Elisa Nebolsine - Your Amazing Teen Brain: CBT and Neuroscience Skills to Stress Less, Balance Emotions, and Strengthen Your Growing Mind

If there is a teen in your life, you need this book! Elisa has written a fun, engaging, and eminently practical users guide to your brain for adolescents. The brain hacks are tried and true cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques based on decades of research, and they can lead to real change!

Beth Salcedo, MD , immediate past president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, medical director at The Ross Center, and assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

Your Amazing Teen Brain is a must-read for teens and the people who know and love them! Elisa provides crucial information for teens about the changes occurring in teen brains during adolescence (spoiler alert: theres a lot going on!), and she instructs the reader on how to use evidence-based CBT interventions to help manage mood and create meaning.

Marci Fox, PhD , psychologist, author of numerous books on CBT, founding fellow and certified supervisor for the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, and adjunct faculty at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy

Your Amazing Teen Brain is invaluable! Nebolsine shares research from the past decade about the adolescent brain, the changes and quirks that occur in the teen years, and makes it understandable and relevant for teens, parents, clinicians, and teachers. This user-friendly book is a wealth of easy-to-understand information and practical interventions that teens will embrace.

Amy Wenzel PhD, ABPP , clinical assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, adjunct faculty at the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and author/editor of fourteen books and over one hundred peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters

Your Amazing Teen Brain is a must-read for all teensand those who live with teens! Elisa Nebolsine writes with clarity and wit, and the result is a powerful, highly engaging resource that gives teens the information they need to understand their emotions and successfully navigate through this pivotal developmental stage. By educating teens about the adolescent brain, Nebolsine empowers them to take charge of their experiencesand she gives them the tools to do this.

Sherin Stahl, PhD , faculty in the Yale Child Study Center and department of pediatrics at the Yale University School of Medicine; also in practice in in Fairfield and Woodbridge, CT

Excellent and much-needed resource for teens! Adolescence is a challenging time, and this text provides a basic overview of whats going on in the teen brainfrom intense emotion to complicated friendships. Elisa explains not only the whys of adolescence, but also provides a map of CBT skills that allow teens to navigate and even succeed during the teen years.

Mary K. Alvord, PhD , psychologist, and coauthor of Conquer Negative Thinking for Teens and Resilience Builder Program for Children and Adolescents

I love this book! I want a copy for every teen and parent of a teen in my practice. CBT, the teen brain, and basic neuroscience? What else do you need? A perfect combination of important facts, strategies, and skills written in a way that appeals to adolescents.

Catherine McCarthy, MD , child and adolescent psychiatrist in Washington, DC

Your Amazing Teen Brain is a fantastic resource for teenagers trying to understand the incredible changes they are experiencing. It is clear that Elisa gets teenagers. Everyone who reads it will benefit in some way from reading it. A true winner!

Melissa Grady, PhD , associate professor of social work at Catholic University of America, and coauthor of Moving Beyond Assessment

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.

INSTANT HELP, the Clock Logo, and NEW HARBINGER are trademarks of New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2021 by Elisa Nebolsine

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 Jess OBrien

Edited by Karen Schader

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Nebolsine, Elisa, author.

Title: Your amazing teen brain : CBT and neuroscience skills to stress less, balance emotions, and strengthen your growing mind / Elisa Nebolsine.

Description: Oakland : New Harbinger Publications, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021031222 | ISBN 9781684038046 (trade paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Cognitive therapy for teenagers. | Adolescent psychotherapy. | Teenagers--Mental health.

Classification: LCC RJ505.C63 N43 2021 | DDC 618.92/891425--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031222

This book is dedicated to my clients. It is such a true privilege to know you, work with you, and learn from you. My work is rich, meaningful, and endlessly rewarding because it includes you.

Contents

Foreword

Your Amazing Teen Brain is an amazing book. Written in a highly engaging style, it shows just how dynamic and powerful the teen mind is. Research has been exploding about the plasticity and changes in the adolescent brain. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a natural fit for understanding and harnessing the power of the teen brain.

As the president of the nonprofit Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy in Philadelphia, whose mission is to improve lives worldwide through excellence and innovation in CBT research, practice, and training, I am delighted to introduce this new tool for adolescents. It is a solid, research-based text that is engaging for teens without being dumbed down. The author respects teen readers and writes directly to them in an honest and straightforward manner.

Elisa Nebolsine has served as an adjunct faculty at the Beck Institute for more than a decade and has been a leading practitioner of CBT. Her focus, CBT with children, adolescents, and young adults, has led her to work with clinicians, practices, and agencies across the country as both a clinical supervisor and a consultant. She brings a wealth of experience, knowledge, and creativity to her work, and these strengths are communicated in this excellent text.

The book is written for teens, but it also is a great resource for parents, educators, therapists, medical providers, and other caregivers who want to understand the dynamics of the teen brain and what they can do to help teens in need. Elisa writes clearly on the teen brain in friendship, emotion, stress, learning (and procrastination), risk, and mindfulness. She presents clear and action-oriented information, and consistently ties the research back to practical CBT strategies and techniques that readers can use to hack their responses.

CBT is a powerful intervention, and Elisa understands it well. This text is rich with CBT strategies that can be used by teens to manage emotions, change negative thinking, and feel better about themselves. When my father, Aaron T. Beck, MD, developed CBT in the 1970s, he recognized that clients should learn and practice skills themselves. Your Amazing Teen Brain provides tools to start practicing CBT today.