Authors Like Marshall Rosenberg

Carl Rogers

American · b. 1902 · Psychologist

Rogers was the American psychologist who developed client-centred, later person-centred, therapy. In Counseling and Psychotherapy (1942) he printed the complete record of a client's treatment, session by session; Client-Centered Therapy (1951), On Becoming a Person (1961) and A Way of Being (1980) set out his argument that people change when they are listened to, not when they are told what to do. Late in life he ran peace workshops in Northern Ireland, South Africa and the Soviet Union.

Every book by Carl Rogers →

Thomas Gordon

American · b. 1918 · Psychologist

Gordon was an American clinical psychologist and a colleague of Carl Rogers. He taught the first Parent Effectiveness Training class to fourteen parents in Pasadena in the early 1960s; the book, published in 1970 and revised in 2000, has been translated into 33 languages. Teacher Effectiveness Training (1974, with Noel Burch) followed, and in 1974 he founded Gordon Training International to carry on the work.

Harriet Lerner

American · b. 1944 · Psychologist

Lerner was a staff psychologist at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, from 1972 to 2001. The Dance of Anger (1985), about using anger to change the patterns in a relationship rather than repeat them, was her breakthrough book; The Dance of Intimacy followed in 1989 and Why Won't You Apologize? in 2017.

Harville Hendrix

American · b. 1935 · Couples therapist

Hendrix was born in Statesboro, Georgia, trained as a Baptist minister and took a PhD in psychology and religion at the University of Chicago. With his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, he developed Imago Relationship Therapy. Getting the Love You Want (1988), helped by seventeen appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, became one of the best-known books on marriage.

Every book by Harville Hendrix →

John Gottman

American · b. 1942 · Psychologist

Gottman taught psychology at the University of Washington, where his “Love Lab” observed hundreds of couples over many years, and in 1996 co-founded the Gottman Institute with his wife, the psychologist Julie Schwartz Gottman. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (1999), written with Nan Silver, introduced the “four horsemen” — criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. His claims to predict divorce have been criticised: in 2001 the psychologist Richard Heyman argued that the models rested on small samples and had not been tested on new couples.

Brené Brown

American · b. 1965 · Researcher

Brown is a research professor of social work at the University of Houston, where she took her PhD in 2002, and has studied shame, vulnerability and courage for more than twenty years. Her 2010 TEDxHouston talk, “The Power of Vulnerability”, became one of the most viewed TED talks. Daring Greatly (2012) applies her findings to relationships, parenting and work; Atlas of the Heart (2021) maps eighty-seven emotions and experiences.

Every book by Brené Brown →

Kristin Neff

American · Psychologist

Neff is a developmental psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin who in 2003 published the first academic papers on self-compassion, with a scale to measure it. Self-Compassion (2011) brought that work to general readers; with Christopher Germer she developed the Mindful Self-Compassion programme and co-wrote The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook (2018). Fierce Self-Compassion (2021) is about standing up for yourself.

Every book by Kristin Neff →

Gabor Maté

Hungarian-Canadian · b. 1944 · Physician

Maté was born in Budapest in 1944 and emigrated with his family to Canada in 1956. From 1996 to 2008 he was staff physician for the Portland Hotel Society in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, working with people with severe addiction — the basis of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (2008). The Myth of Normal (2022), written with his son Daniel Maté, argues that much chronic illness is a response to trauma. Some researchers have criticised his emphasis on childhood trauma as the main cause of illness and addiction as not supported by the evidence.

Every book by Gabor Maté →

Thich Nhat Hanh

Vietnamese · b. 1926 · Zen teacher

Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese Zen monk who coined the term “engaged Buddhism” and campaigned against the Vietnam War; in 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. He spent thirty-nine years in exile, founding the Plum Village community in France in 1982, wrote more than a hundred books, among them The Miracle of Mindfulness (1975) and Peace Is Every Step, and died in Huế in 2022.

Every book by Thich Nhat Hanh →

Mahatma Gandhi

Indian · b. 1869 · Political leader

Gandhi led the campaign of Indians in South Africa against discriminatory laws and then India's movement for independence from British rule, developing a method of nonviolent resistance he called satyagraha. His autobiography was serialised in Gujarati from 1925 to 1929. His early writings in South Africa include racist remarks about Black Africans, cited when the University of Ghana removed his statue in 2018.

Every book by Mahatma Gandhi →