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What to Do When You Feel Broken: How to Let Go of Negative Patterns, Heal Your Relationships and Find Freedom
You’re not broken! Learn how your past impacts your present and develop the psychological mindset you need to break damaging patterns in how you interact with and relate to others.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Laura Williams’ life was turned upside down by her husband’s sudden death at the age of 37, when they had three young children. This trauma forced her to reexamine everything and apply the psychological teachings she’d used professionally to help hundreds of others, to her own life.
In What to Do When You Feel Broken, Dr. Williams uses her remarkable story to take you on a journey of self-discovery. This book will help you to understand what drives your behavior and why unhelpful psychological traits can persist from influential early conditioning. Many of us have experienced some level of relational trauma that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, fails to address and are searching for ways to heal. Dr. Williams shows you how to heal from trauma by simplifying key psychological theories so you can learn how to formulate and understand your unique psychological story.
Filled with practical exercises, this book will help you to identify your needs, communicate effectively in your key relationships, and change your mindset so that you can break free from negative patterns—such as perfectionism or imposter syndrome—that limit your personal growth. Having applied psychological theories to her own life as well as her patients’, Dr. Williams distills her professional and personal wisdom to help you live with more meaning, freedom, and purpose than ever before.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Laura Williams’ life was turned upside down by her husband’s sudden death at the age of 37, when they had three young children. This trauma forced her to reexamine everything and apply the psychological teachings she’d used professionally to help hundreds of others, to her own life.
In What to Do When You Feel Broken, Dr. Williams uses her remarkable story to take you on a journey of self-discovery. This book will help you to understand what drives your behavior and why unhelpful psychological traits can persist from influential early conditioning. Many of us have experienced some level of relational trauma that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, fails to address and are searching for ways to heal. Dr. Williams shows you how to heal from trauma by simplifying key psychological theories so you can learn how to formulate and understand your unique psychological story.
Filled with practical exercises, this book will help you to identify your needs, communicate effectively in your key relationships, and change your mindset so that you can break free from negative patterns—such as perfectionism or imposter syndrome—that limit your personal growth. Having applied psychological theories to her own life as well as her patients’, Dr. Williams distills her professional and personal wisdom to help you live with more meaning, freedom, and purpose than ever before.
227 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 18, 2025
42 people are currently reading
104 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 26, 2025
This is an incredibly helpful book, which manages to achieve a very difficult balance. It illustrates psychological concepts and provides examples and tools that connect and apply to everyday life. Whenever the book utilises academic and professional terminology, it provides clear explanations so that the reader never feels lost or overwhelmed. It is extremely well written and it has a very curated pace.
The author, Dr Laura Williams, often uses her personal story to talk about trauma, feelings and relationships, and this helps create a very strong emotional connection with the reader.
I absolutely recommend reading this book as it has helped me gain a better understanding of my own feelings and behaviours and the tools that are available to work on healthy emotional resilience.
The author, Dr Laura Williams, often uses her personal story to talk about trauma, feelings and relationships, and this helps create a very strong emotional connection with the reader.
I absolutely recommend reading this book as it has helped me gain a better understanding of my own feelings and behaviours and the tools that are available to work on healthy emotional resilience.
August 16, 2025
In What To Do When You Feel Broken, Dr Laura Williams writes with a unique authority. Dr Laura weaves her experience as a skilled and compassionate Clinical Psychologist, alongside her own experience of trauma, to create a deeply important and compelling read. This authenticity of experience, coupled with information and techniques that are grounded in evidence based psychological therapies, gives the reader a powerful and trustworthy means to understand and work through psychological distress.
This book will appeal to a range of readers, particularly those looking to understand their own psychology and to find practical tools. Moreover, as a Clinical Psychologist myself, I consider that professionals at all stages in their careers will benefit from reading Dr Laura’s book.
I particularly enjoyed Dr Laura’s accessible explanation of psychological formulation and the opportunity she gives readers to develop and understand their own formulation. Throughout the book, Dr Laura draws from a range of psychological therapies including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and Schema Therapy.
What To Do When You Feel Broken is a moving, informative and inspirational read. I took a lot from this book, both personally and professionally. Dr Laura writes with a genuine care and understanding of the experience of trauma, whilst providing the hope and the steps needed to rebuild.
This book will appeal to a range of readers, particularly those looking to understand their own psychology and to find practical tools. Moreover, as a Clinical Psychologist myself, I consider that professionals at all stages in their careers will benefit from reading Dr Laura’s book.
I particularly enjoyed Dr Laura’s accessible explanation of psychological formulation and the opportunity she gives readers to develop and understand their own formulation. Throughout the book, Dr Laura draws from a range of psychological therapies including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) and Schema Therapy.
What To Do When You Feel Broken is a moving, informative and inspirational read. I took a lot from this book, both personally and professionally. Dr Laura writes with a genuine care and understanding of the experience of trauma, whilst providing the hope and the steps needed to rebuild.
March 8, 2025
i will never be able to praise or recommend this book enough.
beautifully vulnerable and candid, Dr Laura opens up about her own traumas and struggles in a way that makes you feel less alone. through sharing the heartbreaking story of her husband's sudden death, Laura takes us on an exploration of how we can heal from our own traumas and difficult life events.
Dr Laura teaches us that there can be joy after sadness, that joy and sadness can coexist, and that it is okay to feel how you feel. she teaches us to be kind and compassionate to ourselves, how to live a beautifully imperfect life, how to find our own power. through her kind words and practical exercises and prompts at the end of every chapter, this book truly helps you to do the work on yourself.
this book is so much more than a book. it is a companion for life and i know it is something i will come back to again and again throughout my life. it's filled with hope, reassurance, and practical strategies that will help you to heal yourself and find the strength to keep going.
beautifully vulnerable and candid, Dr Laura opens up about her own traumas and struggles in a way that makes you feel less alone. through sharing the heartbreaking story of her husband's sudden death, Laura takes us on an exploration of how we can heal from our own traumas and difficult life events.
Dr Laura teaches us that there can be joy after sadness, that joy and sadness can coexist, and that it is okay to feel how you feel. she teaches us to be kind and compassionate to ourselves, how to live a beautifully imperfect life, how to find our own power. through her kind words and practical exercises and prompts at the end of every chapter, this book truly helps you to do the work on yourself.
this book is so much more than a book. it is a companion for life and i know it is something i will come back to again and again throughout my life. it's filled with hope, reassurance, and practical strategies that will help you to heal yourself and find the strength to keep going.
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January 13, 2026Wasn’t prepared to read the details of her trauma. Probably a useful book to start processes but not much new or helpful when you’ve already been in therapy for a while. Some good prompts for writing, but was an audio book.
Also the Scottish accent was beautiful but hard as an audiobook - spent all the time between words reworking and deciphering to be able to understand it, instead of taking it in. A lot of effort
Also the Scottish accent was beautiful but hard as an audiobook - spent all the time between words reworking and deciphering to be able to understand it, instead of taking it in. A lot of effort
April 16, 2025
The opening chapters made me bawl my eyes out, and I don’t really have much else to say other than I’m still broken, and now I feel horrible for the author.
December 31, 2025
So good I made my mum read it and it got her going to therapy
July 24, 2025
Fascinating and simple
Rarely does a book tackle genuine academia and deliver it in such a palatable manner. Accessible, thoughtful, relatable; I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading this.
Rarely does a book tackle genuine academia and deliver it in such a palatable manner. Accessible, thoughtful, relatable; I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from reading this.
June 26, 2025
This is an incredibly helpful book, which manages to achieve a very difficult balance. It illustrates psychological concepts and provides examples and tools that connect and apply to everyday life. Whenever the book utilises academic and professional terminology, it provides clear explanations so that the reader never feels lost or overwhelmed. It is extremely well written and it has a very curated pace.
The author, Dr Laura Williams, often uses her personal story to talk about trauma, feelings and relationships, and this helps create a very strong emotional connection with the reader.
I absolutely recommend reading this book as it has helped me gain a better understanding of my own feelings and behaviours and the tools that are available to work on healthy emotional resilience.
The author, Dr Laura Williams, often uses her personal story to talk about trauma, feelings and relationships, and this helps create a very strong emotional connection with the reader.
I absolutely recommend reading this book as it has helped me gain a better understanding of my own feelings and behaviours and the tools that are available to work on healthy emotional resilience.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews