Mental Health Bookclub discussion

One of the main objectives of redesigning this group is to build up a collection of reviews to give people recommendations and get more input from group members.

We're focusing primarily on mental health books, but given that we have non-mental health group reads, I will have a generic non-MH category so feel free to submit for that. To do so, you need to have written your review on the book's Goodreads page as we will be linking to it.

Please do not submit a book that you've written - we're looking for reviewing other people's work! Of course if someone else in the group has read your book and wants to review it that's fab and they should submit.

Also, this thread isn't 'submissions' in the sense that I'm going to be judging anyone's reviews for quality/accuracy or in any other way, it's just a way to make sure that they're all in a consistent format see questions below) so it's easy for people to navigate.

If you want to submit a review, please comment on this thread with:
- Link to the book's GR page
- Genre (e.g. it could be a Young Adult book about mental health, so I would put Young Adult)
- How it's relevant to mental health - e.g. character has a mental illness (if so which?), a book about a therapeutic technique etc.
- Which category you would put the book in - at the moment I'm starting with Mental Health Fiction, Memoirs and By Therapists but these categories are absolutely up for discussion
- Are there any trigger warnings people should be aware of? e.g. violence, sexual abuse, suicide
- A couple of lines from your review as a taster
- A link to your review on the book's GR page

If the book you want to review has already been reviewed by someone else, you can absolutely still submit! I'll likely feature excerpts from one or two reviews and then a list of links to any other reviews.

Hope that all makes sense, let me know if you have any questions. Otherwise, get reviewing!

Wow, Martha, this is awesome! I think I have quite a lot (well... not dozens, lol!) of reviews to submit, I'll do that one at a time, when I have the time. Let me start with one, so you can tell me if I'm doing this in the right way.

Book: A Patient's Guide to Psychotherapy: And an Overview for Students and Beginning Therapists by Donald B. Colson
Genre: Psychology Non-Fiction
How it's relevant: the author is a therapist
Category: By Therapists
Trigger Warnings: no
Excerpt from review: [...] The book is an introduction to psychotherapy for patients and students alike, and it is very comprehensive, explaining most of the issues concerning and arising from therapy. [...]
Link to review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Thanks Marina!

Great stuff, I'll add it to the folders

Thanks :)

Here's a second review, and then I'm off to a luch break ;)

Book: My Alien Self: My Journey Back to Me by Amanda Green
Genre: Memoir
How it's relevant: the author has Borderline Personality Disorder
Category: Memoirs
Trigger Warnings: some graphic descriptions of what it means to live with BPD
Excerpt from review: [...] I liked this memoir up to a point because, as has been said by another reviewer, the author tends to ramble quite a bit and this makes it difficult to follow her story. But as I said, I think it's good in that it helps fighting stigma. [...]
Link to review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Done! Thanks

Thanks, Martha, I'm loving this :)

New review submission:

Book: MiXED NUTS or What I've Learned Practicing Psychotherapy by Rick Cormier
Genre: Psychology
How it's relevant: the author is a therapist
Category: By Therapists
Trigger Warnings: over-generalizing on some disorders might be triggering for some people
Excerpt from review: Rick Cormier is a semi-retired psychotherapist specialized in anxiety disorders, PTSD and relationships. He writes an introduction to the psychotherapeutic job, although I failed to understand who the intended audience is. Is it the layperson? Patients? Students? No idea. Sometimes, if I have to be honest, it just seems a self-celebratory book. [...]
Link to review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Book: Brain over Binge by Kathryn Hansen
Genre: Memoir
How it's relevant: the author used to suffer from Binge Eating Disorder and Bulimia
Category: Memoirs
Trigger Warnings: the entire book is triggering, really. Descriptions of bulimic behavior and very controversial approach to recovery
Excerpt from review: [...] In the end, I found this book interesting enough, even though the author sometimes states the obvious and oftentimes she is full of herself. I don’t agree with everything she says, not at all, but I do believe some of her points are interesting enough. [...]
Link to review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Updated, thanks!

Love's Executioner by Irvin D. Yalom.

Memoirs.

It's relevant because it is about a famous therapist and how he tries to help his clients but also how he is learning from them.

One chapter deals with a man's verbal sexual harrassment of women and mentions rape several times but not at all explicitly.
Another chapter reveals a woman with DID symptoms.

The collection of ten absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humour at the heart of the therapeutic encounter...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Book: Girl Against the Universe
Genre: Young Adult
How it's relevant: Main character has anxiety
Category: Fiction
Trigger Warnings: None that I', aware of
Excerpt from review: [...]And that's the thing about this book: It's so relateable![...]
Link to review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...