A Therapeutic Journey: Lessons from the School of Life - by Alain de Botton

Book Synopsis

Alain de Botton's redemptive volume - now in paperback - charts a course from collapse to recovery with kindness, compassion and wisdom.

"Alain de Botton, one of our era's most uncommonly perceptive, lyrical, and lucid existential contemplatives." -- The Marginalian

A Therapeutic Journey is a collection of essays about mental challenge and health. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is a practical guide to well-being and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments.

Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.

At heart this is a book about happiness - about regaining the thread of our lives, rediscovering meaning, and finding our way back to connection, warmth and joy.

Review Quotes

PRAISE FOR A THERAPEUTIC JOURNEY

"A THERAPEUTIC JOURNEY is essential to the literature on emotional well-being and life navigation. It functions not just as a guide but also as a friend--one that offers solutions and the right questions to ponder." -- Mental Health Affairs

"The book serves as a toolkit for life's complexities [...] delving into existential issues that often underscore emotional well-being." -- Mental Health Affairs

"A collection of essays designed to help us find our way back to connection, warmth, and joy--it's a mediation on the wisdom of children and the comfort, catharsis, and even clarity that tears can bring. In these difficult days, may it be a balm leading us away from despair and toward hope." -- The Isolation Journals with Suleika Jaouad

"How to cultivate a mind that faces the gauntlet of living without making of it a hell is what Alain de Botton, philosopher of poetic pragmatism, explores in A Therapeutic Journey: Lessons from The School of Life." -- The Marginalian

"...I am obsessed with Alain de Botton. ...If you are going to get one of Botton's books, this one is a great summary of all the stuff the School of Life has been up to over the past few years." -- Bad At Keeping Secrets Newsletter

"De Botton has a gift for looking at the great questions of human existence--love, friendship, work, travel, home--in a way that is intellectually rigorous, therapeutic, amusing and always highly readable." -- Oldster Magazine

"De Botton acts as our friend and guide, hand in ours, walking alongside us, slowly, as he identifies the nature of mental illness and mental health [...] and delivers us back to what we've lost--hope." -- Amanda Stern, How to Live Newsletter

About the Author

The School of Life is here to help you learn, heal and grow. We are devoted to bringing you calm, self-understanding, better relationships, deeper friendships, greater effectiveness at work and more fulfilment in your leisure time.

We do this via our books, our app, our films, our therapeutic services and our corporate offering.

The School of Life Press brings together the thinking and ideas of The School of Life creative team under the direction of series editor, Alain de Botton.