"[2] Held is author of several books including Back to Reality: A Critique of Postmodern Theory in Psychotherapy (1995),[3][4] Stop Smiling, Start Kvetching: A 5-Step Guide to Creative Complaining (2001),[5] Psychology's Interpretive Turn: The Search for Truth and Agency in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (2007).
[6][7] She is co-editor of the volumes Humanity's Dark Side: Evil, Destructive Experience, and Psychotherapy (2013)[8][9] and Rational Intuition: Philosophical Roots, Scientific Investigations (2015).
[13] Her earliest line of research, beginning in the mid-1980s, applied an epistemological framework in evaluating the basis for constructivist family therapy approaches.
[3] Held's more recent work has broadened this lens beyond psychotherapy to encompass the field of psychology as a whole, including attendant philosophy-of-science issues.
In Psychology's Interpretive Turn (2007),[6] she examined—and at times criticized—recent efforts by theoretical psychologists to balance the shortcomings of both postmodern and overly positivist, scientistic accounts of human nature with so-called "middle-ground" theories designed to preserve aspects of both.