Resources We Recommend

There are so many books, podcasts, courses and videos out there to help support your journey in growth and healing. The Peak Experience Counselling team is always continuing to read and learn. We have a long and trusted list of some of our favourite recommendations to share with you.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”

The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

What would it be like to free yourself from limitations and soar beyond your boundaries? What can you do each day to discover inner peace and serenity? The Untethered Soul offers simple yet profound answers to these questions.

Whether this is your first exploration of inner space, or you’ve devoted your life to the inward journey, this book will transform your relationship with yourself and the world around you. You’ll discover what you can do to put an end to the habitual thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness. By tapping into traditions of meditation and mindfulness, author and spiritual teacher Michael A. Singer shows how the development of consciousness can enable us all to dwell in the present moment and let go of painful thoughts and memories that keep us from achieving happiness and self-realization.

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

Are you a highly sensitive person?

Do you have a keen imagination and vivid dreams? Is time alone each day as essential to you as food and water? Are you "too shy" or "too sensitive" according to others? Do noise and confusion quickly overwhelm you? If your answers are yes, you may be a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

Most of us feel overstimulated every once in a while, but for the Highly Sensitive Person, it's a way of life. In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a psychotherapist, workshop leader and highly sensitive person herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.

We also recommend, "The Highly Sensitive Child: Helping Our Children Thrive When the World Overwhelms Them" by Dr. Elaine Aron.

Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love

In Hold me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from Recognizing the Demon Dialogue to Revisiting a Rocky Moment-and uses them as touchpoints for seven healing conversations. Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love.

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country's Foremost Relationship Expert

John Gottman's unprecedented study of couples over a period of years has allowed him to observe the habits that can make—and break—a marriage. Here is the culmination of that work: the seven principles that guide couples on a path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Straightforward yet profound, these principles teach partners new approaches for resolving conflicts, creating new common ground, and achieving greater levels of intimacy. Gottman offers strategies and resources to help couples collaborate more effectively to resolve any problem, whether dealing with issues related to sex, money, religion, work, family, or anything else.

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find--and Keep--Love

In Attached, Levine and Heller reveal how an understanding of adult attachment-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love. Pioneered by psychologist John Bowlby in the 1950s, the field of attachment posits that each of us behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:

Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back
Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.
Secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.

In this book Levine and Heller guide readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mate) follow, offering a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections with the people they love.

Positive Discipline: The Classic Guide to Helping Children Develop Self-Discipline, Responsibility, Cooperation, and Problem-Solving Skills

For twenty-five years, Positive Discipline has been the gold standard reference for grown-ups working with children. Now Jane Nelsen, distinguished psychologist, educator, and mother of seven, has written a revised and expanded edition. The key to positive discipline is not punishment, she tells us, but mutual respect. Nelsen coaches parents and teachers to be both firm and kind, so that any child–from a three-year-old toddler to a rebellious teenager–can learn creative cooperation and self-discipline with no loss of dignity. Inside you’ll discover how to

• bridge communication gaps
• defuse power struggles
• avoid the dangers of praise
• enforce your message of love
• build on strengths, not weaknesses
• hold children accountable with their self-respect intact
• teach children not what to think but how to think
• win cooperation at home and at school
• meet the special challenge of teen misbehavior

Good Inside: A Practical Guide to Resilient Parenting Prioritizing Connection Over Correction

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them.

Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don’t build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents’ complicated relationships with their own upbringings, and it’s easy to see why so many caretakers feel lost, burned out, and worried they’re failing their kids. In Good Inside, Dr. Becky shares her parenting philosophy, complete with actionable strategies, that will help parents move from uncertainty and self-blame to confidence and sturdy leadership.

Offering perspective-shifting parenting principles and troubleshooting for specific scenarios—including sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, tantrums, and more—Good Inside is a comprehensive resource for a generation of parents looking for a new way to raise their kids while still setting them up for a lifetime of self-regulation, confidence, and resilience.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.

Most important, Haidt issues a clear call to action. He diagnoses the “collective action problems” that trap us, and then proposes four simple rules that might set us free. He describes steps that parents, teachers, schools, tech companies, and governments can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a more humane childhood.

Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

Scattered Minds explodes the myth of attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD) as genetically based—and offers real hope and advice for children and adults who live with the condition. In it, Maté, who himself is diagnosed with ADD:

• Demonstrates that the condition is not a genetic "illness" but a response to environmental stress, and how "distractibility" is the psychological product of life experience;
• Explains how ADD/ADHD can arise when circuits in the brain whose job is emotional self-regulation and attention control can fail to develop in infancy—and why;
• Allows parents to understand what makes their children with ADD/ADHD tick, and helps adults with ADD/ADHD gain insights into their emotions and behaviours;
• Expresses optimism about neurological development even in adulthood;
• Presents a program of how to promote this development in both children and adults
…and much more.

We are big fans of Dr. Mate and highly recommend all his books, courses, and events. You can find out about all of his resources on his website.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Brené Brown PhD, LMSW, dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.

Brown explains how vulnerability is both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief, and disappointment, and the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation, and creativity. She writes: “When we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.”

It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand

In It’s OK That You’re Not OK, Megan Devine offers a profound new approach to both the experience of grief and the way we try to help others who have endured tragedy. Having experienced grief from both sides―as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner―Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, “happy” life, replacing it with a far healthier middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it. In this compelling and heartful book, you’ll learn:

• Why well-meaning advice, therapy, and spiritual wisdom so often end up making it harder for people in grief
• How challenging the myths of grief―doing away with stages, timetables, and unrealistic ideals about how grief should unfold―allows us to accept grief as a mystery to be honored instead of a problem to solve
• Practical guidance for managing stress, improving sleep, and decreasing anxiety without trying to “fix” your pain
• How to help the people you love―with essays to teach us the best skills, checklists, and suggestions for supporting and comforting others through the grieving process

Many people who have suffered a loss feel judged, dismissed, and misunderstood by a culture that wants to “solve” grief. Megan writes, “Grief no more needs a solution than love needs a solution.” Through stories, research, life tips, and creative and mindfulness-based practices, she offers a unique guide through an experience we all must face―in our personal lives, in the lives of those we love, and in the wider world.

It’s OK That You’re Not OK is a book for grieving people, those who love them, and all those seeking to love themselves―and each other―better.

Secure Love: Create a Relationship That Lasts a Lifetime

In this book Julie Menanno, the expert behind the popular Instagram account @TheSecureRelationship, tackles:

Why you and your partner have the same fight over and over (hint: it’s called a negative cycle, and underlying every fight, argument, silent treatment, or passive-aggressive comment is an unmet attachment need).
“Instead of that, say this” suggested scripts of how to approach difficult situations in your relationship more effectively.
The four attachment types, with exercises to understand you and your partner’s attachment style.
How to improve communication, including staying connected during conflict by prioritizing vulnerability rather than protecting yourself.
Why insecure attachment negatively impacts a couple’s sex life and how to ignite that sexual connection.

Secure Love is a crash course in understanding how you show up in a relationship and guides you on getting out of negative cycles to find safety in one another. In doing so, “you’ll be armed with eternal wisdom for strengthening your relationship” (Dr. Sue Johnson, founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples and bestselling author of Hold Me Tight) and establish a secure attachment with your partner to create the bond you’ve been longing for.

We also highly recommend The Secure Relationship website to check out Julie Menanno's podcast, groups, and courses such as:

Where Should We Begin?
Podcast, Website and Other Resources

Join Esther in her office every Monday to listen in as real couples in search of help bare the raw, intimate, and profound details of their stories.

From break-ups and open relationships to workplace conflicts and fractures in the family, come for a glimpse into another’s world and stay for what you’ll learn about your own.

Whether you listen alone, or with a partner or friends, we encourage you to use the podcast as a map for navigating difficult relational conversations.
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Discover more on Esther's website

Dear Therapists Podcast

Welcome to the Dear Therapists podcast, where every Tuesday, renowned therapists Lori Gottlieb and Guy Winch offer you unforgettable stories of what it means to be human.

Sit in on real sessions with real people as we guide our “fellow travelers” through the everyday and extraordinary challenges of life.

We bring the therapy room into your earbuds as we invite you to be a fly-on-the-wall and listen to our intimate, raw, transformative sessions where we share insights and actionable advice, then check back to find out what happened after the session–and what we can all learn about ourselves through the lens of others.

We’re sharing these real sessions because we believe that everyone can benefit from hearing how people just like them get through their struggles and grow and change. So sit back and come into the therapy room with us … and prepare to learn a lot about yourself in the process.

Listen on Lori Gottlieb's website or your preferred source.

BetterLove Project

BetterLove was born from a simple truth: From the moment we're born, our relationships shape our development. Yet most of us have never been taught the skills needed for meaningful, sustained connection. Founded by relationship specialists Sara Place and Melissa Ander, BetterLove combines attachment theory, neurobiology, and practical application to create an accessible framework for transforming how you connect with everyone in your life—from partners and family to colleagues and community.

Better Love combines attachment theory, neurobiology, and relationship science to create a comprehensive approach to relationship education and leadership. Founded by Sara Place and Melissa Ander, our methodology is designed to help you build awareness and practice through a developmental sequence that includes vital tasks necessary to optimize your nervous system regulation, relational experience, and therefore lived experience.

Visit the Better Love Project website

Dr. Kristen Neff: Self-Compassion

Dr. Neff is author of the books Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, and Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power and Thrive. In conjunction with her colleague Dr. Chris Germer, she developed an empirically supported training program called Mindful Self-Compassion and co-founded the nonprofit Center for Mindful Self-Compassion, which offers self-compassion training in a variety of formats. Drs. Neff and Germer co-authored The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook , Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program: A Guide for Professionals, and in fall 2024 their latest book was published, Mindful Self-Compassion for Burnout: Tools to Help You Heal and Recharge When You’re Wrung Out by Stress.

We highly recommend exploring Dr. Neff's website, self-compassion.org She has an incredible number of resources from podcasts, books, courses, research, tips and challenges, guided practices and a link to the Centre for Mindful Self Compassion, a non-profit community that offers courses and resources for the practice of mindful self compassion.