How to Stay Sane - (School of Life) by Philippa Perry (Paperback)

About the Book

Originally published in Great Britain in 2012 by Macmillan.

Book Synopsis

An Economist Best Book of the Year

Everyone accepts the importance of physical health; isn't it just as important to aim for the mental equivalent? Philippa Perry has come to the rescue with How to Stay Sane -- a maintenance manual for the mind.

Years of working as a psychotherapist showed Philippa Perry what approaches produced positive change in her clients and how best to maintain good mental health. In How to Stay Sane, she has taken these principles and applied them to self-help. Using ideas from neuroscience and sound psychological theory, she shows us how to better understand ourselves. Her idea is that if we know how our minds form and develop, we are less at the mercy of unknown unconscious processes. In this way, we can learn to be the master of our feelings and not their slave.

This is a smart, pithy, readable book that everyone with even a passing interest in their psychological health will find useful.

The School of Life is dedicated to exploring life's big questions in highly-portable paperbacks, featuring French flaps and deckle edges, that the New York Times calls "damnably cute." We don't have all the answers, but we will direct you towards a variety of useful ideas that are guaranteed to stimulate, provoke, and console.

Review Quotes

"Self-Help Books for the Rest of Us." --The New York Times

"Sanity, Philippa Perry shows in this brilliant little book, is not about normality, but about how to maintain a flexible position between rigidity and chaos." --The Economist, Books of the Year

"[Perry's] inviting tone (complimented by lighthearted illustrations throughout) and friendly prose make this an accessible addition to the School of Life publications." --Publishers Weekly

"Using stories from her therapy practice to illustrate her points as well as numerous exercises to conduct alone, with a loved one or within a group, Perry brings new light to a well-visited subject." --Kirkus Reviews

"Perry offers guidance that is both revelatory and achievable." --Booklist

"In an age of moral and practical confusions, the self-help book is crying out to be redesigned and rehabilitated. The School of Life announces a rebirth with a series that examines the great issues of life, including money, sanity, work, technology, and the desire to alter the world for the better." --Alain de Botton, The School of Life Series Editor

"The School of Life offers radical ways to help us raid the treasure trove of human knowledge." --The Independent on Sunday (London)

About the Author

PHILIPPA PERRY is a psychotherapist and writer who has written pieces for The Guardian, The Observer, Time Out, and Healthy Living magazine and has a column in Psychologies Magazine. In 2010, she wrote the graphic novel Couch Fiction, in an attempt to demystify psychotherapy. She lives in London and Sussex with her husband, the artist Grayson Perry, and enjoys gardening, cooking, parties, walking, tweeting, and watching telly