Professional Reading List & Resources

  • All professionals working in the psychotherapy profession should engage in something called Continuous Professional Development (CPD). Reading is a big part of my professional CPD, which is why I have created this page.

  • The idea behind CPD is that it should help professionals maintain an up-to-date view of the profession as the evidence grows, and old theories are challenged. With time, this practice should help the field evolve. Ideally when practitioners engage with CPD, they will update their beliefs and improve their practice.

  • Below I share my ongoing reading list in scientific training, clinical practice, and other relevant literature.

  • In it, I only include works that I have read cover-to-cover, and which I believe are valuable, and worth sharing.

Scientific books

  • Ben Goldace’s Bad Science

  • Charle’s Darwin’s The Origin of Species & The Descent of Man

  • Steven Pinker’s The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, Rationality: What It Is, Why It Matters, And Why It Seems Scare, The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and its Causes, The Language Instinct: How The Mind Creates Language. Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress

  • Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

  • Michael Pollan’s This Is Your Mind on Plants: Opium, Caffeine, Mescaline & How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics

    Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene & The Magic of Reality

  • David Deutsche’s The Beginning of Infinity: Explanation That Transform the World

  • Tim Spectre’s The Diet Myth: The Real Science Behind What We Eat

  • Spencer Well’s Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project

  • Robert Plomin’s Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are

  • Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

  • David Nutt’s Drugs Without the Hot Air: Making Sense of Legal and Illegal Drugs

  • Max Tegmark’s Life 3.0

  • Frans de Waal’s Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

  • Jonathon Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

  • Jonathon Haidt and Gregg Lukianhoff’s The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure

  • Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow

  • Brain Hughes’ Psychology in Crisis

Clinical Practice

  • Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score: Mind, Brain and Body in the Transformation of Trauma

  • Chris Palmer’s Brain Energy: A Revolutionary Breakthrough in Understanding Mental Health—and Improving Treatment for Anxiety, Depression, OCD, PTSD, and More

  • Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

  • Freud’s The Psychopathology of Everyday Life

  • Jason Satterfield’s Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain

  • Jasmin Croi’s The Emotionally Absent Mother: A Guide to Self-Healing and Gettnig the Love You Missed

  • Jane Milton, Caroline Polmear & Julia Fabricious’ A Short Introduction to Psychoanalysis

  • David Nutt’s Brain and Mind Made Simple & Psychedelics: Revolutionary New Drugs

  • Eagleman’s The Brain: The Story of You

  • Kay Radfield’s An Unquiet Mind

  • Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangello & Me