Marci Fox PhD - Think Confident, Be Confident for Teens: A Cognitive Therapy Guide to Overcoming Self-Doubt and Creating Unshakable Self-Esteem

Adolescence is a confusing and unsettling stage of life for many people, as they struggle to figure out who they are, what their place in the world is, and how they should relate to others. Teenagers often focus intensely on how they believe other peopleespecially their peersperceive them, and they frequently err in their assessments. If their perceptions are distorted, a cognitive approach can be quite useful in helping them correct their ideas and conclusions, allowing them to see reality more clearly.

If a typical teen, for example, is excluded from a party, her immediate thought is, My friends dont like me. A cognitive approach can help her in several ways. One, she can look for evidence that seems to support or contradict this idea. Have her friends, or some of them at least, done other things that make her think they dont like her? Have they showed her in different ways that they do like her? Two, the teen can look to see whether there are other likely explanations for why she might have been excluded. Three, she can decatastrophize the experience by asking herself, If it turns out they dont like me, how can I cope? What can I do? She can also consider the best outcome of the situation as well as the most realistic outcome. Four, she can assess the impact of telling herself that her friends dont like her and the impact of changing her thinking. Five, she can reflect on the advice she would offer someone else who was in this situation and had this thought. And, six, she can do problem solving, asking herself what it would be helpful for her to do, now and in the long run.

Whether or not her initial thought is valid, this teen will feel distressed if she overgeneralizes from this one situation, because it will affect her self-esteem and self-confidence. If she believes at heart that she is a likeable person, this situation may lead her to feel temporarily annoyed, hurt, or unhappy, but it will not change her basic view of herself. On the other hand, if she doubts her likeability, she may jump from My friends dont like me to No one really likes me to Im unlikeable. Cognitive techniques can help her evaluate these conclusions as well.

This book, written by our two excellent colleagues, helps teens who may continually misinterpret situations and interactions and then see themselves in unrealistically negative ways. If only all adolescents were taught to identify their thoughts (especially the thoughts about themselves) that lead to distress, to recognize that their thoughts are ideas and not necessarily truths, to evaluate their thoughts, and to respond effectively to them. There would be far less emotional angst and dysfunction in adolescents and far greater opportunities to weather the usual storms of adolescence with equanimity.

Aaron T. Beck, MD, president, Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy and university professor emeritus, University of Pennsylvania

Judith S. Beck, PhD, president, Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy and clinical associate professor of psychology in psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania