Helpful and insightful- very easy to understand. Perfect for someone looking for some helpful hints on navigating life’s ups and downs. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy!

Dublin Psychotherapist Sarah Crosby's first book "Pocket Therapy: Mental Notes for Everyday Happiness, Confidence, and Calm" is an effective and engaging guide to answering some of life's biggest questions through self-exploration of such topics as attachment, boundaries, triggers, re-parenting, and more in a way that is friendly, accessible, and easy to understand.

While certainly not therapy in a literal sense, "Pocket Therapy" is a meaningful primer for anyone seeking better understanding of oneself but who's not necessarily able to or wanting to actually enter into a therapeutic relationship.

Crosby has made quite the name for herself on Instagram as @themindgeek with a warm and winning presence and basic, straightforward tips that are nicely represented in this first literary effort that bears her simple, no-nonsense approach that is just about as relaxed as the book's friendly and almost whimsical cover design and interior.

I'll confess that I was expecting perhaps a little more whimsy than unfolds in "Pocket Therapy." While Crosby's approach is certainly relaxed, rest assured that "Pocket Therapy" is actually a serious effort with substantial and important mental notes that can, indeed, help contribute to one's everyday happiness, confidence, and sense of calm. In addition to sharing a wealth of valuable therapeutic insights, Crosby helps us learn to apply them with questions and reflections in each chapter ensuring we gain a better understanding of just how to apply this information.

While those with therapy backgrounds and/or a more extended history of self-exploration will likely find some degree of familiarity in "Pocket Therapy," for the self-reflection and exploration exercises alone it's easy to recommend "Pocket Therapy" to the masses. While some of the resources offered by Crosby are more applicable to Irish or U.K. readers, the wisdom here is universal and these exercises certainly know no bounds.

While I greatly appreciated reading through "Pocket Therapy," now that my initial reading is done and my review wrapped up I look forward to returning to Crosby's insights and more deeply exploring her expertly created opportunities for greater self-reflection and guides toward a more satisfying and meaningful life.

Pros: While living through this pandemic, I appreciate a book that focuses on happiness, confidence, and calm as I feel like I'm often lacking these necessities. As I started reading, it was important for me to know more about the author of this book who would be guiding me through these topics. The author is a psychotherapist and presented the topics in this book in a very approachable way. I found the "take 5" exercises in this book to be a helpful and practical way to implement the lessons the author discusses. The most helpful chapter for me was Going Beyond Self, which focuses on how to be a good friend.

Cons: This is not a con of the contents of the book but a note to readers that although books are wonderful resources, some readers might also benefit from meeting individually with a mental health professional.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, St. Martin's Essentials for the opportunity to read this book.

Thank you for this arc! Pocket Therapy is a useful book that discusses self-evaluation and is a great starting point for figuring out more about yourself. It's not a substitute for therapy, but it is a great temporary alternative, since not everyone can afford therapy. It provides insightful questions in each chapter that you can ask yourself to get a better understanding of who you are. I think this book has the opportunity to really help people.

The verdict: Ultimately, I really enjoyed this book!

First off – As I see others have already mentioned, it's not a substitute for therapy, nor does it claim to be. However, therapy isn't feasible for everyone due to a myriad of reasons – money (all my US peeps can relate, I'm sure – three cheers for a mess of a healthcare system), location and lack of accessibility, an unfortunate stigma around mental health conversations, etc. Because of this, I definitely see a gap for this book.

With all that out of the way – "Pocket Therapy" is a very approachable and bite-sized starting point if one wants to dip their toes into the self-exploration ideas behind therapy and the principles of human psychology surrounding trauma, what shapes us into who we are and how we react to certain situations, and so on. Self-reflection can be really scary (personally, I rank it above having to ask someone you don't know very well how to operate their shower, or even small talk, which – trust me – is saying something), but this book makes it seem less daunting, especially with the conversational yet professional tone it strikes. While it would have been very easy to write this book in a dry way, Crosby's voice really shines through and it doesn't just feel like reading a dusty psych textbook.

Overall, I definitely think that it delivers on what the title promises, and I for sure recommend!

Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

This is a fantastic little book that somehow summarizes many therapy concepts into short chapters. Of course, it is not the same as individualized therapy (and it never claims to be, it even directly says to use caution in certain areas).
With chapters covering topics like grounding techniques, inner child work, and attachment styles, it could serve as either a good introduction to or refresher on essential ideas.
I was pleasantly surprised by how accessible and useful this was. I found myself taking notes of some of the ideas and principles. The author made some abstract concepts, such as cognitive distortions, very clear and practical.
I would highly recommend this book to those looking to be more proactive about their mental health. Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC.

I’ve always been interested in the Philosophy of why we do the things we do. I have been to therapy, I understand that many of the reasons we are the way we are are due to past experiences, pst trauma, and things we as human may not fully even understand.

This book is a wonderful pocket guide to discovering who we are, and what we can do to be our best selves.

I love that in addition to explaining what our feelings mean, how to be a good friend, how to recognize our triggers, how to set boundaries and reparent ourselves if necessary, we are also given instruction into things we can try to become acquainted with our deeper emotions.

In the section about reparenting ourselves if we’ve experienced childhood trauma you’re instructed to look at a childhood picture but really look at it. How were you feeling? What do you feel now? I found exercises like this extremely helpful and insightful to dealing with my own self needs and learning what I need as a fellow hurt human.

This is a beautiful book about self discovery and learning how to care for ourselves and each other, and I definitely recommend it and love that it is split into various sections so we can learn what we can as we need it.

I definitely recommend this and can see myself gifting it to anyone, as we all have struggles and need this reminder of how to love ourselves.

First off, I want to make sure anyone reading this knows that this book is not a substitute for therapy. I think therapy should be accessible to everyone, and this is a book to temporarily hold that space and/or to get one started in the self-reflection process. As the introduction itself says, “This book is full of accessible, bite-sized information, which you can choose to dip into or read right through in the order it is presented.”

Each chapter has a variety of questions to reflect upon, examples of traits and how they might impact one’s life, and mental notes that contain practical tips on working self-reflection into everyday practice.

Overall I think this is a book that would be helpful for anyone who needs some self-evaluation and some guidance on how to do the work to do some self-reflection and improvement!

A workbook for someone who can't afford therapy. Honestly, I'm not disappointed in this book, but its not a replacement for actual therapy. Think of it more like a place to get started while you find a therapist you can work with, and then this book shines.

Each chapter covers a different topic common to therapy, boundaries, triggers, relationships, etc. Each chapter has an introduction of the topic, why it matters to a person, and some questions to help start journaling/processing information. Overall a simple structure to help a reader start thinking about their own life.