I have been listening to Kara Loewentheil's podcast for years so when I heard she was writing a book I was very excited. This book puts much of the info you get from the podcast into a nice neat book that makes it easy to access. This book can change your life if you take the time to do the work.

Thank you to Penguin Life and NetGalley for the ARC.

I have a great deal ambivalence around self-help books; many are extremely bad, based on little to no research and are meant to promote unsavory ideologies or make lots of money or both.* When they’re directed primarily toward women, this is even more likely.** Yet I often look at them and sometimes read them. Since I’m already a listener of Loewenthiel’s podcast, I was eager to read this book.

I’m pleased to report that I was not disappointed. Take Back Your Brain is grounded in psychological research*** and practical feminism. By practical feminism, I mean that the author’s emphasis is on the day-to-day impact of gender inequality, and its intersections with racism, capitalism, ableism, and anti-fat bias, rather than with the the theoretical causes of systemic oppression. Inequities are explained and supported with data, and Loewentheil offers psychological tools to address how one is impacted by these concrete issues. Most of the examples from her clients and students are white, middle- to upper-class ciswomen, but they are usually accompanied by hypothetical examples of how the situation and the self-coaching responses could be applied among those with different social backgrounds and identities. Contexts for thought work include body image, dating and relationships, finances, and professional advancement.

Loewentheil’s thought work technique is inspired her experience being coached by the life coach and coach trainer, Brooke Castillo. She has adapted the technique for her own use, grounding it in feminism, psychological research, and neuroplasticity. In the final chapter, she brings in a bit of Buddhist influence as she discusses the concept of radical acceptance and how this model of thought work can affect social change beyond the individual.

Tying the thought work method to neuroplasticity may be the most useful part of the book for me. I live with chronic back pain, and for the last year and half I’ve been managing it with Pain Reprocessing Therapy, a methodology based on neuroplasticity. I’ve read Alan Gordon’s The Way Out (which Loewentheil references) and a half-dozen other books on neuroplasticity and pain management, as well as used the Curable app, and none have provided me with such concrete techniques for changing my thoughts as Kara Loewentheil does is in this book.


*I’m looking at you, John Gray.
**When self-help books are directed toward men, they’re usually called leadership books. Or productivity guides.
***The book’s footnotes contain a mixture of citations to academic studies and popularized versions of studies; I’d prefer more of the former and less of the latter, but I’m glad to see citations to research. (The Mars & Venus books have no footnotes or bibliographies, because John Gray made it all up.)