How We Break

Author Vincent Deary
Narrator Vincent Deary
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 1 January 1970
Run Time 11 hours and 9 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Cognitive studies, Coping with personal, social and health topics, Family and health, Popular psychology, Psychology, Self-help, personal development and practical advice, Society and Social Sciences.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

An expert, empathetic guide to the science, psychology and physiology of breaking, from the acclaimed author of How We Are
What happens when our minds and bodies are pushed beyond their limits? Vincent Deary is a health psychologist who has spent years helping his patients cope with whatever life has thrown at them. In How We Break, he has written a book for all of us who sometimes feel we have reached our breaking point.

Drawing on clinical case studies, cutting-edge scientific research, intimate personal stories and references from philosophy, literature and film, How We Break offers a consoling new vision of everyday human struggle. The big traumas in life, Deary points out, are relatively rare. More common is when too many things go wrong at once, or we are exposed to prolonged periods of difficulty or precarity. When the world shrinks to nothing but our daily coping, we become unhappy, worried, hopeless, exhausted. In other words, we break. Breaking, he shows us, happens when the same systems that enable us to navigate through life become dysregulated. But if we understand how the wear and tear of life affects us, then we have a better chance of navigating through times of burnout, stress, fatigue and despair.

By equipping us with a better understanding of what happens to us when we're struggling to cope, and making a bold case for the power of rest and recuperation, How We Break helps chart a path through difficult times.
©2024 Vincent Deary (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

A lyrical and ultimately uplifting examination of what happens when our minds and bodies are put under extreme stress or suffering

The Financial Times

Drawing on a wide range of sources about the human experience, Vincent Deary has written a warm and compassionate book about how we hurt and how we heal. A rich and humane work

Gwen Adshead, forensic psychiatrist and author of THE DEVIL YOU KNOW

From a deep mine of science, philosophy, art and personal experience, Vincent Deary has produced a treasure of a book. Every page of How We Break gleams with wisdom and insight. Nobody could fail to be enriched by it

Matt Rowland Hill, author of ORIGINAL SINS

A particular strength of the book is the way Deary weaves between different schools of thought within psychology, philosophy and religion. The result is not merely a discussion of abstract ideas, but a collection of valuable observations about what it means to be human in the modern world

the Guardian

Deary’s exhilarating new book mixes science, philosophy and memoir to argue that self-acceptance is our best defence against the stress of living… Deary’s writing is wise and compassionate, sometimes florid and always interesting – few writers could jump so nimbly between Proust and RuPaul, neuroscience and the occult. … Deary’s is the rare book that helps you see the world a little differently

The New Statesman

The psychologist and researcher’s persuasive inquiry into how life’s struggles take their toll is full of hard-won wisdom… There is a rawness to Deary’s analysis that gives a compelling human edge to his theorising

Observer (Book of the Day)

Deary offers a thought experiment that just might be a game-changer

The Irish Times

In How We Break, the health psychologist Vincent Deary suggests some answers for ‘navigating the wear and tear of living’… This essential self-exploration underlines the deeply humane plea which is the heartbeat of the book: for more self-compassion… There is much wisdom in Deary’s regret that this society has neglected the idea of convalescence’

The Daily Mail

Exhilarating… a lyrical, consoling exploration… It takes guts to recognise that change is called for, and more to follow it through. This book – so long as you don’t read it on autopilot – should help

Guardian

Fascinating, profound, wonderfully well-observed… [How We Are] could change lives

Daily Mail

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