Books on Prescription
Resources to help improve your mental health for young adults
The following books have been selected by health professionals as resources for adults and teengers who are looking for high quality and trustworthy health information.
Click here to browse more of Books on Prescription resources available at the Library.
Click here to learn more about the Books on Prescription initiative.
- All
- Anger
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Emotions
- Grief
- Mindfulness
- Resilience
- Self-Esteem
- Stress
- OCD
- Panic & Trauma
- Worry
- Written for Teens
After the suicide of someone you know
This newly updated and revised edition has been specifically written for NZ young people affected by the suicide of someone they know.
Don’t let your emotions run your life for teens
The author explores how teenagers can manage emotions by using Dialectical Behaviour Therapy skills – in a language that teenage readers can understand.
Fighting Invisible Tigers
Aimed at young people and covers common stressful situations that they have to deal with, and includes tips and strategies to help manage these.
Ōku Moe Moea
Oku Moe Moea – The dream which is bigger than I am has been acclaimed as a moving novel examining the role art plays for young people in enabling the survival of creativity in the young.
Quiet the Mind
Meditation is simply a way of giving our brains a well-deserved break and can actually help our brains to function healthy and happily.
Stuff That Sucks
This short book helps readers manage their emotions and thoughts, and achieves what the title claims.
The Shyness and Social Anxiety...
An easy to read and follow book with step-by-step activities and education about how social anxiety develops, how it affects teenagers and how to overcome this.
The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens
If you learn a few strategies for getting stress under control now, you’ll have the skills you need to deal with problems and difficult feelings that life sends your way in high school and beyond.
Turtles All The Way Down
Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.
Unlikely Hero of Room 13B
Filled with moments of deep emotion and unexpected humor, this understated and wise novel explores the complexities of living with OCD and offers the prospect of hope, happiness and healing.
Overcoming Anger and Irritability
Explores how anger and irritability affects us in different ways and sets out effective strategies to reduce feelings of irritability and become less angry.
Overcoming Anxiety
This book explains why anxiety is a major problem for some people and not for others, and then guides the reader through a series of steps to enable them to overcome problem fears and anxieties of all kinds.
All Blacks Don’t Cry
All Blacks Don't Cry is John Kirwan's story of hope, of working through the pain and living a full life. It is a poignant, inspirational and helpful example for anybody battling depression.
I Had a Black Dog
There are many different breeds of Black Dog affecting millions of people from all walks of life. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life.
Mind Over Mood
Change How You Feel by Changing the Way You Think
Developed by two master clinicians with extensive experience in cognitive therapy treatment and training, this popular workbook shows readers how to improve their lives using cognitive therapy.
Mothers Cry Too
In Mothers Cry Too, New Zealand psychiatrist Dr Sara Weeks, a leading expert in the field of maternal mental health, explains how to recognise and deal with a range of issues, from the 'baby blues' to more serious conditions.
Overcoming Depression and Low Mood
Delivers a wealth of strategies to deal with conditions ranging from low mood to long-lasting depression
Stand By Me
Helping your teen through tough times
Charting John Kirwan's personal experiences as a father, and featuring the real voices of young people today, Stand By Me investigates issues around teenage mental health, with a focus on depression and anxiety.
The Mindful Way through Depression
The Mindful Way through Depression draws on the collective wisdom of four internationally renowned mindfulness experts, including bestselling author Jon Kabat-Zinn, to provide effective relief from the most prevalent psychological disorder.
Dream New Dreams
Dream New Dreams is a powerful story of grief, healing, and newfound independence.
What Abi Taught Us
The inspiring story of how Lucy Hone coped with the tragic death of her daughter and how strategies from the science of resilient grieving can help anyone face an equally helpless situation.
Overcoming Low Self Esteem
A Self-help Guide Using Cognitive Behavioural Techniques
This book will aid readers to understand their condition and with this knowledge enable them to break out of the vicious circle of negative self-image, learn the art of self-acceptance and alter their lives for the better.
Overcoming Low Self Esteem CD
Learn what causes low self-esteem and why it sometimes persists, explore how to stop self-criticism in its tracks, challenge negative self-beliefs and develop new self-acceptance.
8 Minute Meditation
Quiet Your Mind, Change your Life.
In recent years, meditation has become hugely popular and scientific studies are suggesting that the physical and mental benefits are solid and real. But to many, it remains something mystical and inaccessible…and spiritually-oriented tomes on the market don't do much to make it easier.
Mindfulness: A Practical Guide
In “Mindfulness,” Oxford professor Mark Williams and award-winning journalist Danny Penman reveal the secrets to living a happier and less anxious, stressful, and exhausting life.
Understanding Obsessions and Compulsions
A Self-help Manual
A comprehensive guide to self-help, explaining the principles of anxiety reduction, giving treatment instructions in easy-to-understand language.
49 Ways to Think Yourself Well
Mind science practice, one step at a time.
49 Ways to Think Yourself Well is a unique, dip-in guide to help you to enhance and sustain well-being. Written by two experienced therapists and trainers in brief psychotherapy and hypnotherapy, it offers readers a compendium of insightful information and a host of positive and practical ways for boosting well-being on all levels, using the powerful tools within your mind.
49 Ways to Write Yourself Well
49 Ways to Write Yourself Well is an inspirational guide to improving your confidence and general well-being through writing. Written by a leading creative-writing trainer and life coach, this book is a compendium of tools, techniques and activities which you can draw on to help you take control of your emotions, relationships and personal goals, and find a greater sense of self.
The Happiness Trap Pocketbook
An illustrated guide on how to stop struggling and start living
Whether you’re lacking confidence, facing illness, stressed at work, struggling with low self-esteem, trying to lose weight or quit smoking, or just wanting to be happier, healthier, and more fulfilled.
When Happiness is not Enough
But do we really know what happiness is? Do we really understand its complexity? Does ‘pure joy’ lie on the same continuum as a ‘quiet satisfaction’? And does happiness in itself lead us to live a fulfilling life? This book helps us to discriminate clearly between two fundamental types of happiness. It helps us to know ourselves better, and to make active choices towards a more fulfilling life.
I Can’t Get Over It
A Handbook for Trauma Survivors
This book will help you:
- Find out whether you have PTSD
- Cope with post-traumatic anger, grief, and survivor guilt
- Recognize related problems such as depression, substance abuse , compulsive behavior and low self-esteem
- Identify “triggers” that set off flashbacks, anxiety attacks, and other symptoms
- Relieve wounding caused by others’ blaming and insensitivity
- Gain a sense of empowerment and hope for the future
Living With It
A thoroughly useful small book which clearly addresses anxiety and panic, provides a good understanding of how it develops what it is and how to overcome it. This is, in my opinion one of the most beneficial publications yet. This book summarises anxiety and simplifies a really useful way of managing and overcoming panic attacks.
How to Stop Worrying
In this easy-to-read manual, Dr Frank Tallis explains how to understand your fears, and how to control your worry and make it work for you in a positive way.
The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook
The book contains relaxation techniques based on the latest research, and draws from a variety of proven treatment methods, including progressive relaxation, autogenics, self-hypnosis, visualization, and mindfulness and acceptance therapy.
What is Books on Prescription?
Books on Prescription is a programme run by WellSouth Primary Health Network and libraries throughout Southland to increase access to high quality health information. The programme is also supported by Otago Access Radio 105.4FM and Radio Southland 96.4FM.
The resources in the collection have been recommended and reviewed by health professionals. You can also read book reviews by both health professionals and consumers on the Books on Prescription website.
There are 3 strands of the programme:
