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carlaaaaa's review
2.75
my review reflects only my personal reading experience (how i felt while reading it; how easy or hard it was to get through; whether or not i was in the right headspace for it; etc.) of this book and not necessarily the content
ninas_nook's review
5.0
I’ve always been interested in the Philosophy of why we do the things we do. I have been to therapy, I understand that many of the reasons we are the way we are are due to past experiences, pst trauma, and things we as human may not fully even understand.
This book is a wonderful pocket guide to discovering who we are, and what we can do to be our best selves.
I love that in addition to explaining what our feelings mean, how to be a good friend, how to recognize our triggers, how to set boundaries and reparent ourselves if necessary, we are also given instruction into things we can try to become acquainted with our deeper emotions.
In the section about reparenting ourselves if we’ve experienced childhood trauma you’re instructed to look at a childhood picture but really look at it. How were you feeling? What do you feel now? I found exercises like this extremely helpful and insightful to dealing with my own self needs and learning what I need as a fellow hurt human.
This is a beautiful book about self discovery and learning how to care for ourselves and each other, and I definitely recommend it and love that it is split into various sections so we can learn what we can as we need it.
I definitely recommend this and can see myself gifting it to anyone, as we all have struggles and need this reminder of how to love ourselves.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a wonderful pocket guide to discovering who we are, and what we can do to be our best selves.
I love that in addition to explaining what our feelings mean, how to be a good friend, how to recognize our triggers, how to set boundaries and reparent ourselves if necessary, we are also given instruction into things we can try to become acquainted with our deeper emotions.
In the section about reparenting ourselves if we’ve experienced childhood trauma you’re instructed to look at a childhood picture but really look at it. How were you feeling? What do you feel now? I found exercises like this extremely helpful and insightful to dealing with my own self needs and learning what I need as a fellow hurt human.
This is a beautiful book about self discovery and learning how to care for ourselves and each other, and I definitely recommend it and love that it is split into various sections so we can learn what we can as we need it.
I definitely recommend this and can see myself gifting it to anyone, as we all have struggles and need this reminder of how to love ourselves.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
librarypatronus's review
4.0
Thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio and St. Martin's Press for the ARC of this book. I switched back and forth between the audio and ebook.
As someone who is trying to read more non-fiction and self-help this year, this looked like a good place to start. I had trouble making connections to my own self, but I think that was less the author's fault and more me not having worked on that very much before now. This covered a nice range of topics, some that my own therapist has brought up and some that she has not. This being read by the author was another point in it's favor, and she had a lovely voice, though I had to slow the audio down from my typical listening speed to get used to her accent. I would recommend this for anyone wanting to get an idea of basic therapy concepts.
As someone who is trying to read more non-fiction and self-help this year, this looked like a good place to start. I had trouble making connections to my own self, but I think that was less the author's fault and more me not having worked on that very much before now. This covered a nice range of topics, some that my own therapist has brought up and some that she has not. This being read by the author was another point in it's favor, and she had a lovely voice, though I had to slow the audio down from my typical listening speed to get used to her accent. I would recommend this for anyone wanting to get an idea of basic therapy concepts.
katehyde's review
5.0
Excellent book! A lot of what I read was familiar to me, since I’m kind of a self-help junkie and I have a great therapist, but I still learned some new stuff. I especially like the chapters on Recognizing Triggers, Setting Boundaries, and Reparenting.
jsnow's review
5.0
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for providing an advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review.
Happy Publication Day!
Three words that describe this lovely little book in a nutshell: practical, helpful, realistic. Crosby uses comfortable language and strikes the perfect balance between professionalism and accessibility. Self-help/self-development/psychology books can easily come off as preachy, pushy or overly intellectual, but this book is written in such a digestible way that I would find myself excited to carve out even a few minutes to read a section here and there. However when I say the book is digestible, I don’t mean it is light reading; it is overflowing with both wisdom and science that take root in you as you move through the chapters. At the author's suggestion, I made a point to read it slowly to fully process the content and reflect on the action items/prompts, which I think enhanced my experience and made it so that what I learned will stick with me. As Crosby states at the end of chapter 1, “Hopefully, this chapter has provided moments of insight. You don’t have to remember them all. They’re in there somewhere, distilling and processing, resting and realigning”.
As other reviewers (and the author herself) have mentioned, it is clear that this book is not meant to be a substitute for professional one-on-one help for those struggling with mental health issues, but it makes a great addition and reference item, and would be just as useful to people who aren’t seeking professional help for their mental health. There are even some concepts she specifically recommends tackling with a therapist. However, the author’s examples and guides helped me place myself and apply the guidance to my own life. It was full of practical, easy-to-apply, step-by-step tips (see chapter 5: self-regulation for a great example of this), explained in easy-to-understand ways (I love the “securing your front door” metaphor in the boundaries chapter and the fishbowl analogy in the reparenting chapter as examples of this). Regardless of where you are when you start the book, the lessons will meet you where you are now, and there is no one who wouldn’t benefit from some self-discovery and more self-care tools in their toolbox. This is a book that will stay in my mind for a long time and I am glad I read it.
I followed the author’s Instagram account that was mentioned in the book, and have loved seeing more of her on my social media feed. If you are a fan of her social media posts you must get this book!
Happy Publication Day!
Three words that describe this lovely little book in a nutshell: practical, helpful, realistic. Crosby uses comfortable language and strikes the perfect balance between professionalism and accessibility. Self-help/self-development/psychology books can easily come off as preachy, pushy or overly intellectual, but this book is written in such a digestible way that I would find myself excited to carve out even a few minutes to read a section here and there. However when I say the book is digestible, I don’t mean it is light reading; it is overflowing with both wisdom and science that take root in you as you move through the chapters. At the author's suggestion, I made a point to read it slowly to fully process the content and reflect on the action items/prompts, which I think enhanced my experience and made it so that what I learned will stick with me. As Crosby states at the end of chapter 1, “Hopefully, this chapter has provided moments of insight. You don’t have to remember them all. They’re in there somewhere, distilling and processing, resting and realigning”.
As other reviewers (and the author herself) have mentioned, it is clear that this book is not meant to be a substitute for professional one-on-one help for those struggling with mental health issues, but it makes a great addition and reference item, and would be just as useful to people who aren’t seeking professional help for their mental health. There are even some concepts she specifically recommends tackling with a therapist. However, the author’s examples and guides helped me place myself and apply the guidance to my own life. It was full of practical, easy-to-apply, step-by-step tips (see chapter 5: self-regulation for a great example of this), explained in easy-to-understand ways (I love the “securing your front door” metaphor in the boundaries chapter and the fishbowl analogy in the reparenting chapter as examples of this). Regardless of where you are when you start the book, the lessons will meet you where you are now, and there is no one who wouldn’t benefit from some self-discovery and more self-care tools in their toolbox. This is a book that will stay in my mind for a long time and I am glad I read it.
I followed the author’s Instagram account that was mentioned in the book, and have loved seeing more of her on my social media feed. If you are a fan of her social media posts you must get this book!
lcrawford411's review
5.0
This was an excellent and fairly comprehensive guide to emotional self care. I wish I'd had this book a lot earlier in life! I will recommend it to my patients and loved ones.
phoenixreader's review
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for a copy of Pocket Therapy, Mental Notes for Everyday Happiness, Confidence, and Calm by Sarah Crosby to review. Even though the title of the book has the word therapy as part of the title, this is not a therapy book. What I find great about it is that it feels like your therapist, after helping you for a few sessions with a particular issue, has given you a fantastic set of notes for you to keep and review. This is invaluable because you can't remember everything that was discussed. Each issue discussed in the book is its own standalone chapter and does not need to be read in order. Read and work on what is important to you. Each chapter also has "Take 5" features that have exercises for you to do. And at the end of each chapter is "Mental Notes", questions you ask yourself at the end of each day for a month so that you have your own resource of how you are thinking about the issue and ways to improve. This is absolutely a book that you will refer back to throughout the years or as an aid to help with your own therapy.
kari_f's review
reflective
4.0
First off, I want to make sure anyone reading this knows that this book is not a substitute for therapy. I think therapy should be accessible to everyone, and this is a book to temporarily hold that space and/or to get one started in the self-reflection process. As the introduction itself says, “This book is full of accessible, bite-sized information, which you can choose to dip into or read right through in the order it is presented.”
Each chapter has a variety of questions to reflect upon, examples of traits and how they might impact one’s life, and mental notes that contain practical tips on working self-reflection into everyday practice.
Overall I think this is a book that would be helpful for anyone who needs some self-evaluation and some guidance on how to do the work to do some self-reflection and improvement!
Each chapter has a variety of questions to reflect upon, examples of traits and how they might impact one’s life, and mental notes that contain practical tips on working self-reflection into everyday practice.
Overall I think this is a book that would be helpful for anyone who needs some self-evaluation and some guidance on how to do the work to do some self-reflection and improvement!
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