The Best Psychology Books That Will Change Your Life

What can really produce and increase relationships with books is changing the way of conceiving the act of reading. It is for this reason that below we share with you the best books that can change your life, and your relationship with reading:

1. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Emil Frankl. This basic book in psychology collects the shocking story of the experience of the writer Viktor Frankl himself, in the concentration camps. The man in search of meaning goes beyond a testimony of the psychiatrist and writer about the events experienced, it is an existential lesson. The beginning of logotherapy.
2. Sigmund Freud’s Psychopathology of Everyday Life. No theory related to the functioning and structure of the mind has managed to exert as much influence or acquire such widespread respect as psychoanalysis. This book by Sigmund Freud describes all the analysis worked on what is known as a failed act.
3. Psychoanalysis and existentialism by Viktor Emil Frankl. This is the work on which Frankl was working when he was taken to the concentration camp where the manuscript, almost ready for publication, was taken from him. The original German title translates as Medical Cure of Souls.
4. many lives many teachers by the American doctor and psychiatrist Brian Weiss. Book published in 1988 based on a true story by the same writer, which tells the case of his young patient and the beginning of regression therapy to past lives in order to heal the pain of his current life.
5. The art of Loving by Erich Fromm. The author shares with us that love is not only a personal relationship, but above all, it is a trait of maturity that manifests itself in various forms: erotic love, brotherly love, filial love, love of oneself. Here you will find a summary of The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm.
6. The process of becoming a person by Carl Rogers. The author exposes the importance of client-centered therapy, of treating people (even outside the clinic) not as objects, but as subjects.
7. We are our brain, how we think, suffer and love by Dick Swaab. The book studies the human being, especially his brain, from his conception to his death.
8. The man who mistook his wife for his hat by Oliver Sacks. In this book the author explains in novel form different pathologies that exist.
9. The self-realized man by Abraham Maslow. The author shares his pyramid of human needs and how we reach the highest part of it, self-realization. Here you will find more information about Maslow’s Theory of Needs.
10. The brain tricks us by Francisco J. Rubia. This book is a manual that explains how the mind, the brain, and thought act to make us live reality in one way or another. Based on advances in neurobiology, anthropology and philosophy, J. Rubia explains in depth how the illusions that our brain creates are what help us survive.

Psychology has different branches and there are books for all tastes. The essential degrees in social psychology are the following:

1. Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo. Published for the first time in 2007. It narrates all that unconscious, instinctive, camouflaged and Dionysian part that each of us possesses.
2. The malaise of culture by Sigmund Freud. The father of psychoanalysis exposes the antagonism between the instinctual needs of human beings and the restrictions that culture imposes on them.
3. Sapiens from animals to gods by Yuval Noah Harari. A brief history of humanity is told, from the first humans to the radical and sometimes devastating advances of the three great revolutions that our species has undergone.
4. Influence by Robert Cialdini. The author exposes his studies on human behavior and the factors that influence human beings in decision-making, that is, in the psychology of persuasion.
5. Psychology of the masses and analysis of the self by Sigmund Freud. Explains the opposition between individual psychology and social or collective psychology. Freud explains in this book the relationship of the individual with his parents and siblings, with the person who is the object of his love and all those who were the object of his psychoanalytic research.
6. social animal by Elliot Aronson. Book that describes the different advances and discoveries through science. A book that every psychology professional should read.
7. Thought and language by Lev Vygotsky. It is a theory that was initially developed by philosopher Jerry Fodor, who proposes a type of specific language used in mental processes, which allows the development of complex thoughts from simpler concepts. In the following article you will find Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory.
8. The mediocre man by the doctor, psychiatrist, criminologist, philosopher, sociologist and psychologist José Ingenieros published for the first time in 1903. It addresses the issue of the nature of man, confronting two types of personalities: that of the mediocre man and that of the idealist, analyzing moral characteristics of each one and the structures and functions that these types of personalities have adopted in history, culture and society. The book that he would recommend reading as the most effective to make us reevaluate changing our mental schemas, without a doubt, would be that of José Ingenieros. According to Ingenieros, the mediocre man is that being without personality who allows himself to be molded by his environment or social environment in which he lives.
9. mirror neurons by Giacomo Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia. The authors propose that the ability to feel in another’s skin is possible thanks to the existence of these neurons. Certain neurons near Broca’s area, in the inferior parietal lobe, become excited when the person under investigation observes an action by another individual, in a similar way as if they were acting themselves. Here you can read more about what mirror neurons are and what their function is.
10. suicide by Emilie Durkheim. In this book the author makes an in-depth analysis of the annual suicide rates and answers certain doubts about the maintenance of the percentage or high rates in some regions of the world and their causes. He further distinguishes four types of suicide: altruistic, selfish, anomic and fatalistic suicide.

The best psychology books to reflect, learn and change are the following:

1. Industrial society and its future / Unabomber Manifesto of the American mathematician, philosopher, neo-Luddite Theodore Kaczynski. The consequences and disaster for the human race of the industrial revolution are manifested.
2. The knight in the rusty armor by American writers Robert Fisher and Bobby Fischer originally published in 1987. The book tells the story of a knight who becomes enclosed in his armor that metaphorically represents his own thoughts, his own world. Seeing himself desperate for not being able to take off his armor, which makes it impossible for him to feed himself and interact with his family, he goes in search of help to the forests of Merlin, who helps him by advising him to follow the path to the solution.
3. The Bonobo and the Ten Commandments by Frans de Waal. In this book we discover with astonishment that many behaviors that we thought were exclusively human are practiced by bonobos and even by other animals less close to our species.
4. To love or depend? By Walter Riso. The author shares important features about the differences between love and dependence; as there are unhealthy meanings of love caused by unconscious needs.
5. The interpretation of dreams by Sigmund Freud. With this book the bases of knowledge of the unconscious within the soul life are opened. If it is a topic of interest to you, here you can find The meaning of dreams according to Sigmund Freud.

One of the issues that has been the most difficult for me to analyze is the success of self-help books with respect to social relations. Previously, advice came from close circles (parents, friends, the sociability we had when there were not so many screens and the internet). Generally this advice was given to someone close to us or someone like us, we asked for advice and trusted. But at the moment when as individuals we are gaining ground in this society and social relationships are becoming virtual, a problem arises when you need a shoulder to cry on, someone to lean on, someone to ask for advice, it is That is, someone to shelter doubts and fears. This situation is found to be very complicated because the concept of friendship has not been planted.

Finding yourself in this situation, you turn to external help (for example, and in the best of cases, health professionals, but in the most common cases, self-help books). This is where the problem detected in self-help books arises, and that is that they are focused on you, as their name indicates (car), that is, you help yourself. Self-help books do not use one axis of reference on the other.

So trying to work on improving yourself “taking the other into account” does not seem to be the common theme of self-help books. So in the end you try to search a manual that does not know us You’re welcome, who knows absolutely nothing about us and gives us a generic prescription that we have to apply ourselves and that if they don’t help us we will have to turn to a second self-help book, becoming a kind of chain that has no end.

There are books that tell you: “You can achieve success if you follow 21 days, if you follow 21 steps.” But when you don’t achieve it, there are a few second self-help books that tell you: “How to get out of the hopelessness, the discouragement that has invaded you by not achieving it.” To all this occurs a kind of internal recycling of self-help consumption that leaves the sociability of the individual helpless where there is personalized contact.

I think we should try recover that value of friendship So wonderful to say to young people – You have to keep working on friendships. Friendships are worked on, that is, they require an investment of time and an investment of attention – We forget all this, and when we really need a shoulder to cry on, we don’t have one. We have lost that investment and we turn to the simplest things that are those self-help manuals, which are often best-seller at the global level.

What most self-help books suggest is to raise self-esteem under a narcissistic methodology, that is, – tell the mirror that you are wonderful, tell your friends to speak well of you -. They seek to raise self-esteem, depositing resources in narcissism. So I would not recommend self-help or positive psychology books as first-hand reading.

The self-help books that have had the most success in sales are shared below:

1. Your incorrect zones by Wayne Dyer.
2. toxic people by Bernardo Stamateas.
3. One always changes the love of one’s life for another love or another life. by Amalia Andrade.
4. 21 irrefutable laws of leadership by John C. Maxwell.
5. The art of not embittering life by Rafael Santandreu.
6. The 7 habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey.
7. Everything you can imagine by Wayne Dyer.
8. you are a crack by Jen Sincero.
9. Believe in yourself: Discover the power to transform your life by Rut Nieves Miguel.
10. 7 hours to change life from Jota Norte.

For both beginners and professionals, for all those people who are studying or have studied psychology, the following books are essential:

1. why we love by Helen Fisher. The author proposes gender differences and the evolution of human emotions. Helen Fisher is known as an expert on romantic love.
2. How to detect lies by Paul Ekman. The author explains in depth his study in non-verbal and verbal language; the myths about reading the truth in the body and in words. A necessary book for listening to and observing psychiatric patients.
3. emotional intelligence by Daniel Goleman. This book constituted a true phenomenon that revolutionized the concept of intelligence. Although originally the concept of emotional intelligence cannot be attributed to the author, since decades before the publication of his book, different theories had already been made public. Goleman adds to different studies that originated the idea of ​​him with a very simple but exquisite language to read.
4. The expression of emotions in man and animals of Darwin. The way in which humans and animals, mainly birds and mammals, express their emotions is exposed.
5. More Plato, less Prozac by Lou Marinoff. The author turns to the emblematic philosophers of history to confront situations such as love, ethics, death and change.
6. Descartes’ error by Antonio Damasio. The author describes the dualism between body and mind; He exposes his hypothesis of a somatic imprint, the mechanism by which our emotions guide or bias our behavior when making decisions. Damasio postulates that rationality always requires an emotional contribution and maintains that René Descartes’ error is the dualistic separation between body and mind, rationality and emotion.
7. Freud for beginners by Richard Appignanesi. This is a book that makes it easier for us to read the profound and important studies of the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud. A book with attractive comic-like illustrations, which makes reading easier and attractive.
   

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   highly recommended for students of the first years in psychology.

8. The body keeps score by Van der Kolk. This deeply human book offers new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma, offering hope and clarity to all people affected by its devastation, especially interested clinicians.
9. Living with dissociation by Onno van der hart. The book offers lucid explanations, practical skills in treating patients with dissociation. It works as a manual for therapists, as a guide for trainers and as a reference book for patients with dissociative disorders.
10. Trauma and memory by Peter Levine. The author provides insights into how memories and the brain circuits involved in maintaining these memories potentiate trauma to influence how we think, feel, and interact.
11. The tormented self by Van der Kolk. This book presents important insights from professional researchers who share what they have learned from treating and studying chronically traumatized people over more than sixty-five years of collective experience.

Currently there are many books on child psychology, both manuals for professionals, practical guides for parents and also stories for children themselves. Among the most used and highly valued child psychology books we find:

1. The child’s brain by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson. A manual on the functioning of the child’s brain, ideal for understanding the behavior of boys and girls and being able to educate and accompany them better.
2. How to talk so that your children listen to you and how to listen so that your children listen to youand talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. A successful child psychology book that provides practical techniques and strategies to improve family communication with sons and daughters.
3. The color monster by Anna Llenas. A children’s story that is in great demand for its great usefulness in working on emotions is for the little ones.
4. Tcalm and attentive like a frog by Eline Snel. A practical guide for children to learn mindfulness, a meditation technique that is used to train attention and be fully aware of the present. Mindfulness provides many benefits to infants, such as greater concentration, security, serenity and quality of sleep.
5. Little Edu is not angry by Linne Bie. A children’s story to learn to identify and manage emotions.

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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