Reading List for Chronic Pain and Mental Health

Living Like Crazy

Paul Gilbert

Psychologist Paul Gilbert explores how our brains and the world around us shape our thoughts and actions. He looks at how compassion can help us care for ourselves and others.

Invisible

Michele Lent Hirsch

Explores the specific challenges faced by women with chronic illness in the healthcare system, particularly young women of colour and trans women.

When the Body Says No

Gabor Maté, MD

Physician and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's disease.

Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

Gabor Maté, MD

Maté gives voice to the realities of ADD and ADHD and their effect on children, and on careers and social paths in adults. Moving beyond genetic risk, he focuses on what we can control: environment, family dynamics and parenting choices.

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Gabor Maté, MD, and Daniel Maté

Written with his son Daniel, Maté untangles common myths about what makes us sick, connects the health of individuals to the health of society, and offers a compassionate guide to healing.

The FibroManual: A Complete Fibromyalgia Treatment Guide for You and Your Doctor

Ginevra Liptan, MD

Dr. Liptan shares an approach that goes beyond mainstream medical knowledge to produce real symptom improvement.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Katherine May

A personal story threaded with lessons from literature, mythology and the natural world, about the transformative power of rest and retreat.

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

Bessel van der Kolk, MD

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the aftermath of combat, and many people carry the effects of abuse, addiction in the home or violence in their relationships. This book looks at how that history lives in the body.

Mindful in Minutes: You Are Not Your Thoughts

Kelly Smith

An eight-week guided meditation journal. Twenty minutes of meditation and journaling a day can help you step back from anxious thoughts and live a calmer, fuller life.

Daring Greatly

Brené Brown

Daring Greatly is not about winning or losing. It is about courage. In a world where “never enough” dominates and feeling afraid is second nature, being vulnerable is uncomfortable and even a little dangerous. Putting ourselves out there also means a greater risk of criticism or hurt.

Fierce Self-Compassion: How to Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Your Power, and Thrive

Kristin Neff

Kindness and self-acceptance let us be our imperfect selves, but the wish to ease suffering at the heart of that mindset is not always gentle. Sometimes it is fierce.

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself

Kristin Neff

Kristin Neff, PhD, says it is time to stop beating yourself up and leave insecurity behind. The book offers advice on limiting self-criticism and offsetting its effects, so you can live a more contented life.

The China Study

T. Colin Campbell

Trendy diets and a weight-loss frenzy sweep the continent, yet two-thirds of adults are still obese and children are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes at an alarming rate. If we are more obsessed with being thin than ever, why is heart disease as common as it was 30 years ago?

The End of Pain: How Nutrition and Diet Can Fight Chronic Inflammatory Disease

Jacqueline Lagacé

For years Jacqueline Lagacé lived with disabling arthritis pain in her hands, spine and knees. Conventional medicine gave her no relief, so the medical researcher went looking for alternatives.