The 10 Best Psychotherapy Training Books

The Cycle Of Excellence (about $40) examines the skills required to excel in various fields, like music or sports, and applies the same principles towards supervision itself by implementing empirical methods, such as behavior rehearsal with continuous corrective feedback.

Stephen Madigan's Narrative Therapy (about $35) utilizes the Jungian approach to myth building by teaching therapists to guide their patients through a process that allows them to understand their lives in a story format, and to reframe their main events with new perspective.

"Training For Change (around $96) : Transforming Systems To Be Trauma-Informed, Culturally Responsive, And Neuroscientifically Focused" is a good choice if you're looking to work with clients from a variety of backgrounds, as it prepares you for behaviors from differing cultures.

"Helping Skills (about $79) : Facilitating Exploration, Insight, And Action" is targeted at undergraduate and first-year graduate students, with a focus on the author's three-stage program for administering help. It also challenges readers to examine their underlying biases.

The Diagnostic And Statistical Manual Of Mental Disorders (about $112), now in its fifth edition, offers a comprehensive cataloging of all the known symptoms of psychiatric ailments, and is designed to allow for accurate diagnoses in practice.

Internal Family Systems Therapy (about $33) examines how specific parts of a patient's psyche relate to one another, not unlike the members of a household. The method is applicable to a wide variety or disorders, from anxiety to trauma.

Marsha M. Linehan's DBT Skills Training Manual (about $94) is a comprehensive text that gives clinicians everything they need to integrate dialectical behavior therapy into their practice, including handouts and worksheets developed over the course of two decades.

In a therapeutic setting, the attention is normally focused on the client, but with Tony Rousmaniere’s groundbreaking Deliberate Practice (about $23), the gaze turns inwards. The text helps practitioners maximize their efficacy through intentional effort and self-evaluation.

Addressing the ripple effects of traumatic experience can be difficult for both practitioners and clients, but Healing The Fragmented Selves Of Trauma Survivors (appx. $33) integrates a number of diverse approaches to counter self-alienation with mindful compassion.

Co-Creating Change (about $60) by Jon Frederickson gives students the opportunity to learn tools that can help break down the walls people commonly put up when beginning analysis and overcome the hurdles that cause long-term patients to feel stuck.