How to Be Broken

Downloadable audio file

Sunday Times Best Self Help Book of 2021

'This is the book for right now. This is the book for understanding burnout and then kick-starting the rebuild.' Professor Lucy Easthope

'If you are coming to the end of this year feeling battered and bruised, please read this hugely consoling short book.' Sunday Times

We are all broken at one time or another. All of us fall apart. But it is possible to take those pieces and rebuild into a stronger version of ourselves.

Psychologist, Dr Emma Kavanagh, takes us on a tour through the psychological literature, looking at what neuroscience tells us about extreme stress.

Using neuroscientific data, Dr Kavanagh has assessed the psychological literature that surrounds extreme stress. How to be broken looks beyond the fight or flight response to the science of group bonding in a crisis, it looks at how burnout might be better considered as a psychological adaptation to an unbearably tough environment. And it looks at what comes next, after the falling apart, exploring the science behind adaptation to harsh environments and how, sometimes, the world falling apart can lead us to rebuild, better than before.

As featured in the Independent, the Telegraph, the Observer, CNN and the Times, Dr Emma Kavanagh is giving us the tools to grow beyond a trauma. And how to put ourselves back together when we need it most.