The Worry Workbook for Teens: Effective Strategies to Break the Worry Cycle

Description

Break the worry cycle for good! This fun, practical workbook offers effective, easy-to-understand cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) exercises to help you understand your chronic worrying, toss “junk mail” thoughts, and manage your fears in a constructive way. Do you worry all the time? Maybe you’re worried about school, tests, making new friends, or even about what the future holds? The teen years are full of big changes, and it’s normal to worry sometimes. But if you have chronic, difficult-to-control worries, you may have trouble sleeping, paying attention, and even experience physical symptoms like stomachaches and headaches. You need help putting things in perspective. Written by a Harvard University faculty member and expert in teen anxiety, this is the first book to target chronic, debilitating worry with proven-effective skills to help you alleviate worry symptoms and prevent them from escalating into anxiety. With this book, you’ll uncover the real reasons you worry all the time, stop unhelpful “junk mail” thoughts from taking over, challenge your worries, face your fears, and—most importantly—reach your goals! If you’re tired of worrying, this friendly guide can help you get your life back. This book has been selected as an Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Book Recommendation —an honor bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives. "Jamie Micco has crafted a clear, informative, and easy-to-read resource that will be useful for any teen struggling with anxiety, as well as their loved ones. The text details empirically supported treatment components to help fight anxiety in a practical, step-by-step manner. Micco should be congratulated for this masterful work, which fills a critical gap in the field for this age-group." --Eric Storch, PhD, All Children's Hospital Guild; endowed chair and professor at the University of South Florida "This is an excellent resource for anxious teens, and for the clinicians who work with them. The workbook reviews key cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies and skills, is easy to follow, and includes helpful and relatable examples. The exercises for each section are brief and right on point. As an added bonus, Jamie Micco has included online exercises to complement the written text. I absolutely plan to recommend this book to my clients." --Kathryn D. Boger, PhD, ABPP, board-certified clinical child and adolescent psychologist specializing in CBT, and director of the McLean Hospital Anxiety Mastery Program "This workbook provides teens with a step-by-step guide for dealing with their worries and increasing helpful behaviors. Teens will be able to relate to the examples and learn concrete strategies to manage anxiety related to school, procrastination, friendships, and social media. 'Junk mail thoughts' is a particularly interesting way to help teens understand the concept of anxious self-talk and manage worry. This excellent new resource is highly recommended for both teens and the professionals who work with them." --Laura C. Reigada, PhD, associate professor of psychology at the City University of New York at Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center "With creativity, clarity, and fun, Jamie Micco offers teens effective cognitive behavioral strategies to deal with the 'junk mail thoughts' and unhelpful behaviors that come along with chronic worry. Whether teens are dealing with mild or severe chronic worry, they will greatly benefit from reading this book and completing all exercises. This is a must-read for teens!" --Patricia E. Zurita Ona, PsyD, psychologist at the East Bay Behavior Therapy Center, and coauthor of Mind and Emotions Jamie A. Micco, PhD, is clinical psychologist in the child and adolescent cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program at Massachusetts General Hospital, and associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. She is the director of the Intensive Outpatient CBT Service within the Child and Adolescent CBT Program. Micco received her PhD in psychology from Boston University, where she completed her clinical and research training at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders. She specializes in CBT for children, adolescents, and adults with anxiety and mood disorders. Her research primarily focuses on information-processing biases, and novel treatments for remediating these biases, in anxious and depressed youth. Cover Front Matter Contents Introduction: A Letter to the Reader 1 Section One: Understanding Worry What Is Worry, and When Is It a Problem? 4 The Worry Cycle 9 Section Two: Junk Mail Thinking Junk Mail Thoughts 14 All-or-Nothing Thinking 19 Catastrophizing 23 Mind Reading 28 Overresponsibility 33 Intolerance of Uncertainty 38 Section Three: Dealing With Worry Thoughts Ignoring Unhelpful Thoughts 44 Taking the Sting Out of Worry Thoughts 48 Challenging Worry Thoughts 52 Putting a Halt to Worry Hopping 57 Staying in the Moment 62 Section Four: Changing Unhelpful Behavior Facing Feared Situations 70 Testing Your Hypotheses 75 Identifying Safety Behaviors 80 Reducing Reassurance-Seeking and Checking 85 Changing Your Tendency to Be a People Pleaser 91 Limiting Overpreparation 100 Conquering Distraction and Procrastination 105 Solving Tough Problems 113 Managing Social Media 119 Section Five: Mind-Body Strategies to Reduce Worry Fitting Exercise Into Your Life 128 Creating Better Sleep Habits 131 Using Progressive Muscle Relaxation 137 Section Six: Conclusion Maintaining Your Progress 144 Acknowledgments 149 References 151