Telling your inner critic to chill
radiatedaily.com
radiatedaily.com
Mental health is mechanical. Most anxiety and suffering within mental health are second order effects from unconscious fears that we have about behaviours we feel are risky to take. For example, if you grow up in a household where your personal distress causes distress in others, you will hide your own personal distress and attempt to appear good all of the time. You will have high levels of anxiety in situations in which you might have to admit distress/dissatisfaction/not be a happy person that makes everyone else happy.
To improve mental health, more behaviours on the spectrum of all possible behaviours need to become calmly accessible. This allows the brain to be calmer in a wider range of situations; previously a situation that might cause distress might have been avoided/cause a spike in anxiety, now the situation can be faced calmly and the newly integrated behaviour allows the individual to say "sorry, I'm finding this too stressful, I need to stop".
Everyone typically has their own unique combination of behaviours which are not easily accessible. In my personal therapy I found that my dreams were a useful way of diagnosing what behaviours I was not comfortable with. I got very interested in this and ultimately completed a Masters in Psychology to write a paper on the topic based on the underlying neurology that occurs during REM sleep.
The paper can be read here: https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz
It was discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590
Every time a horrible cringe/guilt memory comes up, instead of expletive Fuuuuuuu (mental or out loud) literally reprogram yourself to immediately say "I love me!" or "Different now" or something else that's positive.
The silly goodness of the thing legit interrupts the pain of the memory.
Thoughts and feelings that fire together wire together, so you MUST to break the connection of old shit spiraling into bad mood, paralysis, etc in the moment.
This is daily housekeeping for mental health. No one has endless time to meditate or waste money on therapy
once you have a few of these solid habits, you feel strong enough to do the heavy murky freudian trauma unraveling that's more longterm and releases the tight gordian knots from childhood etc.
But daily tools DO work and are just as important.
in person therapy is a waste of time/money for most people unless you're so wealthy you can afford the wise old superstar in their field (most of the best have already dropped dead of old age).
less charitable: those who knock the easy/free/practical-yet-harmless-woo are kinda just protecting the value of their profession / special modality, consciously or unconsciously imo, like doctors who don't accept basic fasting thats been around a thousand years, eating keto/carn, or benefits of natural immunity... lol
I say don't be loyal to any 'experts', steal whatever works from their cheap books and youtube and other resources across modalities and put together a hodgepodge of stuff for yourself!
Research and libgen and then buy physical books and highlighters and a journal and especially a medium/large STUFFED ANIMAL with expressive eyes to mimic eye contact while to talk out loud to instead (like rubber ducking with trauma) and do it yourself. You can process feelings privately, keep a journal of progress and try one book/method at a time at your own pace.
Most normal people (esp men) can't cry in front of strangers, but can cry in private.
ONE session of therapy is $50 to $150, and only gives you one hour with barely ONE insight or emotional moment a session. Thats after many sessions of fighting defense mechanisms and intellectual tricks to maybe get to the real meat of what's painful.
The classics of the field are mostly books that cost $10-15 as paperbacks on amazon and each can provide MONTHS of insight /catharsis if you DO/work thru feelings that arise as u read each chapter instead of just reading it and throwing it aside for the next book.
People just race thru and don't APPLY anything, that's as useless as reading a programming book and not trying any of the code/psets. Slow it down, only one chapter a week, the same way in person therapy is only one hour a week, the insights/feelings that you chew on the other 6 days until the next session. Make a schedule and DIY.
Unplug your alexa and phone and u can say stuff out loud to your plushie that you cannot legit say to a therapist-- they are truly a stranger with LEGAL BUREAUCRACY and social programming makes them often unable to handle realities of anyone unlike themselves.
Therapists gossip and share stories at parties and know little about real privacy in the digital age where two random anecdotes can google-fu most clients.
The lame psych majors you met in college are the same people your insurance will cover a pathetic 10 sessions with. They get bored and tune out or jump to their fave diagnostic buckets when they can't untangle your issues and unconsciously need to make themselves feel more competent.
The money is bad so they compete for clients and aren't going to tell you hard truths that would HELP you when that risks being dropped, a bad review, bad word of mouth, or risk of legal/license headache.
You are just paying for a 'legitimized' comfort zone, rather than a strong helpful truly honest person to guide you out of your own misery-is-safe-and-familiar comfort zone.
Incentives are not on your side.
The types of people that become therapists are not emotionally hardy, mentally strong, stable, world-weary people with a strong sense of character.
If you knew any in real life as friends, you would never hire them.
Seriously consider what you disclose and reset your expectations.
more ranty side points----------
therapy is like the 80-20 garbage/quality ratio of all fields, especially the affordable ones most likely a mediocre broken person with their own baggage/desires/ego they'll project onto you.
Good luck being a hot girl, philosophically and politically anything but a very liberal humanist, having any personality type that isn't already a feely crier who understands your emotions, any one with working class common sense, anyone with aggression, bitterness and/or less 'nice' presentations of symptoms or a myriad other demographic factors. These aspects SO OBVIOUSLY influence the undercurrents between mediocre therapists and patient but they swear as professionals do not or are just further 'grist for the mill', eye roll...
You're not gonna magically book an appointment (with or without insurance) and get like Irvin Yalom wise jedi soul that can cut thru your bullshit with affectionate firmness, nor will you get the smart self-dignified composure of Melfi/Paul HBO fictional therapists that created standards of excellence not realistic in real life....
Most practitioners are kinda weak people seeking status and comfort and easy wins, difficult patients annoy them subconsciously, they emotionally flinch from them and truly do nothing to earn the trust necessary for 'real' therapy magic to work.
(Everyone recommending "get therapy!" on every thread online is just a middle-class reaction formation, an automatic unthinking refrain when THEY can't handle their own emotions of uselessness/systemic helplessness against the pain and grim reality of being an individual in the world.)
The costs / risks of trusting important matters to average middling people makes it not worth it.
It's not a horror show, it's just a waste...
The reputation of therapy came from the top/excellent practitioners in the field over several decades.... and now it's a cheapened wonder-bread experience and even app based, lmao
The hype needs extreme push back.
It depends. They definitely DO work for some people and do nothing for others, YMMV.
When they work, the carefully chosen words and ideas in the affirmations help to remind us of things and steer us towards more mindfulness.
The "coming to mind" of valuable self-regulating ideas is "mindfulness". Yes. It's subjective. That's OK. And yes, it may not work for everyone. People are different and have different ways of reacting and different levels of self-awareness.
I also made a long YT video explaining my theory, but it was a long time ago and I haven't watched it in a long time so I can't remember precisely what I was thinking at the time. I think it explains most of the concepts well enough though. It's here if you want to watch it: https://youtu.be/iPPNxc7nApY
it is about what story you are telling yourself. Its not the affirmations that work or not work. If it works, its the narrative/story that 'I am doing affirmations everyday and these will make me a better person' . If it doesnt work 'I am doing affirmations but hey whats the point this is silly'.
― Ira Glass
For me, this means that it's OK to try stuff. For a long time I got mad at myself for taking half a day to change two lines of code. Of course to get to those two lines of code, I had to learn a lot and I had to try 10 different approaches.
The units of work for software development are learning and trying things, not lines of code.
Or because it is a relatively simple white collar job that pays crazy money. Which is more likely?
Like the quote says, a lot of people quit. A lot that don't quit don't make it either, and the lucky among them end up sort of art adjacent. You aren't the host, but you're a writer, you're not a rock star but after your band fell apart you ended up doing sound and lights at a venue you frequented, you're not Ira Glass but you're a producer or editor.
Given this low likelihood of monetary gain it seems unlikely the money is a primary motivator.
It's not simple, it's not white collar, and it doesn't pay crazy money. I wonder where you get that impression from.
For examples, refer to most artists, musicians, poets, writers...
I think I got to be this way by growing up in a very loving household, but I think how I maintain it in the face of my regular missteps and fuckups is by not judging myself (or anyone, really) based on achievement or success. Millions of very smart people have been spectacularly wrong. Millions of creative people have no audience. Some people who I like very much are unpopular or have very few friends. I've known very beautiful people who have been very unlucky in love.
Recently, I was made to look from afar on what I've accomplished at $WORK and even my inner critic had to agree that it's been a real success story. Paradoxically, this really killed my drive for a while. "I don't have to prove myself, to the company or myself. Colleagues and management are glad to have me around." Ironically (and thankfully) this resting on my laurels of course brought the critic right back.
So while I do like feeling 100% confident in myself and my skills, a healthy (!) dose of self-doubt is also necessary for me to stay humble and keep pushing myself. And this is true outside of work just the same.
Naturally, this need not apply to anyone else. But as positive as "being happy with yourself/your work/your lifestyle" sounds, it also risks removing the gradient toward improving your behavior/skills/situation. Or, put another way (in the spirit of TSAONGAF): You will always have problems, but maybe wrestling with your inner critic is a good problem to have.
You become confident by taking on challenges, repeatedly coming out on top, and providing your brain undeniable evidence you are who you say you are.
I’ve been successful in my work over the past decade, but no matter how many awards, how much recognition, or how much money I received, I always struggled with a negative inner voice telling me I was worthless, not living up to my potential, and that people didn’t like me. It was only after I started combatting these thoughts with daily affirmations that the voice turned around, and I recognized when I was feeding myself negative thoughts.
Yes... and also failing and learning how to take care of yourself, rethink things, and make new plans after you do.
Ironically, this is basically just a positive affirmation in a slightly different form, and it's not any more helpful.
Some people's brains have a remarkable ability to deny, invalidate, or straight-up forget any evidence that would potentially bolster their confidence. This kind of trite advice may be great for people who are already predisposed to confidence and find themselves in a rut, but as someone who's in therapy for this kind of thing, some people need more help to get to a better place.
I think the problem facing most people is having standards they see others meet that they do not.
"I should be married by now" might be a dumb standard, but if most people you know meet it, maybe it isn't the standard that is an issue, right.
In this case, repeating positive statements aren't likely to work, because they won't change the standard or the fact that you aren't meeting it.
Not sure if I'm misreading you or if you misread me, but my comment was not a defense of positive affirmations. I don't believe that positive affirmations will help with the necessary mental reframing needed to combat deeper emotional trauma and mental health struggles.
That said, I'm not convinced by this:
> I think the problem facing most people is having standards they see others meet that they do not.
If someone feels badly enough about not meeting a standard that those feelings rise to the level of a problem, then I agree that positive affirmations probably won't help, but meeting the standard isn't necessarily a panacea either.
Taking your example, if someone thinks "I should be married by now", there's presumably some kind of deeper emotion behind that. If that feeling is within a normal range and the person can manage it effectively, then it may motivate them to work harder to find a relationship and settle down, but in that case it wouldn't be reasonable to call it a problem.
On the other hand, if they have a stronger feeling like "All my friends are married but me. They must think I'm pathetic." or "I keep getting older but nobody wants to date me. What if I'm just doomed to be alone forever?", then this is much more likely to be problematic. This kind of feeling might motivate them to settle for a relationship that doesn't make them happy, to move more quickly than they're comfortable with, to do things that go against their own needs, to stay in the relationship even in the face of problems, etc. just to try and meet that standard.
In this latter case, the standard isn't the issue, but it's tied to the deeper issue. The standard is the focus in the person's mind because it feels like the truth, but their mental framing is also biased in a way that prevents them from seeing their underlying motivation, and thus from resolving the true problem.
For example, the person who feels pathetic for being the only unmarried person in their friend group likely has deeper confidence issues that won't be addressed by marriage alone, even if their partner is supportive. Likewise, the person who fears being alone forever may temporarily alleviate that fear through marriage, but they'll also probably come to fear their partner leaving them, leading only to more anxiety and distress.
It's not enough for many people, including myself
If you repeatedly come out on top you're just doing easy things. Ideally you should be failing at about half the things you try to do if you're aiming high enough.
Imposter syndrome is a real thing, and it's certainly possible to be overly self-critical. But plenty of people aren't "in the right place," and aren't "doing the right thing." People only get "stronger, smarter, ... and more productive" through intentional self-development, not by wishful thinking. For most of us, to love ourselves means we should be aspiring to something better, and not content with how we are now. Telling yourself you're worse than you are isn't healthy, but neither is it healthy to tell yourself that you're better than you are.
I would advise someone to overcome imposter syndrome by anchoring in objective facts about reality.
The people I know who are or have been overly self critical are not lacking in "objective facts". They have been damaged by dealing extensively with people who are overly critical, often to the point of emotional abuse. So they have problems with selecting which facts to focus on and how to weight them emotionally. These are often not conscious problems, and so getting out of them doesn't just require rational-mind realizations, but changing deep habits of thought.
I also am very concerned about this, which I think is potentially harmful to some people, especially those struggling with self esteem:
> For most of us, to love ourselves means we should be aspiring to something better, and not content with how we are now.
I think this could easily be read as meaning that aspiration is a precondition of self love. For people who have been told from their earliest memories that they are inadequate, tying self-love to self-improvement puts them on a treadmill that never stops. Love does not require improvement or perfection.
Yes, this is personally what I do.
> I think this could easily be read as meaning that aspiration is a precondition of self love.
I suppose I could have been more clear. Aspirations need not be professional, they could be moral, relationship based, experiential, etc. You're right that if we say "I can only love myself when I'm better" means you never will be happy with yourself, and that's not what I'm trying to say. But one of my favorite definitions of the word "love" is to will and act for the good of someone - and if you aren't doing something to make yourself or your life better in some way, then you are not acting with love to yourself. On the flip side, saying "Yeah, everything is great" is not actually making things better (and at the same time, neither is saying "everything is horrible").
Typically, any long-form writing in this category will spill some ink reminding you that shit happens a lot faster if you put some effort in, so you're definitely not wrong here.
Look at something like Scientology. It is just one insanely confident man willing an entire religion into existence and holding it all together with his own over-confidence. I hate cults but they are an example of how delusion levels of self-confidence can bring things into existence that make no logical sense.
That is not love. Does loving your wife mean not being content with how she is now, and aspiring for her to be better? It does not
I think there are good and bad ways to express this, and I think the feeling itself isnt intuitive.
Likewise, there might be someone completely delusional that thinks they are gods gift to the world that can do no wrong. So the only reason they aren't more successful is bad luck or something. Reading this article and taking something from it would be counterproductive, they need to read something else to get out of that head space.
i found that the more delusional i get myself, the happier i am.
maybe bad long term but feel better than seeing the “truth”, whatever that is anyways
The less I take myself seriously, the more I apply self-compassion, and the less I let my performance/failures define my sense of self, the happier and less stressed I am.
I discovered this by accident. I used to be the opposite: my self-image used to be relatively inflated, and my sense of self was tightly integrated with external events. When those external events turned south hard enough to totally shatter my ego, it felt like my brain -- utterly against my will -- decided, "I guess we gotta let go of caring about stuff this hard." I ceased to be able to care as hard (seemingly permanently). I've been happier and chiller ever since. :p
people telling me i suck doesn’t bother me because i know their wrong
i used to be hyper critical of myself now i don’t worry about it
i am what i am
But I guess if that makes them happy why not. But it gets old quick when everyone says they have impostor syndrome.
For me, the nagging, head spinning inner critic that doesn't leave me alone is a major driver for curiosity, learning, creativity and general improvement.
Impostor syndrome is when there's clear evidence that you're successful and competent but you still don't believe it and you are _afraid_ that this is uncovered. It is an irrational fear and a brutal delusion. It's one of those where you can get presented objective evidence that the fear is unwarranted but you still can't get rid of it.
I never had impostor syndrome, but I can relate to those types of fears and mental challenges. It's very hard work to clear these types of things up. You don't even want to talk about it.
People who suck at something do not have impostor syndrome, by definition. What is much more likely is that they are in the phase where they start to get that they suck ("valley of despair"). But that's not a mental blockade induced by crippling fear like impostor syndrome is.
Realizing you suck at something calls for _celebration_. The delusion is broken! There's only going to be improvement!
On the other, sure, when a concept such as impostor syndrome becomes widespread, more people are going to try to weigh themselves against it, and try to appear on the "right side" of it. Thus, in almost in a humblebrag manner, dismiss flaws as self-doubt or lack of confidence.
> The delusion is broken! There's only going to be improvement!
Not everyone has the same productive inner critic. Some people can be self-critical to the point of paralysis, to the extent of wallowing doubt. To self-loathing and absolute defeatism. Look at the increases in mental illness, addiction, and worse in society. Some inner critics kill, whether a person's potential, or their actual life.
Now, the OP uses a generic one-size-fits-all, vapidly positive self-help soothing solution, which might not help a lot of people. And so it becomes easy to dismiss, and to dismiss impostor syndrome as simply an excuse. But I'm just reminding you that not everyone is able to step up to challenges in the same way. Not everyone has a healthy growth mindset to overcome one's mental blockades. Some do lose themselves in the valley of despair, and could benefit from self-affirmation. Maybe just not the basic content-written approach in the OP.
For me personally, it was a combination of kindness and brutal honesty that helped me to overcome these challenges. Well meaning bullshit only worsened my self-perception. For me it meant that my inner self-critic got sharper, more precise and clear instead of the carnage it created before. I didn't shut it up or try to soothe it and I'm glad for it. But that's _me_ so thank so for reminding me that it's too easy to generalize these kinds of things.
> I love and accept myself, exactly as I am.
> I am enough. I have enough.
> I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.
How the hell are you supposed to assess and improve on the infinite dimensions of yourself when this is your inner monologue?
Have you considered seeing those lines less as the desirable inner monologue of the person, but rather as an exercise to shift that inner monologue to a more positive mindset ?
I agree that it comes across defeatist using these mantras in relation to things you can change, like skills, outlook, fitness, number and/or quality of relationships.
Consider the first sentence, a rhetorical question: "Have you ever doubted yourself?"—who is this you so promptly assumed. If giving advice meant to impact the entire present and future life of an agent, one should at least wrestle a bit with the plethora of concepts taken for granted, unless one is writing another Dictionary of Received Ideas [1]. In this aspect, you doubting you, perhaps the perspective from Jeff Hawkins' A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence is more luminating: of course you would doubt yourself because in actuality there is a you_1 who doubts you_2 and currently you_1 is overpowering you_2 in the vote of all the other yous. Maybe you don't have an inner critic, maybe you have 999 inner critics. In this light, a question such as "have you ever doubted yourself" would look more like "why is the current you still the dominant aspect, still winning the vote of all the other yous, of who/how you could be in the space of all the yous".
[1] "Metaphysics. Laugh it to scorn: proof of your superior intellect." https://archive.org/details/gustave-flaubert-dictionary-of-a...
Instead, I recommend reading (or listening to) Kid Confidence by Eileen Kennedy-Moore. It's applicable to adults and to ones own self.
Here is a paraphrased excerpt:
---
Address your fundamental needs for connection, competence, and choice. When these needs are met, you'll be less preoccupied with evaluating yourself and questioning your worth.
Connection: Build meaningful relationships with family and friends. This is how you'll feel known, accepted, and valued by others. Also, spending time with people you care about will give you more interesting things to think about than your own self-worth.
Competence: Gain real skills so you can do things that matter to you. To feel competent you have to have genuine competence. Learn how to learn, so you can grown your own competence and unblock yourself when you are stuck.
Choice: Figure out what matters to you so you can make decisions that are in line with your values. Embrace opportunities to make your own meaningful choices.
---
Based on personal experience, I believe this is the right framework for real self-improvement. Your inner critic is there for a reason. Respect it and become a person it can be proud of. Affirmations and other popular self-help techniques are mostly bullshit. Also, it's interesting to note that if you inverse the above advice, you basically have the classical framework for running a cult.
Maybe I've been fortunate that growing up, I've had stoic figures in my life and through their beliefs/actions solved problems through grit and hard work.
I struggle to understand if people live their lives by looking themselves in a mirror and saying positive mantras and hoping that one day they will see themselves this way. I thought this was just the lore of movies.
If a voice (myself or a anyone else) said "I love and accept myself, exactly as I am/I love my well lived-in body" and would suspect it was trying to trick me somehow/pulling my leg and I would laugh and tell it/them to F-off.
I think my critical voice has gone from inwards to outwards. It doesn't say "You suck and you're an imposter", because it's been distracted by the so many examples of other people being so much more incompetent and lacking basic critical thinking skills, that even if I'm a complete screw up, I'm not that bad. e.g. lack of basic financial understanding, solving problems, tribal voting.
I think I've come to realize if I want to fix certain things about me, that I've chosen (at this point in time) not to do it and to move on, but that I can revisit and try and fix it in the future.
----
Inner Critic: This is bullshit. I do not love and accept myself exactly as I am.
You: What's missing?
Inner Critic: I'm out of shape, I live alone, and I make two cents out of every dollar I make for my boss.
You: Yeah, those all suck. Damn. What can we do about these things?
Inner Critic: Man I dunno, I just know this sucks.
Inner Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Hey, remember that broadsword club that meets in the park every Saturday? We could start doing that again, it's free, and it's an hour or so waving a heavy thing around with a bunch of other people, some of whom you know damn well have better jobs than us and could end up being a valuable connection if we end up as friends, some of whom might also turn out to be potential housemates, friends, or lovers. No promises of anything beyond "getting in better shape" but that's certainly more opportunities for something to happen.
Critic might not be logical at all.
Referenced is an excellent book[0] from a clinical psychologist that has many detailed strategies to dig out the reasons behind critical thoughts and properly reframe them.
0 - Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay; https://www.amazon.com/Self-Esteem-Cognitive-Techniques-Asse...
Perfectionism, avoidance and other problems often have very traceable roots in the past, and there are therapy tools like EMDR[1] that help to fix or mitigate the root causes.
In my experience, it is not really possible to fix serious emotional trauma with affirmations, and deeper emotional work is required to start seeing your inner critic (and other trauma symptoms) shrink.
The best way to start working on such problems as inner critic is to find a licensed mental health specialist.
0 - http://www.pete-walker.com/shrinkingInnerCritic.htm and similar research on CPTSD
1 - https://cptsdfoundation.org/2020/02/17/emdr-and-trauma-what-...
His book is a good starting point, along with two other classics[0][1], but it is also rather old (10 years this year!), with more strategies and research done on top of it by other psychologists since then.
[0] Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01...
[1] Running on Empty by Jonice Webb & Christine Musello https://www.amazon.com/Running-Empty-Overcome-Childhood-Emot...
Like all other self-help, give it a try and see how it works for you.We have vastly different personalities and life experience so don't expect that a thing that works for one person will work for everybody.
“Typically it’s good to have a couple affirmations that work for you“ — “work for you” — so simple! Duh!
Dan Harris gave a short talk about how alien self-love practices felt to him, having lived with similarly harsh self-talk. It’s entertaining and it might resonate with you too:
The best I've found on the subject is Steven Pressfield's The War of Art https://blackirishbooks.com/product/the-war-of-art/
I think this kind of stuff isn't really helpful. For one self-doubt may very well be correct given the circumstances. It's not really sound to attempt to drown that out or not be your own critic. Even more importantly it gets people tangled up even more in their own thoughts. It may be a trite insight at this point but you aren't your own thoughts. You can just listen to them without immediately being caught up in them.
If you can deliberate or act on things without being too caught up what your 'inner voice' is telling you at any given moment, that's a much more solid foundation than repeating weird chants to yourself.
who is this stuff actually targeted at?
I think he has a point.
Maybe affirmations do not work, but some of the sentiment behind them could be powerful. "You have a sufficient plan to move forward, and you're a sufficient person to take those first steps".
If inner critic gives you real trouble, the best way, by far, is to start working on such problems with a licensed mental health specialist.
Second best way is to catch up on modern research in psychology and psychotherapy. (I'm generalising below with most important knowledge I have on the topic based on my replies to other comments.)
In modern therapy it is considered that at least some of the inner critic issues are responses to past traumatic events and emotional trauma. It tries to help you avoid doing something that hurt you in the past, like a legacy broken failsafe mechanism.
Possible root causes might include:
- Complex PTSD [0][1]
- Childhood emotional neglect [2]
- Traumatic stress [3]
- Style of your upbringing and some other issues from the past, including learned responses to life stresses [4]
This knowledge is in part a modern (last decade) evolution of older Cognitive Behavioural Therapy ideas[5] from the 1980s. OP article describes typical CBT strategy. CBT, while being helpful to manage critic-related problems, rarely addresses any of the underlying root causes.
If you don't want to dig deep into root causes, I want to explicitly highlight [4] as it does a great way of summarising core CBT and ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) ideas, and helps to address the critic issue directly via many actionable strategies.
0 - http://www.pete-walker.com/shrinkingInnerCritic.htm and similar research on CPTSD
1 - Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker https://www.amazon.com/Complex-PTSD-Surviving-RECOVERING-CHI...
2 - Running on Empty by Jonice Webb & Christine Musello https://www.amazon.com/Running-Empty-Overcome-Childhood-Emot...
3 - Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/01...
4 - Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay https://www.amazon.com/Self-Esteem-Cognitive-Techniques-Asse...
5 - Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David Burns https://www.amazon.com/Feeling-Good-New-Mood-Therapy/dp/0380...