We asked Gestalt therapist Kateryna Rozhkova which 5 books she would recommend people to read — from the perspective of benefit to mental health or for alleviating psychological state in the present moment.
I am happy that there are many great publishing houses in Ukraine now that give us the opportunity to read both our own Ukrainian authors and wonderful high-quality translations of foreign literature. I am starting to write and immediately edit this text because it is very difficult for me to single out exactly 5 books among all the variety, as there are many more. Therefore, I will try to combine all previous versions as concisely as possible here.
From the point of view of psychological health, books can respond to the satisfaction of various needs. I often hear from my circle and acquaintances that people feel exhaustion and have a need to "rest from reality," and here we can talk about fiction novels. Especially those that will evoke vivid fantasies and resemble TV series. For example, there's a series of books by Taylor Jenkins Reid, including "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo," where a separate world is created, and the characters of one novel partially appear in others. These are novels about love and relationships between different people. For fans of detectives and thrillers, I would recommend series of bestsellers by Freida McFadden, and by Tess Gerritsen.
If you love science fiction (and just like me, complain about interpretations and distortions of book texts in films and series), you might be interested in immersing yourself in the world created by Liu Cixin in his trilogy "The Three-Body Problem" ("Remembrance of Earth's Past"), which not only shows an alternative reality but also describes certain cyclical dynamic processes in the history of humanity, and raises philosophical questions. It will be unlikely to rest with this book, but at the same time, it will be incredibly interesting to observe each plot line and the dynamics of events.
If your current need is self-knowledge and understanding yourself, then pay attention to books devoted to a detailed overview of separate mental health issues — imposter syndrome (Ash Ambirge), codependency (Melody Beattie), trauma and the bodily experience (Bessel van der Kolk), and others.
If I try to single out exactly five books, I will probably stop at those that impressed me the most in 2025, and which I consider important for self-support, as they allow one to feel less alone in their experiences, contain practical recommendations, validate and describe current states and feelings.
David Richo "How to Be an Adult in Relationships"
The book will be useful and handy for all time. Because partnership and relationships are always relevant. And the wartime background can exacerbate and actualize painful issues related to intimacy, relationships, and the needs that arise in them. The author raises the topic of love and its components, describing each in detail. Gives practical recommendations and exercises. One of the central issues of the book is healing from the trauma of neglect and the formation of self-support skills.
Nick Trenton "Stop Overthinking"
If you are an anxious person yourself, this book will be super useful for you. If you have become more anxious due to your life circumstances, perhaps you will find support on these pages in solving certain problems with thinking that you have faced. The techniques proposed by the author also help in developing focusing and prioritization skills in people who have ruminations and anxiety.
Iryna Vyhovska "Vroztich" (Fleeing)
An incredible book that I read with pleasure in one breath. After it or during the reading process, you will most likely want to put on leggings and a cozy voluminous down jacket, and then go and buy yourself a croissant. Even if it seemed to you that you had already overeaten them or didn't like them. You will just go and find the one that you like. This is a sincere and sensitive novel about love during the war. And it seems to me that the author's experiences will be close to many Ukrainian women, and her story and reflections will not leave them indifferent.
Fredrik Backman "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry"
It seems to me that with my love for Backman, I have already "loved to death" everyone around me and am going to continue popularizing him until the maximum number of people read him. Because he is wonderful!
The book is important because it, like a good psychotherapist, validates all feelings and experiences related to losses (and we have very many of them during almost 4 years of the full-scale war).
Barbara Kingsolver "Demon Copperhead"
This is a drama about loneliness, abandonment, conditions for the formation of a dependent personality structure. In a literary language, without analysis, psychological vocabulary, quite frankly and honestly.
The process of traumatization is definitely very vividly described here — when the circumstances turned out to be much stronger and harder than a single individual could endure, and at the same time, their environment turned out to be one that could not validate the experiences and provide enough support to prevent the trauma. Nevertheless, we see how adaptation mechanisms and dependence itself are formed — as a way to cope with the circumstances that arose in the lives of the main characters of the novel.
If you have a need to get acquainted with separate events of wars that have ended, and the experience of people who survived them in different countries and cultures, I recommend paying attention to the novels "Half of a Yellow Sun" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, "Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee, and "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr.
