Books like The Brain's Way of Healing

01

The Brain That Changes Itself

Norman Doidge · Psychology

Norman Doidge is a Canadian psychiatrist who traveled to interview the scientists and patients at the frontier of neuroplasticity research in the mid-2000s.

Shares neuroplasticity and recovery with The Brain's Way of Healing.

02

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee · Psychology

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A kindred science read.

03

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.

Both dig into healing.

04

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

Robert M. Sapolsky · Science

Behave is Robert Sapolsky's attempt to explain why humans do what they do — the violence, the altruism, the tribalism, the heroism — by working through every layer of biology that contributes to a single act.

A kindred science read.

05

Livewired: The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

David Eagleman · Science

David Eagleman's argument is that "hardwired" is the wrong metaphor for the brain.

Both dig into neuroplasticity.

06

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less

Alex Soojung-Kim Pang · Science

Rest makes a case that most of what we think of as productive work is actually counterproductive when pushed past certain thresholds, and that deliberate, well-structured rest is not the opposite of work but a necessary component of it.

Both dig into recovery.

07

A Beautiful Mind

Sylvia Nasar · Biography

Sylvia Nasar's biography of the mathematician John Nash — Nobel laureate, game theory pioneer, and paranoid schizophrenic — is one of the finest accounts of genius and mental illness in biographical literature.

Both dig into recovery.

08

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Janet G. Woititz · Psychology

Adult Children of Alcoholics is Janet Woititz's clinical guide to the lasting psychological patterns that develop in children raised in alcoholic families.

Both dig into recovery.

09

Anatomy of the Spirit

Caroline Myss · Health

Anatomy of the Spirit is Caroline Myss's attempt to synthesize three major spiritual traditions — the Hindu chakra system, the Christian sacraments, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life — into a unified model of human energy anatomy.

Both dig into healing.

10

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

David Sheff · Memoir

Beautiful Boy is David Sheff's account of watching his son Nic become addicted to methamphetamine through his late teens and early twenties, and of the years Sheff spent trying to understand it, respond to it, and survive it as a parent.

Both dig into recovery.

11

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

Suleika Jaouad · Memoir

Suleika Jaouad was twenty-two and newly graduated, living in Paris with her first real job and a boyfriend, when she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Both dig into recovery.

12

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness

Susannah Cahalan · Memoir

Brain on Fire is Susannah Cahalan's account of the month she spent in a New York hospital in 2009, during which she experienced psychosis, paranoia, violent behavior, catatonia, and seizures — and was nearly committed to a psychiatric facility before a doctor correctly diagnosed her with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, a newly described autoimmune disease in which the body attacks the brain.

Both dig into recovery.