BOOKS
it's not you, it's the world
A mental health survival guide for us All
Available in stores Feb 2026
Pre-sales available today at:
Canada | Harper Collins Canada​
United States | Hachette Go
UK (and other commonwealth countries) | Canongate ​​
​Translated into multiple other languages. ​​
What if the mental health symptoms we face aren’t the actual problem? What if they’re signals that can help us see and solve the real problem?
As our world clashes and collapses around us, it’s no surprise that one in two of us will be diagnosed with a mental health condition by the age of forty, with one in five people affected each year. It’s hard to view all our mental health symptoms as disordered if so many of us are experiencing them. Perhaps it’s not that something’s gone wrong in our bodies and minds, but that something’s gone right: These symptoms are brilliant alarms and adaptations to help us survive in a disordered world. Having sensitive protective functions that sound alarms or short-circuit when we’re threatened isn’t a design flaw. It’s a design success.
As a psychiatrist, professor, and mental health speaker, Joanna Cheek argues that we’re not broken or doing it wrong when we’re stressed or struggling. As our systems are pushed to the brink of collapse, self-improvement alone neglects the source of our suffering. Instead, to care for ourselves, we must heal the imbalances in our wider systems that keep making us all sick. In It’s Not You, It’s the World, Dr. Cheek offers a survival guide of mental health tools to care for both ourselves and our collectives and helps us to understand and befriend our alarms so we can come together to solve the shared problems they’re signaling.
​
With a foreword by Gabor Maté, chapter-by-chapter guidance, and practical action to empower, connect, and instill hope in the reader, It’s Not You, It’s the World is the go-to guide for anyone feeling depressed, anxious, enraged, numb, or sick from adapting to a world on fire.
"The real reason emotional suffering is skyrocketing isn’t because we’re flawed or broken—it’s because we’re responding to a deeply unwell world. In this brilliant, wise, and profoundly compassionate book, Dr. Joanna Cheek guides us to see the wider ecology driving our distress—the dis-ease of greed, hatred and delusion that infects our societies. With clarity and care, she invites us to face these truths together, to hold hands, and to begin healing the roots of our collective pain."
- Tara Brach, PhD
Author of Radical Acceptance, Radical Compassion, & True Refuge
Kudos to Joanna for showing us the science behind our global dysfunction, and the research-led responses needed to heal ourselves and our world. Without flinching, Joanna faces the personal and the political, bringing her 'perky optimist' self and clinical expertise to a stunning range of problems. Her courage and wisdom shine through these pages!
- Jack Kornfield, PhD
Author of A Wise Heart, Bringing Home the Dharma, & Trudy Goodman, PhD, Founding Teacher of InsightLA​
Highlighting the inextricably interconnected nature of our existence and the vast web of causes and conditions behind each of our individual experiences, Dr. Cheek's "It's Not You, It's the World" emphasizes the need for greater compassion and mutual understanding to best meet the polycrises impacting us all today.
- Sharon Salzberg
Author of Lovingkindness and Real Life
A must read! A revolutionary road map to make sense in an often senseless world. A powerful antidote to the current geopolitical climate and uncertain times plaguing all of us. A book that calls for recognition of the human in humanity.
- Dr. Ramneek Dosanjh, MD
Past President of the Federation of Medical Women of Canada & Doctors of British Columbia