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Walk into any bookstore, and you’ll find tables loaded with self-help books for every imaginable problem. But there are times when the wisest advice might be tucked away in the memoir section.
These first-person accounts can provide proof that setbacks are survivable. “The way the narrator makes meaning offers us an invitation to think about the meaning that we’ve made in our lives,” said Jonathan Adler, a professor of psychology at Olin College of Engineering. “It’s an invitation to realize that you are interpreting your story, and that you have choices about how you want to do that.”
We asked therapists, psychologists and other mental health experts to recommend memoirs that capture what it’s like to struggle and find your footing again. Here are seven titles that rose to the top of the list.
An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison
Dr. Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, details her experience living with bipolar disorder, or manic-depressive illness, as the condition was known when this memoir was first published in 1995.
She also describes the long “war” she waged against herself by intermittently resisting medication. “It is such an honest report of the struggle to stay in therapy and continue with treatment when the highs of bipolar are so compelling,” said Alexis Tomarken, a therapist in New York City.
Harriet Lerner, a psychotherapist in Lawrence, Kan. and author of “The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships,” said that she often recommends this book to patients with bipolar disorder, but not “when they’re in a fragile or dysregulated state,” since reading the book can be an emotional experience.
Just Kids, by Patti Smith
In this title, the winner of the 2010 National Book Award for nonfiction, Ms. Smith reflects on making her way as a poet, performer and visual artist in New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Broke, unsettled by the political violence of the time and navigating fluid relationships, she occasionally tipped into despair. But she shared a dedication to art with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe that steadied and fueled her.
“It was inspiring to me, as someone who is not an artist, to see that kind of commitment,” said Ben Endres, a psychotherapist in Milwaukee, who added that he would recommend this book to anyone trying to break with conventional expectations.
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Monica Garwood
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