From psychotherapist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Little Bee and Everyone Brave is Forgiven, Dr. Chris Cleave, comes his first work of nonfiction: a hopeful, practical guide to understanding why so many of us feel overwhelmed, disconnected or stuck—and how we can restore our relationships with ourselves, one another and the world we’re living in.

You’re not broken. You’re human.

Why do so many of us—successful or struggling, thriving or simply getting by—feel anxious, exhausted, disconnected or quietly overwhelmed? Existential psychotherapist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Chris Cleave offers a powerful and compassionate answer: not that we are broken, but that we are carrying more human weight than we were ever meant to carry alone.

Alongside a literary career writing bestselling novels about people struggling to remain human under extraordinary pressure, Cleave has dedicated himself to helping real people in his work as a psychotherapist. Drawing on his clinical expertise and insights from neuroscience, philosophy and storytelling, Cleave suggests that what we call trauma may be less a specialist condition than a deeply human inheritance—something all of us carry: the accumulated weight of family histories, loss, disconnection, and modern life itself. He offers readers practical, grounded ways to restore their relationships with themselves, one another, and the world around them—without jargon, shame, or false optimism. Rather than asking readers to “fix” themselves, Human Again shows how many of our most painful symptoms are intelligent adaptations to a world increasingly out of step with human limits.

Clear-eyed, humane and ultimately hopeful, Human Again is not a book for broken people. It is a book for people: for anyone trying to live a human life in a world that increasingly asks us to live faster, carry more and be less human than we were meant to be.