Books like Take Back Your Life — picked by fans

This is an outstanding book on healing from trauma, and I've read literally hundreds. This book transformed the way I practice psychotherapy; it transformed the way I understand what trauma does to the mind and body, and it transformed my relationship with myself. Fisher gets right to the heart of what brings most people into psychotherapy: self-alienation. Lots of people say, "I'm beating myself up," casually, without realizing the price they are paying for how habitually critical, punitive, discouraging, and condemning they are toward themselves!

Most people have compassion for others, but can't imagine how they could use that compassion internally. Internal compassion is what heals trauma, and this book, like no other I know, lays out, with depth and complexity, how to get there. 

This is a follow-up to Snyder's book On Tyranny, which I read when a friend gave me the graphic novel version. That one was great, this one really blew me away. My 1-year-old mother and her family escaped from Ukraine in 1919 after a pogrom in their village killed 1600 other Jews.

In America, my grandparents, free from persecution, worked hard, and the country that took them in gave my mother and her brothers opportunities that, in turn, gave me and my children more and more opportunities. Snyder, a Yale historian, knows Eastern European history inside out. He's a close observer of how tyranny is brought down and how freedom is constructed. Freedom has never been more fragile in the U.S. and around the world as authoritarianism and autocracies rise. I wish Snyder's book could be taught to every child and every adult in America today. 

A fictionalized version of the author's harrowing autobiography, this series of short, consecutive novels is a compelling and intensely moving story of trauma and recovery. We are shown how childhood sexual abuse and emotional neglect is a murder of the child's soul, how it can lead to addiction and self-loathing, and how recovery becomes a matter of choosing life over death.

The author gives us relentless honesty, focused prose, acute insight, and sharp, wickedly incisive wit. Slowly, steadily, Melrose heals and grows, understanding more and feeling more. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. In some of the most beautiful writing I've ever read, St. Aubyn describes the essence of healing from trauma: the experience of deeply felt, overwhelming compassion and empathy.

Stein puts her finger on one of the most important things I learned about the power of charismatic, narcissistic abusers: with love-bombing and seduction, they create dependence in their victim. Then, the belittling and humiliating begins, and the victim is now both dependent on the abuser and constantly intimidated by the abuser.

This is the essence of disorganized attachment, which creates a sense of powerlessness and fright without solution. Victims feel unable to leave, exhaust themselves trying to assuage the narcissist, and dissociation becomes the automatic survival response. Knowing this helps victims and their therapists understand why recovering the ability to think clearly is so difficult and so crucial for victims recovering from traumatic abuse.

Onto the darker side, now. This book outlines how narcissists behave but also posits an opposite force to narcissism (which is why I like it so much).

It’s written by a psychoanalyst, so Freud is lurking in the background, which I don’t always like, but Symington’s ideas are so interesting… Given the plethora of narcissistic politicians in the current world, this book is extraordinarily timely.

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 was one of the hardest books to "get into," but a friend of mine told me to stick with it because the rewards of getting through the first quarter would be so great. I'm glad I did. It is an astounding piece of work, quite different from anything I've ever read before or since, and remains one of my top five books.

The tangents the book takes, and the blasé attributes of the leading character are superbly crafted. It was suggested it was "unfilmable," and there's one scene in particular I thought they'd never get away with, but if you look at the movie version carefully, it's in there. 

My life is hard to define, but that doesn’t stop me from constantly trying. I’ve got a couple of autobiographies in progress, even though I was convinced that no one cared about the trivialities of my existence.

And then I found Lyndsay Rush. In her poetry, I saw so many of my own little details. To use an overworked cliché, I felt seen.

Through Lyndsay’s words, I realized that in so many ways, it’s not just me. It was never just me. By pointing out the minuscule details that fill our lives, she gave me permission to approve of my own. That is not a bit much. That’s just right.

When I was in my 20s and ending a relationship with a narcissist, this book was a lifesaver. This book was able to describe exactly what I had been through and made me feel less crazy (being in a relationship with a narcissist can make you feel crazy!). This book also solidified my decision to leave the narcissist once and for all and helped me find a relationship where I was treated well. A must-read for anyone in a relationship with a narcissist or who has been in a relationship with a narcissist.

I think about this book a lot. Breaking down the roles daughter might play with a mom who struggles with personality characteristics that lend to the mother-daughter relationship being difficult is compelling!

I enjoyed the author’s style of writing as she makes you feel like you are in the room with her, and she’s offering a lot of acceptance, validation, and compassion that serves to help the healing process from attachment trauma with mom. This book is full of examples of how mom might show up and how adult daughter may choose to respond in ways that support healthy boundaries and healing.