Christina Reese - The Socially Confident Teen: An Attachment Theory Workbook to Help You Feel Good about Yourself and Connect with Others

The Socially Confident Teen is a practical, nonthreatening guide for teens to examine both their outside world of relationships with others, as well as their inside world of relationship with themselves to make sense of it in a way that will bring health and wellness to their mind and spirit. Christina Reese gently leads youth through valuable exercises taken at their own pace. I highly recommend it!

Elaine C. Shenk, MS , director of adoption/post adoption at Bethany Christian Services of Central Pennsylvania

The Socially Confident Teen is an excellent resource that can be used within a therapeutic setting and personal growth setting. Reese has provided a clear and practical workbook for teens to gain the skills needed to build healthy connections and relationships with others while facing the challenges of being a teenager in the world.

Carmen Jimenez-Pride, LCSW, RPT-S , director of Outspoken Counseling and Consulting, LLC; and creator of Focus on Feelings books and resources

This is a book I wish I had read as a teenager! Centered around the four attachment styles, Reese expertly provides a valuable resource to help guide teens through a very sensitive time of life. With its relatable case examples and a wealth of personal reflective exercises, teens are empowered to learn healthy strategies to engage in attuned interpersonal relationships with peers and others. A must-have resource for every therapists bookshelf!

Janet A. Courtney, PhD , founder of FirstPlay Therapy, and author of Healing Child and Family Trauma through Expressive and Play Therapies

The Socially Confident Teen is an incredibly useful, well-written workbook for readers to use both on their own and for clinicians to use as a guide to work with patients. It is an easy-to-read, clear explanation of attachment and its impact on functioning, as well as relationships. Families will find this workbook useful to understand each other and their relationships. Further, it will help clinicians have a guide in working with attachment and building teen confidence and self-esteem. I cannot recommend this book highly enough!

Cynthia Welsh, LCSW- C, QCSW , psychotherapist for twenty-two years; clinical supervisor; and founder of Alma Counseling, LLC

Christina Reeses The Socially Confident Teen addresses one of the most significant aspects of adolescent life: relationships. It offers space for readers to look closely at how they function in their personal relationships, understand how these patterns developed, and learn what they can do to make their relationships as healthy and positive as possible. This is always an important goal, but even more so in a world where so much of a teens social life is channeled through social media, and where cyber relationships color or take the place of in-person interaction. A well-organized and well-thought-out manual for social success, which can be helpful for adults as well!

Lisa M. Schab, LCSW , psychotherapist; and author of nineteen self-help books, including The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens and the guided journal, Put Your Worries Here

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2022 by Christina Reese

Instant Help Books

An imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Amy Shoup

Acquired by Jennye Garibaldi

Edited by Jennifer Holder

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

This book is dedicated to my loving husband, Michael, who shares me with my computer while I am writing. And to my daughter, Lina, who recently traveled this road of teen attachment.

I love you both!

Contents

foreword

Attachment theory has gained renewed prominence over the past two decades in psychotherapy, partly because of the popularity of neuroscience and the interpersonal neurobiological approach primarily linked with Daniel Siegel, MD, and Allan Schore at UCLA. Neuroscience findings have validated a lot of what we understood from the much earlier work of Freud on the significance of the mother-child relationship, further expanded by Daniel Stern in his groundbreaking 1985 book The Interpersonal World of the Infant . Around the same time, John Bowlby was writing about attachment and loss in England. I think his work would have had more impact if it were not for the British emphasis on object relations theory, with its mechanistic language presenting a barrier to American readers. In addition, there has been increasing emphasis in recent years on relational cultural writings from the Stone Center at Wellesley College led by Jean Baker Miller, MD, and Judith Jordan, PhD, among other seminal writers and thinkers. There has also been increasing emphasis on relational theory and therapies in general, in reaction to what many considered, an overemphasis on strictly cognitive-based approaches that have predominated, especially in academia where clinicians get their first indoctrination in the field.

What has been mostly lacking in the increasingly rich literature surrounding attachment theory are practical, clinical applications of the rather abstract theory, particularly as articulated by the British theorists when they talk about internal working models and concepts such as self-object and other-object. In this regard, this book by Christina Reese is not only based on positive psychology and empowerment, it is also a practical guide in the form of a workbook for teens to develop social confidence and become more securely attached in their relationships with family, friends, and their peer group. Particularly helpful is the authors guide to healthy relationships among peers and in dating relationships that pose such a risk to todays youth, especially if they did not benefit from secure relationships early in life with their primary attachment figures.

The challenge of engaging teens today, with all the competing demands from stimuli provided by social media with all its hazards, is enormous. Because of the bombardment of stimuli from social media and video games, many teens are unable to willfully apply their attention to tasks that dont razzle and dazzle them and virtually capture their attention. In addition to engagement with a task, persevering on a task that may not be of high interestsuch as certain schoolwork and homework assignmentsrepresents another significant challenge.

The author tries to make exercises in this workbook more inviting to teens by giving examples of scenarios that teens can relate to, having encountered them in daily life. The workbook exercises invite them to reflect on their attachment styles and the attachment styles of significant others with whom they interact. Great credit goes to the author for outlining the steps for teens to move toward secure attachment, regardless of what limiting attachment style they currently predominantly use. She explains all this in language teens can understand and absorb, a major achievement in and of itself. In my opinion, a book like this has been needed in our field for a long time and it couldnt be timelier.