Books like Molecules of Emotion — picked by fans

I’ve found so much value in this book; it’s one of my most recommended titles to both friends and clients.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people feel “not good enough” and the impact this has on our lives. Some of the most challenging feelings, such as guilt and shame, frequently emerge out of complex early life family dynamics, and more subtle forms of emotional neglect associated with narcissistic personality disorder can be incredibly difficult to disentangle.

The ”a-ha” moments in this book, especially emerging from the case studies, shone a light on feelings of insignificance and how to heal the inner child.

This book shifted the way I view both the literal and metaphorical winters in my life.

Rather than being seasons to dread, rushing through to get to the other side, the author helped me see them as opportunities for quiet and stillness; moments to rest.

There is something comforting to me about the idea that winters are inevitable, and that leaning into them—allowing myself to be nourished by them—is part of how we make it through.

Risk-taking writers are my heroes, and Katherine Dunn is at the top of my list.

Her astonishing book Geek Love, a cult classic, defiantly celebrates the freakish and bizarre, tearing to shreds the subjective and culturally determined definitions of normality, intelligence, and beauty. Dive into Geek Love, and you’ll be traveling with the Binewski family, owners of the “Carnival Fabulon,” whose “special” offspring are prized for their money-making monstrous endowments.

In creating Oly, an albino hunchback, or her brother Arty, born with flippers, or Chick, with telekinetic powers, Dunn risks alienating readers by turning her characters into stereotypes, comic or horrid. Instead, she has written a haunting, humorous, and existentially relevant novel about Otherness, about the afflictions of family life—alternatively claustrophobic and competitive or caring and dear.

In the matrix of family, we learn who we are and how to love. I, too, am a writer driven to explore… show more.

I loved this book as it clearly separated the two areas of the brain associated with some of the most challenging feelings we experience (fear, worry, etc.) and how we can use this knowledge to truly overcome the most frequent presentations I see in my practice–stress and anxiety.

Having experienced crippling anxiety at points in my life, I found comfort in further understanding why we as humans are essentially programmed to be anxious–without these neurological systems, we would not have survived.

But we needn’t be slaves to the amygdala and cortex, and so, I like that this book also outlined many easy and practical techniques to get to grips with an anxious brain in a complex world. 

This book is so genius in its ability to straddle so many different dimensions of experience – from science to medicine to intuition to energy healing and everything in between. I love Carolyn Myss as a great example of what’s possible in bridging worlds – her story of bringing medical intuition into more mass consciousness is brilliant and endlessly inspiring. This book helped me to affirm what I was already sensing as an energy healer – that all dis-ease and pain is rooted in an underlying spiritual or energetic issue. This book provides great precedents for how we can truly heal and recover from seemingly hopeless ailments by actually getting to the root of our supposed problems and meeting them with love, grace, and acceptance.

This book gives the perspective of a therapist and a former client who is now a therapist herself. 

This book can create realistic hope and includes self-disclosures of the author’s own experiences. The authors recognize that eating disorders serve a purpose and it’s not about food. They also emphasize the importance of reaching out to people which is a key factor for recovery.

Dr. Weil is a true pioneer of trying to educate both the general public and health clinicians about non-drug approaches to improving health. He has published a couple of dozen books to share his knowledge about botanicals, nutrients, true food, inflammation --- as well as other integrative skills and knowledge (breathing, meditation). The reason I selected this book to highlight is because it reminds us of the range of human emotions that are ‘normal’: as he says, it is not realistic to expect to be happy all the time. But eating a diet of healthy whole foods, avoiding ultra-processed products, and using supplements as needed --- these steps can improve our society’s mental health. 

Don’t be fooled by the cover! This might be marketed as a children’s book, but the message about the mind-body connection is so beautifully and brilliantly portrayed, this becomes a book for everyone. We have more power than most of us believe, and many have no idea how to tap into that power, but this book, if used correctly, can become a focal point for the most powerful mental shift you’ve ever taken. It’s a beautiful story with absolutely mind-blowingly brilliant illustrations that bring the whole thing alive and crystalize the visualization that you could implement into your own life.

Of the dozens of self-help books I’ve browsed or read, this book gave me tools to replace past pains and shame with pleasure and pride.

Numerous books helpfully tell you what you lack, gleefully list what you need to change. This one offers an important further step: it provides neural tools that helped me to change and make the changes last. I knew vaguely—like a small pain that is easy to ignore but which limits your movement—my ability to create, to grow ideas had always to battle a thicket of past aches, struggles, and fears.

This book not only helped me through that—it’s a guide, consequently, to lead a longer, richer life. Without a doubt, it’s one of the most transformational books in my life.

Mindsight is an amazing book that explains how one can actively train their brain to recover from mental and other problems. In some cases, this means living medication free and being able to live a normal life.

But why recommend Mindsight alongside spy thrillers? It has to do with the complex and atypical intellect of Michael Dolan, the lead character of my trilogy. Dolan’s past tragedies, the strange method he uses for compartmentalizing his thoughts and the things that bother him, his ability to wall those things up so they cannot bother him—this eventually catalyzes other problems that are far more significant and negative. Siegel’s Mindsight was instrumental for me in creating a psyche for Dolan that was singular, captivating, and problematic—but it also provided my main character an escape route—a way to overcome and heal.