Practical, helpful tools to cope with life’s curly, confusing and confounding predicaments and relational conundrums.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Genre: Non-Fiction, Self-Help, Psychology, Life Advice
Publisher: Michael Joseph/Penguin Life
Review in one word: Practical
Open When… is a practical lifeline in book form. Written by renowned clinical psychologist and online mental health educator Dr. Julie Smith, the book is structured in a much different way from other self-help books. Instead of asking the reader to immerse themselves into conventional chapters, Dr Smith acknowledges you the reader. Even the name ‘Open When’ signals the open-hearted intention of life advice for moments and times in life when you need them. The book’s structure in a letter-like form feels intimate, closer and warmer than most others of this genre for this reason.
The chapters are designed to be stand-alone and read in whatever order the reader feels is necessary and related to a particular emotional challenge – grief and loss, heartbreak, rejection, professional burn-out, failure, uncontrolled anger. Each letter is grounded in evidence-based therapy but wrapped in personable warmth and clarity.
Smith’s tone is reassuring and real, never condescending. She acknowledges how messy and complex emotions can be while giving readers tools to navigate them with more ease. What makes this book so special is its accessibility— there is a lack of overly fussy and academic psychological jargon, there is a lack of clinical distance as well as seen in one of the most famous books on trauma – The Body Keeps the Score, which I thought was not really that great in terms of being helpful. In contrast, Open When is book for all people to use practically, rather than a book designed for therapists.
This is a book that meets you where you are and doesn’t harp on about the importance of ‘positive thinking’ or any other trendy psychobabble. Open With is a wonderful silent friend in book form and will nudge you gently towards facing challenges in your life with greater clarity and self-love. I cannot recommend this book more!
Content Catnip 