Most people who write books about mental health have spent their whole careers in the field. Joe DeNicholas designed computer chips first.
Before he became a therapist, our Clinical Director spent two decades in electrical engineering and semiconductor business — earning patents, managing teams, thinking in systems. And then he lived through years of anxiety and depression that none of that success could touch. What followed was a long, personal search: therapy, coaching, meditation, more than twenty years of study in Buddhist psychology and contemplative practice, and eventually a master’s degree in clinical social work and a license as an LCSW.
His book, Seeking Sanity: How to Cultivate Peace, Happiness, and Wellbeing in a World Gone Mad, is what came out the other side.
What the Book Is About
The core argument of Seeking Sanity is simple to say and hard to live: peace is not something you earn by fixing your circumstances. Most of us chase happiness through externals — achievement, approval, busyness — while running on old, false stories about ourselves, like “you aren’t enough” or “your worth is what you produce.” The book goes after those stories at the root.
Joe brings together two things that rarely sit in the same book: Buddhist psychology and modern neuroscience. The result is a practical guidebook — honest stories, clear explanations of how the nervous system and the mind actually work, and exercises you can use the same day you read them. Some of it is somatic, like breathwork that settles an anxious nervous system in minutes. Some of it is deeper work on identity: who you take yourself to be, and what becomes possible when that loosens.
If you have read this blog for a while, you will recognize the spirit of it. It is the same conviction that runs through our mentoring: symptoms rarely exist in isolation. They are connected to a whole system — habits, relationships, nervous system, environment, beliefs, and direction. Change the system, not just the symptom.
Why This Matters for Noble Mentors Families
Joe serves as our Clinical Director. He provides clinical oversight and consultation on cases, trains and develops our mentor team, and helps us coordinate thoughtfully with the therapists and providers around each client. Mentoring is not therapy, and our mentors are not clinicians — Joe’s role is what keeps the mentoring around your family clinically informed and well coordinated.
Having the person who holds that role also be a published author on mental and emotional wellbeing — someone regularly invited onto podcasts and publications to talk about anxiety, identity, and modern life — says something about the depth behind our work. The ideas in Seeking Sanity are the ideas Joe brings into our team trainings: look at the whole person, work with the nervous system and not against it, and treat struggle as something to understand rather than something to be ashamed of.
Where to Find It
Seeking Sanity (2025) is available now in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook — Joe reads the audiobook himself.
Get Seeking Sanity on Amazon →
You can read more about Joe — his background, his role here, and his approach — on his bio page.
And if your family is navigating a stretch where a steady, clinically informed mentor could help, we would be glad to talk. Schedule a free consultation call — no pressure, no obligation, and if we are not the right fit, we will point you to who is.
