Cooking as Therapy: How to Improve Mental Health Through Cooking

Cooking is a valuable therapeutic exercise through which patients can “gain self-awareness and insight as well as discover habits and behaviors that may be holding [them] back from optimum mental health,” according to this well-intentioned if repetitive guide. Therapist Borden (Lucky Me) contends that cooking, like other forms of “experiential” therapy, can build a sense of accomplishment and forge a unique rapport between therapist and client. It also teaches mindfulness (by being intentional with one’s physical actions); provides concrete material from which to extract insights about one’s life (a patient of the author’s reflected that a recipe that failed no matter how much effort she put into it was like her “marriage; no matter what I do, I can’t save it”); and offers a sense of mastery that can carry over into other areas of life. The bulk of the book consists of eight “sessions” in which Borden addresses such topics as radical self-acceptance and effective communication, with sample recipes for working through each. While Borden makes a solid case for the therapeutic framework, her reliance on cutesy metaphors (in one recipe, readers are advised to spread jam on bread as they “add sweetness to [their] mood”) grows tiresome, as do the endless examples of situations where cooking therapy promoted a sense of mastery. The result is an overlong introduction to a fresh therapeutic method. (Oct.)