21
votes
Non-fictional books about getting to know emotions?
Hello, I'm looking for books written by professionals that would further my language and understanding of emotions, in order to connect with my emotions on a deeper level. An example would be "Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect", but it doesn't have to be about neglect. I just want to understand and experience the emotional spectrum better, so any book (written by a mental health professional) that would help with that is good. If possible, I prefer shorter books, around 100-250 pages, but it's not a hard requirement.
I highly recommend "The Language of Emotions" by Karla McLaren.
She talks about how Western culture isn't very emotionally literate - we aren't given tools, understanding, or empathy, and this leads to a kind of disconnect with ourselves and with each other. On top of that, we live in a traumatized world, without the space or vulnerability we need for our process.
She's an educator I believe, not a mental health professional, but her work would be useful to anyone.
Get a feeling for her writing and thoughts here, and her book below.
https://karlamclaren.com/how-much-emotion-is-too-much-revisted/
https://karlamclaren.com/product/the-language-of-emotions-book/
I found this book very helpful. Particularly on reframing how I think about anger. It hugely helped me understand how to create and enforce healthy boundaries in a way that no other help had helped
I haven't read her book, but I personally find that at least a segment of our culture is overly empathetic, yet lacking in compassion. Empathy meaning you literally feel another's emotions with them. Compassion meaning you understand and sympathize with their emotions, but respect the boundaries that they are their own emotions and not yours.
Is there anything regarding this in her work? I am interested in her book based on your description of it, and I think it may relate to the work I am doing with my therapist.
You might want to try Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brené Brown. It's structed like a dictionary of emotions. I haven't read her other books since I wasn't sure I would connect with her other writing, but I found this incredibly insightful. It's around 300 pages and it's more about langauge of emotions rather than connecting with them, but it's still worth the read.
There’s the
problemdrama of the gifted child, any book by claudia black, the body keeps the score, and feelingswheel.com.Except for the last, these are coming from a wounded childhood perspective, but are good about understanding the barriers to healthy emotional living.
to add on to digital resources, I'd add the Atlas of Emotions
It's been many years, but I appreciated bell hooks' all about love - new visions in my 20s when I struggled with the difficulties of being an awkward man who yearned to find a woman to give some of my love. I don't remember it all that well, but it was part of my journey to give a bit of that love to someone who needed it most: myself.
Though hooks wasn't, strictly speaking, a mental health professional, so disregard this suggestion if that's absolutely necessary to you. But I appreciated her philosophical feminist take on this topic.
Several good ones already listed, I would add
How Emotions Are Made was really, really thought-provoking when I first read it six years ago. Author Lisa Feldman Barrett is a respected researcher in neuroscience and psychology. Her pet thesis IIRC is that fine-grained emotions are a cultural construct, useful but not universal.
I just noticed she has a more recent book, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain, which at 192 pages might fit your requested length.
Charles Darwin might seem like an odd author to recommend here, but I think his Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals provides a really valuable framework (evolutionary biology) for understanding some of human emotions.
In addition to Darwin's seminal work,
Frans de Waal writes modern books based on his work as a Primatologist. If OP wants to learn from what we know about mammals, there are many excellent resources.
Hold Me Tight by Dr Sue Johnson is about security in relationships as viewed through the lenses of emotionally focused therapy and attachment theory. While focused on romantic relationships, the ideas are more generally applicable. I found the first part quite informative, the latter part moves into having hard conversations with your partner, I didn't go into that. Understanding attachment theory has been eye opening in helping me understand my own reactions and insecurities, along with helping me understand others' as well.
As noted, she has a doctorate and her writing is based on studies as well as her experience as a therapist.
A lot of great material in here. From the childhood neglect perspective, I'd highly recommend Complex PTSD From Surviving to Thriving. That book has helped me immensely in understanding my own emotional responses.
I came across another suggestion today, The Tao of Fully Feeling, by Pete Walker. Haven’t looked at it yet, but highly recommend by someone i respect a lot.