Psychological Resources

The following is a list of resources, including books, workbooks, websites, apps, and videos that many of us have found helpful in our mental health practice. The list is by no means exhaustive, but it will give you a taste of some of the resources that are available to help you and/or your family member(s) find your way through your own mental health journey.

Books

Self-Help Workbooks for Kids (Magination Press):

  • What to Do When Your Temper Flares: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Problems with Anger
  • What to Do When You Worry too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Anxiety
  • What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming OCD
  • What to Do When You Dread Your Bed: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Problems With Sleep
  • What to Do When You Feel too Shy: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Social Anxiety
  • What to Do When Bad Habits Take Hold: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Nail Biting and More
  • What to Do When You Grumble Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Negativity
  • What to Do When It’s Not Fair: A Kid’s Guide to Handling Envy and Jealousy
  • What to Do When Mistakes Make You Quake: A Kid’s Guide to Accepting Imperfection
  • What to Do When You Don’t Want to Be Apart: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Separation Anxiety

Self-Help Workbooks for Kids (Other):

  • An Instant Help Book for Parents and Kids (New Harbinger Publications: selection of instant help books for parents and children)
  • What to Do When Good Enough Isn’t Good Enough (Greenspon)
  • How to Take the Grrrr Out of Anger (Verdick and Lisovskis)
  • The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook for Kids: Help for Children to Cope with Stress, Anxiety, and Transitions (Shapiro & Sprague)

Books for Teens:

  • The Anxiety Workbook For Teens (Lisa Schab)
  • Get Out of Your Mind and into Your Life for Teens (Ciarrochi, Hayes and Bailey)
  • Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life (Van Dijk)
  • My Anxious Mind (Tompkins)
  • Tapping the Healer Within (Trubo and Callahan)
  • 1000 Tips for Teenagers (Falardeau and Presse)
  • An Instant Help Book for Teens series (Instant Help Publisher)
  • My Parent has Cancer and It Really Sucks (Silver & Silver)

Books For and About LGBTQ+ Youth and Families:

  • Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out (Kuklin)
  • Transgender Teen: A Handbook for Parents and Professionals Supporting Transgender and Non-Binary Teens (Brill & Kenney)
  • Gender Quest Workbook: A Guide for Teens and Young Adults Exploring Gender Identity (Testa, Coolhart & Peta)
  • The Gender Creative Child (Ehrensaft)
  • A Positive View of LGBTQ: Embracing Identity and Cultivating Well-Being (Riggle & Rostosky)
  • LGBTQ Families: The Ultimate Teen Guide (Apelqvist)

Books on Parenting and Child/Teen Development:

  • Connected Parenting: Transform Your Challenging Child and Build Loving Bonds for Life (Kolari)
  • Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers (Neufeld and Mate)
  • The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind (Siegel and Payne Bryson)
  • Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions Into Adulthood
  • Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive (Siegel and Hartzell)
  • The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups (Sax)
  • The Yes Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity, and Resilience in Your Child (Siegel and Payne Bryson)
  • Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (Siegel)
  • Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men (Sax)
  • Teen Brain Teen Mind: What Parents Need to Know to Survive the Adolescent Years (Clavier)

Books for Parents on ADHD and Behaviour:

  • Taking Charge of ADHD (Barkley)
  • Your Defiant Child: 8 Steps to Better Behaviour (Barkley)
  • Everyday Parenting Toolkit: The Kazdin Method for Easy, Step-by-step, Lasting change for You and Your Child (Kazdin)

Books for Parenting a Child with Mood or Anxiety Struggles:

  • Parent a Child with Intense Emotions (Harvey)
  • Helping Your Anxious Child: A Step-by-step Guide for Parents (Rapee et al.)
  • Freeing Your Child from Anxiety (Chansky)
  • Talking Back to OCD (March)
  • Your Child in the Balance (Kalkow)
  • Stress Free Kids: A Parent’s Guide to Helping Build Self-Esteem, Manage Stress, and Reduce Anxiety in Children (Lite)

Books on Self-Compassion, Mindfulness, & Meditation:

  • Beginning Mindfulness: Learning the Way of Awareness (Weiss)
  • Full Catastrophe Living (Kabat-Zinn)
  • Wherever You Go There You Are (Kabat-Zinn)
  • Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation (Salzberg)
  • Self-Compassion (Neff)
  • The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion (Germer)
  • The Mindfulness Solution: Everyday Practices for Everyday Problems Paperback (Siegel)
  • Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World (Williams & Penman)

Books on Study Skills and Executive Functioning:

  • Smart but Scattered (Dawson & Guare)
  • Late, Lost & Unprepared: A Parents’ Guide to Helping Children with Executive Functioning (Cooper-Kahn & Dietzel)
  • Study Smarter, Not Harder (Paul)
  • How to Win at College: Surprising Secrets for Success from the Country’s Top Students (Newport)

Books on Managing Pain:

  • Managing PAIN Before it Manages You (Margaret Caudill)
  • Living Beyond Your Pain (Joanne Dahl & Tobias Lundgren)
  • Unbelievable Pain Control (Michael R. MacDonald)
  • Break Through Pain (Shinzen Young)
  • Painful Yarns: Metaphors and Stories to Help Understand the Biology of Pain (Moseley)

Books on Grief and Bereavement:

  • I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye (Noel and Blair)
  • Healing a Teen’s Grieving Heart (Wolfelt)
  • Children and Grief: Helping Your Child Understand Death (O’Connor)
  • Children and Grief: When A Parent Dies (Worden)

Books on Grief, Dying, and Death for Children:

  • When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death (Krasny Brown and Brown)
  • The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for all Ages (Buscaglia)
  • Lifetimes: A Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children (Melloni and Ingpen)
  • Water Bugs and Dragonflies: Explaining Death to Young Children (Stickney)
  • The Invisible String (Karst)
  • Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss (Schwiert and DeKlyen)

Books About and For People on the Autism Spectrum:

  • How to Start a Conversation and Make Friends (D. Gabor)
  • Developing Talents: Careers for Individuals with Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism (Grandin and Duffy)
  • Safety Skills for Asperger Women: How to Save a Perfectly Good Female Life (Holliday Willey)
  • Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate: A User Guide to an Asperger Life (Kim)
  • The Hidden Curriculum of Getting and Keeping a Job: Navigating the Social Landscape of Employment (Myles Smith, Endow, Mayfield)
  • Aspergirls (Simone)
  • Odd Girl Speaks Out (Simmons)
  • Living Independently on the Autism Spectrum (Soraya)
  • Asperger Syndrome in Adulthood (Stoddart)

Website Resources

General Information:

Anxiety

Self-Injury

Learning/ADHD

Meditation

Gifted Children

Teens

LGBTQ

Social Skills

Grief and Bereavement

Autism Spectrum

Apps and Videos

Apps for Mood and Anxiety

Apps for Meditation

  • Headspace
  • Insight Timer
  • Calm

You Tube Videos on Meditation (by Jon Kabat-Zinn)

CD of Mindfulness Meditations

  • Mindful Minutes: Simple Meditations in Hurried Times (Kathleen O’Connell)

Publishing Companies with Materials Related to Social-Emotional and Learning Topics