The reading list on self-repression and self-mutilation

Robert Bly — A Little Book on the Human Shadow (1986). The urtext for "eating the shadow" and repressing the self.

 

Alice Miller — The Drama of the Gifted Child (1979). Contrary to the title, it's not quite about gifted children. It's an explanation of how your childhood might not have been happy — even if you think it was happy — and the effects it has on adulthood. Read it to figure out what you are repressing.

 

Gabor Maté — Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder (1999). An application of the "repressed feelings from childhood" idea to ADHD, procrastination, and emotional sensitivity. The book is easy to read, but hard to get something useful from if you haven't read other books on the topic of repression (before or after Scattered Minds).

 

Esther Perel — Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006). A book-long list of various things people want in their sex lives, but are repressing, and. Crucially, explains how the act of repressing your sexual desires affects the partner and your sex life in general (spoiler: very poorly).

 

Iain McGilchrist — The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009). A very long one. Describes the very different modes of operation of the left and the right hemispheres. Super helpful for noticing profoundly different worldviews inside yourself (e.g. should things be discussed out of context, or is the context inseparable from the discussion?) and possible self-repression that you are engaging in.