Dr. Jess Torrecillas
Cultivating
Curiosity
Book Club
Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity Book Club! Every month I recommend a mental health related book to help curious minds learn more about psychology, mental health, and themselves. I also send out a monthly newsletter reviewing the book and provide reflections and thoughts as a licensed psychologist.
July 2022 Pick
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, PhD & Amelia Nagoski, DMA. Stress and burnout are familiar parts of every day life for modern women. The authors do a great job of describing what stress is, how it is experienced, and how we can get stuck in the stress cycle. They pair this knowledge with practical and concrete strategies to move with and through the stress cycle.
June 2022 Pick
The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding & Overcoming the Body's Fear Response by Ellen Vora, MD. This book is a comprehensive guide to understanding anxiety & the things in your life that might be impacting it including nutrition, sleep, medication, inflammation, technology, & good ole life stress. Dr. Vora helpfully examines each category and provides research, personal & professional anecdotes, and suggestions for how to make adjustments if the reader is interested. This book is a great resource for someone who wants to understand their anxiety from a deeper & more holistic perspective and anyone who is curious about how those categories listed above can affect mental health overall.
May 2022 Pick
Emotional Inheritance by Galit Atlas, PhD This book is an exploration of how trauma can be passed down from generation to generation, impacting our lives in unseen & unhelpful ways. Dr. Atlas shares her work as a therapist and as a person who has been affected by generational trauma. I’m a big fan of therapists sharing their accounts of what it is like to sit on both sides of the room as it helps to demystify & de-stigmatize the process of therapy. P.S. My other favorites therapist accounts are “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone” by Lori Gottlieb & “Love’s Executioner” by Irv Yalom).
April 2022 Pick
What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo. The experience and feeling of complex trauma (trauma that is experienced over an extended period of time) by nature tends to be so hard to put into words. However, the author does as incredible job of honestly and heartbreakingly describing her experiences in her childhood and how that affected her adult life. This is a fantastic resource for those who have experienced complex trauma, looks for language to describe it, and hope to move through it!
March 2022 Pick
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parent by Lindsay Gibson, Psy.D. Growing up with parents who struggled to met our emotional needs can leave us feeling afraid of abandonment & closeness to others. This book is a great resource if you want to explore & learn more about your relationship with your parents and how it affects your life now!
February 2022 Pick
Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab This month’s book club pick is by boundary expert, Nedra Glover Tawwab. This is a comprehensive guide to boundary setting across all the areas in life you may need it. If you are curious to learn more about boundaries & how to set them, this is the book for you!
January 2022 Pick
Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown. Happy New Year! We are starting the year strong with a heavy hitter in the mental health world…the one and only Brene Brown. Her new book, Atlas of the Heart, aims to create a roadmap to our emotional world by giving us language and skills to navigate it. It is by building these skills and knowledge that we can release the stories of shame we all carry about how we feel.
