May is Mental Health Awareness Month. In our modern fast-paced world, it’s more important than ever to look after our mental and emotional wellbeing. Whether you’re interested in the latest theories, treatments and approaches, as a recipient or a care provider; or you want to explore self-care routines, and how to bring your best self to your relationship, you can get started with these great books to read from Ingenium Books.
The Promise of Psychedelics
Science-Based Hope for Better Mental Health by Peter Silverstone
We’re On the Cusp of a Revolution in Mental Health
A fresh, engaging, and easy-to-read psychedelic therapy guide with simple analogies that explain complex concepts. Learn about psychedelics and a promising new mental health therapy program.
For mental health conditions like PTSD, grief, depression, anxiety, addictions, or personality issues, despite the best efforts of clinicians, medications or other treatments often don’t help at all. In The Promise of Psychedelics, you’ll learn:
- how psychedelics compare to psychiatric disorders
- how the mind and brain differ
- what’s normal versus abnormal
- how psychiatric diagnoses are made and why it’s a problem
- what recent advances tell us about psychedelics: what they are, how they work, what the risks are
- why it takes so long for some psychedelics to be approved for therapeutic use, and
- the science behind micro-dosing psychedelics.
Dr. Peter Silverstone rates and ranks psychedelics such as psilocybin, ketamine, MDMA, and more as contenders, wannabes, along with the bronze-, silver-, and gold-medal winners to share why some psychedelics, along with therapy, will become standard for many mental health conditions. You’ll also learn about Almond Therapy, the new psychedelic-assisted therapy program Dr. Silverstone and his team have developed that offers a big dose of hope.
Learn more about The Promise of Psychedelics
Come Passion
The Soulful ART of Healing Trauma by Colleen Clark
More than a manual for using Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) to treat disorders. It is designed to enhance your practice and skills as an ART therapist.
Anyone working in trauma-informed care knows that the body keeps the score. This is why PTSD therapy can make such a difference in not only the mental health of those suffering from PTSD and complex PTSD but also in their physical health. However, psychotherapy for PTSD, cognitive behavioural therapy, and internal family systems therapy aren’t always enough.
For clients needing an alternative therapy for PTSD, accelerated resolution therapy, or ART, offers a promising solution. This relatively new evidence-based therapy may not have made it into every PTSD textbook yet but is well on its way to become mental health providers’ first choice for trauma informed therapy because it delivers real results in such a short time: only about eight sessions.
You may have already undergone basic ART training and have even read an accelerated resolution therapy book or two. So what makes this one different? Come Passion: The Soulful ART of Healing Trauma isn’t simply an accelerated resolution therapy manual. It’s focus extends beyond the ART itself to how to prepare your client and yourself for your sessions.
This book is designed to enhance your work as an ART therapist and help you refine your skills. In addition to providing you with the foundation you need, this mood disorders therapy workbook also gives you practical tools, such as scripts and checklists, that can help you streamline your sessions with your client. It is the PTSD and complex PTSD recovery workbook you will return to again and again as you become more adept at delivering this soulful art of helping your clients heal from their trauma-related wounds.
Deeper Days
365 Yoga-spirations for Inner Calm Amidst Chaos by Andrea L. Wehlann
In a world full of war and unrest and everyone voicing their discontent as loud as they can while just trying to keep up with the impossibly fast pace, being able to stop and take a breath is more important than ever to help keep us from completely losing our mind.
But you don’t have to complete yoga teacher training or be an adherent of Hinduism or Zen Buddhism or any other philosophy to find value in Deeper Days. This daily reflection book is also a practical guide to how you can incorporate the concepts it describes into your daily life so that you can find inner calm amidst chaos. You can see it as a travel guide for your journey around the Sun, helping you find your personal path leading you to your magnificent heart.
Choices
How to Mend or End a Broken Relationship by Lauren Clucas
“What to do after his affair? Should I stay, or should I go?”
If you’re asking yourself these questions, it might be time to look at the truth of your relationship. Is it the relationship you want? Or would you be better off alone?
Whether you’re on the receiving end of betrayal, you’re the betrayer, or your relationship is in tatters without infidelity, Choices: How to Mend or End a Broken Relationship will help you decide if it’s time to dig deep or ditch.
Infidelity and affairs are by far the main reasons couples seek out therapy from author Lauren S. Clucas. Like an infidelity workbook for couples, you’ll find exercises and questionnaires in Choices that help you get at the truth. Choices is based on the real-life application of concepts straight from the therapist’s consult room, offering much more than couples counselling books or marriage counselling books.
You’ll read about real life examples from partners Clucas has worked with—couples who’ve worked honestly and courageously through infidelity and other relationship problems. Some have chosen to stay together and others to part ways after an affair. She outlines the steps to healing for both the betrayer and the betrayed. She also looks at trends in sexual utopias and how these couple-sanctioned activities can enhance or threaten a relationship.
Clucas introduces you to her personal backstory and relationship experience, which continues as a thread throughout the book. This is followed by a focus on wants and expectations, where you are guided to clarify what you want as your relationship matures. You’ll learn about your own bonding patterns, to recognise the role your upbringing plays in today’s relationships, how to keep the relationship safe, and establish boundaries. You’ll also learn about types of affairs, how to recognise when you or your relationship is at risk from infidelity, and how to work through the aftermath of an affair.
Prescription Comedy
An Unlikely Antidote to Physician Burnout by Dr. Pranathi Kondapaneni
A true story that shows that the secret to healing from physician burnout, re-connecting with loved ones, and rediscovering daily joy resides in an unlikely place: the comedy club.
In Prescription Comedy, author Dr. Pranathi Kondapaneni shares her personal journey with on-the-job burnout — burnout that was present even pre-COVID — and how an almost accidental foray into the world of comedy proved key to her cure.
What you’ll discover:
- Why so many physicians succumb to burnout and suffer a loss of faith as they toil under the weight of a medical system that doesn’t value connection
- Where the true value of comedy truly lies: in cultivating a connection with the audience that extends far beyond making them laugh
- How Dr. Kondapaneni’s personal quest to improve the physician-patient communication bond led her to discover and explore comedy
- Simple lessons that can help you defeat physician burnout
“In sharing my journey, I aim to help fellow physicians who feel downtrodden, disenfranchised, and disenchanted by the weight of this medical system,” says Dr. Kondapaneni. “Unless one has walked in the shoes of a shattered physician, it’s hard to understand the swamp which can swallow a physician whole.”
This book was written for physicians, who are often seen as lucky to have a stable, well-paying career. They ultimately carry the burden of treating our most precious resource: health. Couple this responsibility with a broken healthcare system, and physicians face a hefty load indeed.
“The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” —Mark Twain
Learn more about Dr. Kondapaneni and Prescription Comedy
Reach Out if You Need Help
If you or someone you love is struggling with their mental health and is in need of support, resources are available. Visit Mental Health America or the Canadian Mental Health Association.
