Strong and healthy relationships are critical for a balanced life. Your social connections with family members, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and others shape your mental, emotional, and physical well-being. Research has shown that having healthy relationships reduces stress and the risks of heart-related diseases. It also increases the longevity of people. On the contrary, loneliness and toxic relationships can cause depression, reduce productivity, and hamper success in life. There are Books about Healthy Relationships that can teach you how to make meaningful relationships, and sustain that. These books will improve your communication skills and teach you how to maintain a healthy relationship.
The 20 Best Books about Building Healthy Social Relationships
Below is a list of the top 20 best books about building healthy social relationships. These books address various aspects of building and maintaining social relationships such as trust, communication, social conversations, etc.
1. How to Win Friends and Influence People By Dale Carnegie
This almost 100 years old book is an all-time best seller. You can take it with a pinch of salt as human behavior might change over time. But the principles taught in this book still apply to most circumstances. This book taught you how to make people like you and how you can make them work in favor of you. Thousands of successful people have benefited from this book in their personal and work life. You can definitely try this for yourself.
2. The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door By Jay Pathak
This book talks about the great commandment of Jesus, and how we can implement it in our life by loving our neighbors and maintaining good relationships with the people who live in close proximity to our house. The book is significant in the context that in the age of social media we have hundreds of friends online, but we do not even know the name of our neighbors. It can help anyone regardless of their religious faith- i.e. whether they are Christian or not.
3. Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues By Carole Robin
This life-changing book is based on the famous Interpersonal Dynamics (“Touchy Feely”) course at Stanford Graduate School of Business. As per this book, it can be hard to build meaningful relationships and sustain them. There are challenges that can arise eventually when we get closer to each other. Bradford and Robin taught interpersonal skills at Stanford GSB through their legendary Interpersonal Dynamics course for a combined 75 years. Through this book, they show the reader how to make a shallow relationship exceptional by nurturing authenticity, vulnerability, and honesty. This can be an excellent resource for anyone who wants to build exceptional relationships at work and in life
4. The Making Friends Playbook: Your Guide to Overcoming Challenges in Building Relationships By James Carson
It can be hard for introverts and socially awkward people to make new friends and sustain and improve their current relationships. The Making Friends Playbook offers practical steps and the mindset needed for maintaining healthy relationships. The author James Carson acts as your personal friend and describes the strategies you need to adopt to bring happiness and fulfillment in your life through successful relationships. This book also talks about how thriving relationships can impact your health and wellness, and your professional life too.
5. Building Trust: In Business, Politics, Relationships, and Life By Robert C. Solomon
Trust is the prerequisite for success in business, politics, and even in marriage. This book offers a deep understanding of trust which may be hard for some people to grasp. This book describes that trust is an emotional skill that needs to be built and sustained through our promises and commitment. It also talks about how to move from the naive trust that can be shattered easily to authentic trust that is elegant and can be renewed. This can be a very good read for those who want to understand trust better and make use of it in their life,
6. An Essential Guide to Interpersonal Communication: Building Great Relationships with Faith, Skill, and Virtue in the Age of Social Media By Quentin J. Schultze
This book offers a solid Christian perspective on the topic of interpersonal communication and how to communicate effectively with faith, skill, and virtue. It addresses the critical areas of interpersonal communication such as gratitude, listening, self-assessment, forgiveness, trust, encouragement, peace, and fidelity with wisdom from the Bible. It also discusses the influence of social media on interpersonal relationships. You may need a bit of academic background as the book describes communication theories. This book is a must for those who want to communicate better in their Christian way of living.
7. Building Social Relationships: A Systematic Approach to Teaching Social Interaction Skills to Children and Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Other Social Difficulties By Scott Bellini
This book is exclusively written for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. It helps them identify the skills they need to form relationships and how they can achieve those skills. The book is also helpful for teachers and parents who teach social skills and design social skills programs for children with ASD. The book contains myriads of strategies that can be really helpful in achieving that end.
8. The Courage to Trust: A Guide to Building Deep and Lasting Relationships By Cynthia Lynn Wall
This book is a must-read for you if you find it difficult to trust anyone because you have been betrayed in the past. This inability to trust can be a barrier to your success as it can lead to loneliness and isolation. Even you can accidentally put your trust in the wrong people. This book can help you boost your self-confidence and gain deeper levels of intimacy and trust.
Once you go through this book, you will be able to trust your own instincts and develop meaningful relationships based on mutual trust and curiosity. You can let go of the past and may not need any kind of therapy to find trust in your new life if you read this book.
9. The Power of Discord: Why the Ups and Downs of Relationships Are the Secrets to Building Intimacy, Resilience, and Trust By Ed Tronick
Relationships are not only sunshine and rainbows, there can also be ups and downs along the way. In this book, Tronick and Claudia state that some discords in relationships are completely normal and are actually vital in building stronger relationships with romantic partners, family, friends, and colleagues.
People are normally self-centered, but in relationships, it is important to understand others’ desires and intentions. As per this book, it is only through ups and downs, we can correct ourselves and form deep and lasting relationships.
10. The People Factor: How Building Great Relationships and Ending Bad Ones Unlocks Your God-Given Purpose By Van Moody
It is critical for a person to choose the right relationships for himself/herself. A right relationship can help you reach the heights of achievement, while a wrong one can derail you from your destiny and can cause havoc in your life. The People Factor is the Bible-based solution for your relationship problems. If you follow the principles described in this book, you will find all your relationships to be more fulfilling, stronger, and happier. It also helps you in identifying and moving on from dysfunctional relationships.
11. Overcoming Toxic Emotions: A Practical Guide to Building Better Relationships with Yourself and Others By Leah Guy
Toxic emotions such as fear, resentment, guilt, and shame can deplete your energy, pollute your spirit, and hamper your progress in new relationships. In Overcoming Toxic Emotions, intuitive spiritual healer Leah Guy describes how you can apply mindful healing tools to change your mindset, heal old wounds, and develop happier and healthier relationship patterns. If you feel stuck and can not progress positively in your relationships, this book helps you overcome your negative emotions and build healthy relationships.
12. The Better Boundaries Workbook: A CBT-Based Program to Help You Set Limits, Express Your Needs, and Create Healthy Relationships By Sharon Martin
If you find it difficult to say “no” to your friends, and always sacrifice yourself for others’ concerns, then you may have difficulty setting healthy boundaries. Clear personal boundaries are essential in maintaining healthy relationships. It protects you from exploitation in relationships and helps avoid toxic people. This CBT-based workbook is full of examples that will show you how to set healthy boundaries in every aspect of life, while simultaneously being nice to others. You will also get tons of tips about how to maintain boundaries in balanced and healthy relationships.
13. Overcoming Bias: Building Authentic Relationships across Differences By Tiffany Jana
There are differences in people, and it is easy to have biases against differences. Biases are unconscious assumptions we have towards people different than ourselves. This book helps us in understanding what bias is, where it comes from, and how to professionally deal with biased situations and comments. It is full of real stories and fun exercises to help you deal with your unknown biases and how to react in unknown situations.
14. All My Friends Have Issues: Building Remarkable Relationships with Imperfect People (Like Me) By Amanda Anderson
In this book, Amanda Anderson provides advice on how to make good friendships and shares her own personal stories about success and failure in relationships. This book combines the insights from the Bible and principles of psychology to teaching us how to build and maintain meaningful and healthy relationships despite all the imperfections in our characteristics.
Amanda presents the information in this book in a kind and humorous way which you can relate to. This book is a good read for women in relationships.
15. Social Skills for Kids: Over 75 Fun Games & Activities for Building Better Relationships, Problem Solving & Improving Communication By Janine Halloran
The author of the best-selling book wrote a number of practical lessons to teach social skills by playing. Kids should be encouraged to play in real situations to learn and practice social skills. The resource includes step-by-step plans for how to play and other alternatives to each activity, as well as debriefing questions to reinforce learning.
16. 4 Essential Keys to Effective Communication in Love, Life, Work–Anywhere!: Including the “12-Day Communication Challenge!” By Bento C. Leal III
This best-selling book teaches some of the key skills for effective communication at work, at home, and in the life of a person. Once you master these important skills, you will be able to identify and overcome communication barriers with important people in your life–your spouse or partner, your child, parents, siblings, co-workers, customers, and more. This will help you build successful relationships in every aspect of life in the long run.
17. Better Together: The ABCs of Building Social Skills and Friendships (Kids Healthy Coping Skills Series) By Melissa Boyd
This is another social skills learning book for kids. Better Together teaches kids important friendship skills like sharing, taking turns, asking for help, and paying attention to body language through the letter A to the letter Z. It provides fun examples of children practicing social skills at home and school. Through this book, kids learn how to use their social skills with confidence.
18. Here to Make Friends: How to Make Friends as an Adult: Advice to Help You Expand Your Social Circle, Nurture Meaningful Relationships, and Build a Healthier, Happier Social Life By Hope Kelaher
Do you long for a more fulfilling social life with many friends? You may want to know how to start a conversation with strangers and how you make friends with casual acquaintances. Here to Make Friends has the answers to many of these questions. The book, written by a licensed therapist, contains lots of helpful advice and tips to overcome social anxiety and build a stronger social circle.
19. It’s Not All About Me: The Top Ten Techniques for Building Quick Rapport with Anyone By Robin Dreeke
Many people find it difficult to realize that it is not all about them. In this book, Robin Dreeke uses his years of research in the field of Interpersonal Relations and behavior to help readers focus on building their relationships with others. The 10 techniques covered in this guide will help readers achieve their goals by treating others well and placing Communal wants and needs ahead of individual ones. The simplicity of his guide makes it easy to understand and apply to one’s life.
20. Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations That Matter By Will Wise
This book shows us how to transform “small talks” into meaningful conversations. In this book, Will shares his personal success and failures that Educators, business professionals, personal coaches, and anyone in a position of leadership can relate to easily. The right way of asking questions can lay the foundation for trust, psychological safety, productivity, and impact. This book uncovers the art of asking and the neuroscience behind it. Once you go through this best-selling book, you would be able to make better conversation and communication that connects each other by means of asking proper questions.
You may also read: Best Books on Sleep
Conclusion
Sometimes it can be hard to find fulfilling and meaningful relationships in life. Once you find the perfect relationship, it is even harder to maintain that. We have shared our list of the best books about healthy social relationships that can help you immensely on your relationship-making journey.
Izaz is a versatile personality with an obsession for business and entrepreneurship. While pursuing his online MBA from a US University, he dreams to establish eBook Pundit as an established player in the book industry. He takes care of many aspects at eBook Pundit and is always open to any kind of collaboration that serves the purpose of either party.
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