My Favorite Books I Read in 2024

A relationship counselor's favorite psychology books from last year

Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship by Terrence Real

This was my favorite book for couples this year. This book is unique because Real offers something that has been absent in the mental health field over the past 50 years. We’ve been great at boosting people up from feelings of shame, but we have not done well with softening people down from feelings of superiority. Real offers practical solutions and experiences to help couple’s discover where they get stuck in their dynamic and ways out. He also can articulate men’s experiences with great strength and compassion, and deftly balances both challenge and support.

---

Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships are the Secret to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust by Dr. Ed Tronick and Dr. Claudia M. Gold

If you avoid conflict, or feel terribly guilty after fighting with your partner or children, then let me suggest this reassuring book about the resiliency of relationships and attachment. It’s about relationships of all kinds (friends, parent-child, partners, even co-workers). The book, using attachment theory and the popular Still Face Experiment, offers hopeful perspectives on managing conflict within all relationships and shows how we are inherently relational creatures. It demonstrates the counter-intuitive perspective that disagreement and mismatch, when handled well, can actually empower and improve a relationship.

---

Attuned: Practicing Interdependence to Heal Our Trauma- and Our World by Tomas Hubl

I’ve never read anything quite like this book. It’s about authentic relating to our selves and others- being attuned and embodied withing our relationships. But what makes it unique is that Hubl interweaves psychological perspectives, ancestral trauma perspectives, somatic psychology, and spiritual principles in a subtle and exciting way that makes the material feel very enriching and entirely fresh. It’s not your average “self-help” book. It somehow feels meditative and urgent at the same time. It’s a book I’ll return to for wisdom again and again.

---

Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection & Collaboration to Transform your Family- and the World by Jen Lumanlan

This parenting book completely shifted my perspective on what is important in my relationship with my children. It’s especially relevant for children under 10 years old, but I could see parents with children of all ages getting something meaningful out of this book. What makes this book stand out is that Lumanlen demonstrates how social structures like capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy have impacted how we were raised and how we raise our children. It offers real concrete solutions for moving from “powering over” your children to get them to “comply,” to collaborating and respecting both parent’s and child’s needs. It might seem impossible, but she demonstrates how often we underestimate that everybody’s needs can be met in a relationship. Parenting doesn’t have to be a “win-lose” endeavor.

---

Thanks for joining me on this short tour through my favorite psychology books from last year. If there’s interest, I’ll make a follow-up post about my favorite novels of the year. Let me know what you’ve been reading this year, or which of these books caught your attention.

If you are interested in joining me for a book club where we discuss Parenting Beyond Power, we will be meeting on February 10th at Storyhouse Bookpub in Des Moines. Let me know by email if you want to be included: hello@couplescounselingdesmoines.com.

Keep reading,

Schuyler