Abblett Mitch - Mindfulness for teen depression: a workbook for improving your mood

If you are a teen living with depression and ongoing negative internal chatter, this book is for you. It offers simple, straightforward, doable suggestions and practices for taming your internal critic, and moving from feeling down and out to being up and inin touch with your best self, and engaged in a meaningful, satisfying life.

Amy Saltzman, MD, author of A Still Quiet Place for Teens

This book provides a gentle introduction to mindfulness, weaving the practice through traditional approaches to the treatment of depression for teens.

Lisa M. Schab, LCSW, psychotherapist and author of The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens, The Anxiety Workbook for Teens, and Beyond the Blues

This wonderful book is the voice of a wise and caring friend. This friend believes in you, knows your strengths, and can support and guide you to free yourself from the weight of depression, and experience the joys of life again.

Dzung X. Vo, MD, FAAP, author of The Mindful Teen

Using down-to-earth language and engaging, adolescent-friendly exercises, Mitch Abblett and Christopher Willard draw on their extensive clinical experience to present a comprehensive array of techniques that address the particular challenges of depression. One key feature that sets this book apart from other workbooks on depression is the authors infusion of mindfulness and positive psychology throughout. Threaded throughout the book is the image of Sergeant Mind, the misguided but powerful inner critic whose influence maintains the depressive state. In its emphasis on the power of the mind, the authors demystify the characteristics of depression, and help youth move toward a more decentered perspective. This resource, which can be a particularly helpful adjunct to therapy, offers young people body-centered, mental, and interpersonal tools to help them move forward more confidently, capitalize on personal strengths, and act in ways that undercut the power of Sgt. Mind.

Trish Broderick, PhD, clinical psychologist and research associate at the Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center at The Pennsylvania State University, author of Learning to Breathe, and coauthor of The Life Span

Want to take charge of your own life and improve your mood? Pick up Mindfulness for Teen Depression. It offers realistic, accessible ways to feel less overwhelmed and down on yourself and more confident and at ease. Mitch Abblett and Christopher Willard have once again created an easy-to-read book that sets things out in straight-forward fashion. I imagine anyone, not only teens, will find Mindfulness for Teen Depression both useful and inspiring.

Mark Bertin, MD, author of Mindful Parenting for ADHD

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 2016 by Mitch R. Abblett and Christopher Willard

Instant Help Books

An Imprint of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

The Emotional Eating vs. Healthy Eating chart in chapter 3 of this book is modified from CONSTANT CRAVING AZ by Doreen Virtue, copyright 1999 Doreen Virtue. Used by permission of Hay House, Inc., in Carlsbad, CA.

Floating Leaves on a Moving Stream is adapted from GET OUT OF YOUR MIND AND INTO YOUR LIFE by Steven C. Hayes and Spencer Smith, copyright 2005 Steven C. Hayes and Spencer Smith. Used by permission of New Harbinger Publications.

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Acquired by Jess OBrien; Edited by Karen Schader

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Abblett, Mitch, author. | Willard, Christopher (Psychologist), author.

Title: Mindfulness for teen depression : a workbook for improving your mood / Mitch R. Abblett and Christopher Willard.

Description: Oakland, CA : New Harbinger Publications, Inc., [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2015048183| ISBN 9781626253827 (paperback) | ISBN 9781626253834 (pdf e-book) | ISBN 9781626253841 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Depression in adolescence--Juvenile literature. | Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy--Juvenile literature. | Mindfulness (Psychology)--Juvenile literature. | Depression, Mental--Treatment--Juvenile literature. | BISAC: JUVENILE NONFICTION / Social Issues / Depression & Mental Illness. | JUVENILE NONFICTION / Social Issues / Emotions & Feelings. | JUVENILE NONFICTION / Social Issues / Friendship.

Classification: LCC RJ506.D4 A23 2016 | DDC 616.85/2700835--dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015048183

To all my teen clients over the years: some may have judged you by what youve done or not done on the surface, but you and I know there was always much more to you than that.

MRA

To young people (and everyone who loves them) everywhere. Especially all of you whom Ive known as my patients, my students, and most importantly, my teachers.

CTW

This book was born in a coffee shop. Two psychologists and writers sat together and talked about how they might make a contribution to the mental health of kids and their families. Both had worked for a number of years as therapists with a wide range of children, teens, and their parents; many of these kids were struggling with depression. And both had a passion for the ways positive approaches, such as mindfulness-based interventions, can help people.

So we decided to write it all down. And as we wrote, we realized that the chapters pretty much read the way we talked and worked with our teen clientsdirect, authentic, skills focused, and as compassionate and human as possible. Whats more, we were, and still are, both devoted to our own personal mindfulness and meditation practices. And so thats what readersteens like youwill get here in these pages: the straightforward voices of authors who practice what we teach.

It is our clinical experience (and science backs it up) that approaches based in mindfulness and positive psychology are effective in helping people manage and move through the struggles of depression. The skills offered here are all about building your powers of awareness to see yourself and whats around you more clearly, and to be less bogged down in painful emotions and self-defeating habits. This book is about learning to open up what depression has closed down.

The time is right for this particular book. Take a look at the following statistics:

• In 2014, researchers found that young adults who had been clinically depressed during their teen years were more likely to ruminate, which means to get stuck in repeating their thoughts over and over.
• A study published in 2014 suggests that teen girls greater exposure to stressful peer interactions may lead to more rumination and more risk of depression.
• About 11 percent of adolescents have a depressive disorder by age eighteen. Thats two or three kids in every classroom and on every soccer team, and dozens (if not hundreds) in your school alone.