Books and resources I recommend

People often ask me, at the end of a session, whether there is something they can read or do between now and the next time we meet. This page is my answer: a working list of the books, courses, and free resources I most often recommend. It is not exhaustive, and it is not a curriculum. Read whatever feels relevant to where you are, and leave the rest.

A note on the links below: these are personal recommendations, not sponsored content. The book links are ordinary Amazon share links: I earn nothing if you buy through them, and you are very welcome to find any of these titles at your local bookshop or library instead. The one arrangement worth flagging is the Schema Therapy Solution course, where I can offer a discount code; that is a connection through my own training, and I mention it only because the saving is genuinely worth having.

For autistic and ADHD burnout

Burnout in neurodivergent adults is its own particular thing: not simply being tired, but the deep depletion that comes from masking, over-functioning, and running a nervous system hard for a long time without the right conditions. These three are the ones I return to.

• Burnout: Dr Claire Plumbly. A clear, compassionate guide grounded in the latest understanding of the nervous system, from a clinical psychologist and trauma specialist. A good first read for understanding what burnout actually is and how recovery works.
• The Autistic Burnout Workbook: Dr Megan Anna Neff. A practical, exercise-led workbook for building your own recovery plan, from an autistic psychologist who writes about this with real warmth and lived insight.
• The Neurodivergence Skills Workbook for Autism and ADHD: Jennifer Kemp, Monique Mitchelson & Sonny Jane Wise. Skills for self-compassion, living authentically, and self-advocacy: a kind, affirming companion to the work of unmasking.

For free reading on autistic burnout specifically, I often point people to Dr Alice Nicholls' articles. She is an autistic clinical psychologist who specialises in autistic burnout, and her pieces (on the cycle of burnout, and small practical ways to feel safer within it) are warm, clear, and genuinely useful.

Narcissism: navigating it, and understanding it

If you are in, or recovering from, a relationship with someone highly self-absorbed, the right book can make a confusing experience legible. These two come at it from different angles: one practical, one explanatory.

• Disarming the Narcissist: Wendy T. Behary. The book I most often recommend for navigating a relationship with a narcissistic person, written by a leading schema therapist, with concrete strategies for protecting yourself while staying grounded.
• Rethinking Narcissism: Dr Craig Malkin. For understanding narcissism as a spectrum rather than a slur: nuanced, evidence-based, and helpful for making sense of the people in your life and the patterns in yourself.

Boundaries and interpersonal difficulties

So much of what brings people to therapy is, underneath, about other people: saying no without guilt, holding a limit with someone who pushes against it, or loosening the grip of worry about what others do and think. These are the two I recommend all the time.

• The Better Boundaries Workbook: Sharon Martin. A practical, CBT-based programme for setting limits, expressing your needs, and building healthier relationships, especially good if you know your boundaries need work but find yourself freezing when it comes to actually holding them.
• The Let Them Theory: Mel Robbins. A simple, freeing idea for interpersonal difficulties: stop spending your energy trying to control what other people do, say, or think (let them) and put it back into what is actually yours to manage.

Heartbreak, dating, and healing

• Healing from Heartbreak: a guided online programme from Sheleana Aiyana of Rising Woman, for recovering from a break-up or divorce. Good if you want structure and support through the grief of an ending, with attention to the abandonment wounds it can reawaken.
• Burn the Haystack: Jennie Young, PhD. A clear-eyed, often funny guide to navigating modern dating as a woman, decoding the noise and making room for people who actually matter.
• Calling in "The One": Katherine Woodward Thomas. For the inner, healing work that dating asks of us: a seven-week course of reflection on the patterns we bring to love, and how to shift them.

Schema therapy

Schema therapy is one of the approaches I draw on most, and it speaks to people who feel the same painful patterns keep recurring in their lives and relationships.

• Reinventing Your Life: Jeffrey E. Young & Janet S. Klosko. A must-read. The original, accessible introduction to schema therapy from the model's founder. It helps you spot your own "lifetraps" and begin to loosen them.
• The Schema Therapy Solution: an excellent self-paced online course that takes you through identifying and working with your schema wounds. If you would like to take it, get in touch and I can share a discount code.

Low self-esteem

Low self-esteem sits underneath so much of what brings people to therapy: the harsh inner critic, the assumption that everyone else matters more, the quiet certainty of not being quite good enough.

• Overcoming Low Self-Esteem: Dr Melanie Fennell. The classic CBT self-help guide to understanding where low self-esteem comes from and patiently rebuilding it, from one of the field's most respected clinicians. Clear, kind, full of practical exercises, and a long-standing staple of NHS recommended-reading schemes.

Free resources: mindfulness-based CBT for anxiety and low mood

The Centre for Clinical Interventions (CCI), a public mental-health service in Western Australia, publishes some of the best free, evidence-based self-help workbooks anywhere online. They are written for use alongside therapy but are clear enough to work through on your own. These are the four collections I point people to most:

• Anxiety: understanding and managing worry, avoidance, and the physical side of anxiety.
• Health Anxiety: for when worry about illness and bodily sensations becomes its own problem.
• Depression: behavioural activation, unhelpful thinking, and gently rebuilding momentum.
• Distress Tolerance: skills for getting through intense emotional moments without making things worse.

A word before you begin

Books and courses can do a great deal, but they are not a substitute for therapy, and they cannot replace a careful clinical assessment. If something you read here stirs up more than you expected, that is not a failure; it is often a sign the material is touching something real, and a signal that it may be better explored with support. If you are in acute distress, please contact your GP, NHS 111, or, if you or someone else is in danger, 999. You can also call the Samaritans on 116 123, free, any time.