Books like Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be

01

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk · Psychology

The Body Keeps the Score is Bessel van der Kolk's account of four decades spent studying and treating trauma, from Vietnam veterans at the VA in the 1970s to survivors of childhood abuse, accidents, and domestic violence.

A kindred psychology read.

02

Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation

Daniel J. Siegel · Psychology

Mindsight is Daniel Siegel's case that humans have a distinct capacity he calls "mindsight" — the ability to sense and shape one's own mental processes and to perceive the inner lives of others.

Both dig into emotional regulation.

03

The Myth of Normal

Gabor Maté · Health

The Myth of Normal is Gabor Maté's most ambitious book, co-written with his son Daniel Maté.

A kindred psychology read.

04

Scattered Minds

Gabor Maté · Health

Scattered Minds, originally published as Scattered, is Gabor Maté's account of ADHD seen through the lens of his own diagnosis and his decades of clinical practice.

Both dig into emotional regulation.

05

How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

Lisa Feldman Barrett · Psychology

Lisa Feldman Barrett is a neuroscientist and psychologist at Northeastern University who has spent thirty years studying emotion, and her conclusion challenges the most widely held view of what emotions are.

A kindred psychology read.

06

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind

Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson · Psychology

Daniel Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson's premise is that much of what frustrates parents — tantrums, defiance, emotional meltdowns — is best understood not as bad behavior but as immature brain function.

Shares parenting and child development with Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be.

07

Atlas of the Heart

Brené Brown · Psychology

Atlas of the Heart is Brené Brown's attempt to map eighty-seven distinct human emotions and experiences — not as a clinical taxonomy but as a practical vocabulary for people who want to communicate more precisely about what they feel.

Both dig into connection.

08

Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It

Ethan Kross · Psychology

Humans talk to themselves more or less constantly.

Both dig into emotional regulation.

09

Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

Andrew Solomon · Psychology

Andrew Solomon's book is a ten-year investigation into families raising children who are profoundly different from their parents — deaf children of hearing parents, children with Down syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, severe physical disabilities, and other conditions that create what Solomon calls "horizontal identity": an identity shared with peers rather than inherited from family.

Both dig into parenting.

10

I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't)

Brené Brown · Psychology

I Thought It Was Just Me is Brené Brown's first major book, written from her research on shame as a social scientist.

Both dig into connection.

11

Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect

Matthew D. Lieberman · Psychology

Matthew Lieberman is one of the founders of social neuroscience, the field that uses brain imaging and neuroscience methods to study social behavior.

Both dig into connection.

12

The Anxious Generation

Jonathan Haidt · Psychology

The Anxious Generation is Jonathan Haidt's argument that a phone-based childhood — shaped above all by smartphones and social media arriving in the early 2010s — has caused a serious and measurable deterioration in the mental health of adolescents in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Both dig into parenting.