- Personal Healing & Growth
- The Healing Path: How the Hurts In Your Past Can Lead You To A More Abundant Life, by Dan Allender and accompanying The Healing Path: How the Hurts In Your Past Can Lead You To A More Abundant Life Study Guide, by Dan Allender. Working through the past events and difficult parts of life can enrich and fortify you for the present, and future.
- How We Love: Discover Your Love Style, Enhance Your Marriage, by Milan & Kay Yerkovich. Recent editions of this book include its own workbook. A guide to understanding your attachment style, and help in moving to a secure style, which in turn creates better relationships, including your relationship with yourself.
- Shame Interrupted, Edward Welch. An outstanding biblical exploration of what shame is and is not, which kinds of shame are legitimate, which illegitimate, and how to deal with shame. Shame can debilitate and rob us of joy—there is another way to live than under shame.
- The New Personality Self-portrait, by John M. Oldham & Lois B. Morris. guide to personality types based on the APA’s official diagnostic system, the DSM –IV. Easy to read and helpful to understand.
- Healing the Wounded Heart: The Heartache of Sexual Abuse and the Hope of Transformation, by Dan Allender. The 2016 edition is an update of Allender’s earlier book, The Wounded Heart. A must read for those struggling with sexual abuse.
- Beautiful Outlaw, by John Eldredge. Reading the Gospels without knowing the personality of Jesus is like watching television with the sound turned off. The result is a dry, two-dimensional person doing strange, undecipherable things. But when we discover his true character, we can experience the actual personality of Jesus in ways that will deepen our faith.
- From Fear to Freedom, by Rose Marie Miller. One woman’s journey to experience grace, moving from a head knowledge to heart, personal knowledge.
- Marriage and Couple Communication
- Intimate Allies: Rediscovering God’s Design For Marriage And Becoming Soul Mates For Life, by Dan Allender & Tremper Longman III. Short chapters and excellent discussion questions make this book perfect for a couple to work through together.
- Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations For a Lifetime of Love, by Sue Johnson. This author explains the Emotionally Focused Therapeutic method of relating within a marriage, and rekindling an emotionally warm relationship.
- After The Fight: A Night In the Life of a Couple, by Daniel B. Wile. When couples cannot resolve fights because they cannot discuss what happened in the fight, they cannot move forward. Wile shows a way to find alternatives to reacting, and helps couples say what they really want to say.
- Concious Loving: The Journey to Co-Commitment, by Gay Hendricks, and Kathlyn Hendricks. The Hendricks help clear away the patterns and unacknowledged agreements that can sabotage even the best intentions, and help couples truly clarify intentions, transforming them into commitments.
- Us: A User’s Guide, By Dan Tocchini. The focus of this practical marriage book is to move couples from a consumer type thinking and acting to truly walking “in the light” together.
- Passionate Marriage: Keeping Love & Intimacy Alive in Committed Relationships, by David Schnarch. A classic on individuation and differentiation within commitment relationships.
- Depression
- Depression, A Stubborn Darkness, by Edward T. Welch. An overview about depression, dealing with the social, medical, and spiritual aspects that often confuse both those who experience depression, and the ones who love them.
- Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes From, How It Sabotages Our Lives, by Pia Mellody.
- Love/Sex Addiction
- Sex Addiction 101: A Basic Guide To Healing From Sex, Porn, and Love Addiction, by Robert Weiss. A primer, great beginning reading in this topic.
- Don’t Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addiction, by Patrick Carnes. By the “granddaddy” and original identifier of sexual addiction, this classic describes the then-current research and applications for addiction’s impact on the addict themselves, and their partners and families.
- Moving Beyong Betrayal: The 5-Step Boundary Solution for Partners of Sex Addicts, by Vicki Tidwell Palmer. Excellent explanations of boundaries, and their place in the recovery of both the addict and the partner.
- Wired For Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks The Male Brain, by William Struthers. Rather technical, but good reading for those who want to understand the neurobiology of addiction.