7 Books Like Dispatches from the Couch

It's rare that a novel wraps itself around my heart like this one. In it, a mysterious older man moves into a small Georgia town, and something magical unfolds. That's really all I can say without spoilers.

This is a book about kindness, about all the sadness that each and every one of us accumulates in this life, and about the beauty and joy of life in spite of the sorrows. It's richly imagined, beautifully crafted, and packed with love and hope.

This one will haunt me for a long while.

Dreadful Wind and Rain is named for an old folk ballad which describes the drowning of one sister by another, but it also echoes the story of Rachel and Leah in the Old Testament and elements of many ancient myths.

Gilliam crafts a powerful poetic voice that uses the framework of sibling rivalry to tell the story of a contemporary woman who throws off society's limited expectations for women, leaves a destructive marriage, and disentangles herself from the web of manipulative family members to find her own fierce voice and build a life for herself.

Even if you think you don't like poetry, I think you'll be enthralled by this stunning and lyrical collection.

We see people act out and don’t ask why. We see people use broken coping that tumbles them back into a cycle of self-damaging trauma. We don’t look at our past to inform how our personal history frames our experiences, coping, and expectations–and limits our ability to heal if we don’t self-examine and change behavior to bring about an alternative outcome.

The lies we tell ourselves to explain our choices and hide from our truth are protective mechanisms that can feed the damage. The shame projected on the victim, the learned shields to hide the original trauma, and the self-loathing attached to the secret self, no matter the outer success, are grounded in research physiology and psychology.

Until we understand the causation of our own actions, we might not be able to bring about change and could be doomed to repeat destructive patterns. It's unexpected and a fast… show more.

I found Christie Tate’s memoir alive with the honest frustration that she felt about how she was feeling despite her success. It made her so relatable, knowing I’ve been in similar mental spaces many times. It was reassuring to be reminded that I am not alone.

When Christie realized she was using her seemingly successful life to cover up and avoid fantasies about dying, I wanted to tell her me too, friend me too. While the group therapy sessions Christie invites us into are unorthodox, she crafts a convincing narrative about their value. One that made space for me to examine my own experiences in therapy with similar honesty.  

I feel less like the hard parts of my life and my story are too horrible to share, thanks to Catherine Gildiner’s powerful stories of her clients’ intense traumas. If therapists can help clients like Gildiner’s recover then there is hope for me too.

I love that she offers readers a “fly on the wall” perspective into the revelations and insights that come to light in a therapist’s office. In doing so, she opened a space for me to consider the ways I may relate to some of the clients’ experiences but, more importantly, the therapeutic advice Gildiner provides.

More than any other book I read this year, What My Bones Know gave me hope. Complex PTSD is a difficult diagnosis, and so little literature exists, especially from the perspective of a survivor. Stephanie Foo gave me hope that recovery might be possible.

Also, I cried about this book for a week straight.

I really loved how Dr. McDonald takes her excellent book on therapy and recovery from trauma a step further than most clinicians do by sharing personal experiences. To me, this makes her and the stories she shares come across as both more empathetic and believable but also vulnerable.

It places her in a different category than others in terms of authority and expertise. Plus, I found the suggestions she offers and the way she structures those sections very accessible.