Sometimes recovering from emotional abuse requires talking to a professional.
Other times, it’s a long process of self-healing that may take months to years.
However, you go about emotional abuse recovery is personal to your life journey.
What’s important is you recognize the emotional abuse for what it is… Abuse!
This will help you end the cycle of abuse in your life through recognizing and not accepting someone mistreating you anymore.
If you are trying to heal yourself from the inside out due to emotional abuse, here are 15 impactful books for emotional abuse recovery!
Disclosure: Bear in mind that some of the links in this post are affiliate links and if you click on them to make a purchase I will earn a commission. Keep in mind that I link these companies and their products because of their quality and not because of the commission I receive from your purchases. The decision is yours, and whether or not you decide to buy something is completely up to you.
1. Emotional Abuse Recovery Workbook
By Theresa Comito
The Emotional Abuse Recovery Workbook provides a two-part positive approach to examine current and past relationships for emotional abuse and help you heal the wounds of emotional abuse.
The book also comes with resources and ways to help you break the cycle of abuse to prevent further emotional trauma from occurring again.
2. Gaslighting Recovery Workbook
by Amy Marlow-MaCoy
The Gaslighting Recovery Workbook: Healing from Emotional Abuse is another workbook that specifically focuses on the damage done by gaslighting. This workbook takes you through how to…
- Identify and understand abusive personalities in people
- Heal through a positive approach with exercises for recovery
- Interactive exercises focused on introspection
Related Articles: 6 Steps To Heal From Emotional Abuse
14 Lasting Effects Of Emotional Trauma
8 Ways To Heal From A Traumatic Birth Experience
3. Whole Again
by Jackson MacKenzie
Whole Again focuses on topics related to toxic relationships related to a variety of abusive personality disorders including narcissists’, codependency, and more.
The author recognizes that symptoms of trauma as a result of emotional abuse last long after the abuse has stopped.
MacKenzie works the reader through mindful and introspective exercises to work through the aftermath of abuse.
4. The Emotionally Abusive Relationship
By Beverly Engel
The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing not only helps you work through your past trauma from abuse, but helps those who believe they may be emotionally abusing their partner.
5. Healing From Hidden Abuse
By Shannon Thomas
Healing From Hidden Abuse takes the reader on a journey of healing through six stages of healing from grief due to emotional abuse discovered by Shannon Thomas.
The author walks the reader through the six recovery stages that include…
-Despair
-Education
-Awakening
-Boundaries
-Restoration
-Maintenance
6. Healing The Scars Of Emotional Abuse
By Gregory L. Jantz
Healing The Scars of Emotional Abuse offers a Christian based perspective on recognizing emotional abuse in a relationship.
The revised edition of the book now comes with self-check quizzes, how to rebuild relationships, and stories from those who’ve suffered from verbal abuse.
7. Psychopath Free
By Jackson MacKenzie
The same author of Whole Again now brings to readers Psychopath Free, a book for survivors of emotional abuse.
In this book you can learn to identify toxic people and 30 red flags to spot a psychopath in your life.
This book is essential for those who want to guard themselves against future abusive relationships.
8. The Body Keeps The Score
By Bessel Van Der Kolk
In The Body Keeps The Score, Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk examines how trauma affects and reshapes the body and brain.
To help survivors of different forms of trauma he explores different treatments that include meditation, neurofeedback, and sports to activate the brains pleasure system and heal the mind from abuse.
This book is perfect for any reader who wants to explore different treatment options to help the recovery process.
9. Emotional Abuse Breakthrough
By Barrie Davenport
This book is a bit different than all the rest. Not only does it focus on healing after emotional abuse, but it also talks about what to say and do in an abusive relationship.
Emotional Abuse Breakthrough covers the following subject areas:
- How to regain your identity
- Coping with hopelessness and despair
- How to address conflict after leaving the abuse
- How to confront an abuse about his/her behavior
- What can help an abuser change
- Protecting children from emotional abuse
- How to establish boundaries for present and future relationships
10. Gaslighting
By Theresa J. Covert
Gaslighting is a serious form of emotional abuse that involves an abuser driving the victim to question his/her own sanity.
But sometimes it can be hard to recognize and it’s difficult to understand.
This books tackles this emotional abuse tactic head on by helping the reader…
-Identify the top 10 signs of gaslighting
-How to disarm a narcissist
-Avoid mental manipulation
-How to deal with the after effects of gaslighting
-Identifying 80 things a gasligher says
11. Wounded By Words
By Susan Titus Osborn, Karen L. Kosman, and Jeenie Gordon
Wounded By Words: Healing The Invisible Scars of Emotional Abuse addresses three lesser-known signs of emotional abuse-
-Isolation
-Disorientation
-Indoctrination
All three authors are survivors of emotional abuse and are now inspiring others to recognize the emotional abuse in their lives and the lasting scars it leaves.
The authors take a biblical/Christian approach to tackling the issue by exploring verbal abuse in the Bible and taking scripture to change abusive patterns in your daily life.
12. Narcissistic Abuse Recovery
By Alison Care
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery 0ffers the following for abuse recovery:
- Why narcissists abuse others
- Activities for recovery
- Activities to reclaiming a sense of self
- Importance of daily affirmations for recovery
- Activities for regaining control of yourself
- Importance of being comfortable with who you are
13. Power
By Shahida Arabi
Power is a collection of articles from the author Shahida Arabi that covers narcissistic abuse, including the topics manipulation tactics like love bombing, devaluation, projection, and triangulation.
This book offers survivors of narcissistic abuse an understanding of the effects it leaves and how to grow, heal, and rebuild their lives after the abuse.
14. Emotional Abuse: 5 Books In 1
If you’re looking for a book covering different forms of abuse, this is is the book you need!
Emotional Abuse: 5 Books In 1 takes an in-depth look at…
-Codependency
-Narcissism
-Narcissistic abuse
-Emotional and narcissistic partner abuse
-Borderline Personality Disorder
15. Unmasking Emotional Abuse
By Gregory L. Jantz
Unmasking Emotional Abuse: Start Healing is a Christian based book that moves victims of emotional abuse through 10 stages of recovery designed by the author.
Each of the 10 steps in biblical based and help the survivor find his/her own self-worth again.
Related Articles: 19 Signs You’re A Victim Of Gaslighting
11 Lesser-Known Signs Of Emotional Abuse
What Anxiety Feels Like: 27 Illustrations To Help Others Understand
Final Thoughts
Emotional abuse is an abuse that’s unknown. It doesn’t leave you with bruises or broken bones.
It instead wounds the soul. Crushes self-worth. Convinces you that you’re unloved unless you are emotionally abused.
This article is a part of a four week long series about emotional abuse.
It’s an abuse I’ve personally experienced and I wholeheartedly believe it needs to be brought to light and talked about more.
Honestly, I’m still struggling with healing the wounds and scars created by past emotional abuse.
It’s a long journey! It still affects who I am today and even affects my marriage in some ways.
This type of abuse is weird. It doesn’t start overnight.
But instead, an abuser starts emotionally abusing subtly until one day you find yourself wondering why you hate seeing your own complexion in the world and wish you could be better for your abuser.
Emotional abuse is a scary thing because you never really know how bad it is until you’re fully immersed in it.
Physical violence rarely starts out of no where.
Emotional abuse (typically) always comes first. It opens the door for someone to hurt you physically.
First, your mind and heart. Then your body is hurt by an abuser till you have nothing left.
If you’re being abused in anyway… It’s never OK! Know your self-worth and leave the abuse behind.
If you’re still struggling to pick up the pieces after abuse… You’re not alone.
Many of us are fighting an unseen battle in our lives left behind by an abuse that goes unseen.
