffering caused by such trauma. Wolynn's method, the Core Language Approach, provides diagnostic self-inventories and visualization techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree. The book offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to this method, which can help readers uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Overall, "It Didn't Start with You" is a wise and trustworthy guide on the journey toward healing.

The Encyclopedia of Counseling, Fourth Edition is a comprehensive guide for anyone preparing for the NCE, CPCE, and other counseling exams. Dr. Rosenthal's engaging and easy-to-understand writing style, combined with new and updated material on a range of vital topics, makes this book an invaluable resource. The book covers all eight areas of counselor competency, providing past exam questions, answers, and explanations. The reviewer highly recommends this book and considers it the only resource needed to prepare for counseling exams.

Maybe You Should Talk To Someone by Lori Gottlieb is a New York Times bestseller that takes readers behind the scenes of a therapist's world. The book follows Gottlieb's journey as a therapist who finds herself seeking therapy after a crisis. She shares her experiences with patients who are struggling with various life issues, and in the process, she discovers that the questions they are grappling with are the same ones she is bringing to her own therapist. This book is a thought-provoking and humorous account of the human condition, and it offers valuable insights into the therapeutic process. Highly recommended for anyone interested in self-discovery and mental health.

The Christ Cure is a comprehensive guide for anyone suffering from PTSD, trauma, and tragedy, and their families. Dr. Tim Murphy, a psychologist, Navy veteran, and former Member of Congress, shares his own experience with depression and how he found inspiration in the life and works of the Apostle Paul. The book offers new insights into how trauma affects us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and provides a unique path of true restoration. The foundation of biblical pillars for healthy treatment makes this book stand out as a valuable guide for those seeking to heal through faith.

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel is an insightful book that challenges the notion that domesticity and sexual desire can't coexist in a long-term relationship. Perel draws on her 20 years of experience as a couples therapist to explore the complexities of sustaining desire and offers practical advice on how to bring lust back home. The book is well-written, with case studies and literary references that add depth to the discussion. It's refreshing to read a book that takes a counterintuitive approach to intimacy and sex, and Mating in Captivity is a must-read for anyone looking to improve their relationship.

This workbook is a helpful guide for survivors of trauma and therapists alike. Dr. Janina Fisher offers step-by-step strategies and simple diagrams to help survivors understand their symptoms and reactions as normal responses to abnormal events. The worksheets provided in the book offer practical skills to help alleviate suffering and ultimately rejuvenate. The author's gift for getting to the essence of things and transforming complex theories into simple, easily understood concepts is showcased in this succinct and well-organized volume. Overall, Transforming The Living Legacy of Trauma is an inspiring and confidence-building guide for anyone seeking healing from traumatic experiences.

This book, How to Be an Adult in Relationships, written by David Richo, offers practical insights into building and sustaining meaningful relationships. Richo emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and presents five hallmarks of mindful loving: attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing. The book includes exercises for both couples and singles, covering topics such as creating healthy boundaries, overcoming fears, and expressing emotions in loving ways. The revised edition includes updates on modern communication styles and online dating. Overall, this book is an inspiring and practical guide to building effective relationships.

Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men is a groundbreaking bestseller by Lundy Bancroft, a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men. Bancroft uses his knowledge to help women recognize when they are being controlled or devalued and find ways to get free of an abusive relationship. The book covers early warning signs of abuse, the nature of abusive thinking, myths about abusers, ten abusive personality types, the role of drugs and alcohol, what can be fixed, and what can't be fixed, and how to get out of an abusive relationship safely. This book is informative and useful for women who want to take control of their lives.