Books by David Bedrick

The Unshaming Way Workbook

Exercises and Reflection Questions to Heal from Trauma, Unlearn Self-Blame, and Reclaim Your Story

A hands-on companion to The Unshaming Way — a step-by-step guide to the core practice. Through prompts, reflections, and exercises, the workbook makes David's method more practical and accessible.

Walking through the three keys to healing shame — seeing, feeling, and believing — you'll learn to unburden yourself of complex and childhood trauma, trust yourself, and free yourself from the compulsive idea that you need to be "fixed." As one reader wrote: "Nothing has helped me more in all my years to be able to love and appreciate myself more fully."

You Can't Judge a Body by Its Cover

17 Women's Stories of Hunger, Body Shame, and Redemption

Seventeen women open the door to their souls: stories of shame and self-love, victimization and empowerment, being small and being big, fear and hope. In illuminating therapeutic interviews, you'll witness women discovering the secret behind their resistance to diet programs, the beauty of their bodies and hungers, and the insights that move them to reclaim authenticity, power, and grace.

Get ready to be moved. Get ready to see it differently. Get ready to meet the quiet truths held within your body's rebellion against a culture that fetishizes thinness and shames authenticity.

Revisioning Activism

Bringing Depth, Dialogue, and Diversity to Individual and Social Change

Many forms of activism live in the margins of more conventional strategies. These essays broaden our vision of activism to include how the social and political world shapes the inner lives of people, how dialogue across diverse viewpoints can move hearts and minds, and how psychology can play a role as an agent of social change.

Bedrick deconstructs racism by looking at divergent views of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He deconstructs sexism by critiquing the diet industry and the ways women feel about their bodies. He brings the same psychological eye to societal problems (gun control, addiction), national figures (Robin Williams, Lance Armstrong), and popular psychology's failure to create sustainable change.

Whether read in a classroom, with a friend, or alone, Revisioning Activism provokes critical thinking, feeling, and dialogue. It's a call to see ourselves as individuals intimately woven into a web of relationships and social issues.

Talking Back to Dr. Phil

Alternatives to Mainstream Psychology

David introduces a fresh approach to understanding disturbing feelings and behaviors. Using examples from the television show Dr. Phil, he illustrates mainstream psychology's tendency to shame people into thinking something is wrong with them — and carefully unpacks many standard protocols and "fixes."

Drawing on topics including dieting, sex, anger, addictions, and domestic violence, Bedrick offers a love-based psychology rooted in the belief that there is meaning in our struggles, which can come into view when they are compassionately reframed.