You aren’t what you think! For teens with negative thinking habits, a licensed psychologist and a health journalist offer cognitive restructuring—a simple and effective cognitive behavioral approach to help you break free from the nine most common negative thinking habits that typically result in feeling sad, worried, angry, and stressed.
This workbook offers a powerful technique called cognitive restructuring to help you reframe your thoughts, regulate your emotions, become a more flexible thinker, and stop letting your thoughts define who you are and how you feel. You’ll learn to target the nine specific kinds of negative thinking habits that can cause you to worry or feel bad, such as the I can’t habit, the doom and gloom habit, the all or nothing habit, the jumping to conclusions habit, and more!
Each chapter will walk you through simple explanations of each kind of negative thought, and offers real-life examples—as well as the sorts of behaviors, emotions, and bodily sensations that might be expected. You'll also gain an understanding of unhelpful or unrealistic thoughts, how to challenge them, how to replace them with more realistic and helpful thoughts, and an action plan for moving forward.
By recognizing these negative thinking habits, you’ll feel more in control and less anxious and sad. Most importantly, you’ll be able to see yourself and the world more clearly. Your thoughts don’t have to define who you are and how you experience life. The transdiagnostic approach in this book will show you how to kick negative thinking habits to the curb for good!
You aren’t what you think! That’s the message in this powerful, evidence-based workbook for teens who struggle with negative thinking habits. In this practical guide, a licensed psychologist and a health journalist offer a transdiagnostic, cognitive behavioral approach to help readers break free from the nine most common negative thinking habits that make teens sad, worried, angry, and stressed.
| Introduction |
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1 | (6) |
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7 | (12) |
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2 The Catastrophizing Habit |
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19 | (12) |
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3 The All-or-Nothing Habit |
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31 | (12) |
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4 The Zooming-In-on-the-Negative Habit |
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43 | (14) |
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5 The "I Should, You Should" Habit |
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57 | (14) |
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6 The Fortune-Telling Habit |
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71 | (12) |
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83 | (14) |
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97 | (14) |
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9 The "It's Not Fair!" Habit |
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111 | (14) |
| Acknowledgments |
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125 | (2) |
| Appendix: A Handy List of Challenge Questions |
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127 | (4) |
| Resources |
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131 | |
Mary Karapetian Alvord (Author) Mary Karapetian Alvord, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and director of Alvord, Baker & Associates, LLC. With more than thirty-five years of clinical experience, her work recognizes the importance of resilience in the framework of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Alvord specializes in the treatment of children, adolescents, and adults with anxiety disorders, and with children and teens experiencing ADHD and other emotional and behavioral regulation problems. She is adjunct associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, and has developed and refined a resilience-based group therapy model to improve social competence training. Alvord's work frequently appears in the media; she has been interviewed by media outlets including Woman's Day, Better Homes and Gardens, and Health magazines, CNN, NPR, The Washington Post, USA Today, and US News & World Report, and local as well as international TV on topics ranging from stress, anxiety, and social competence, to coping with adversity
Anne McGrath (Author) Anne McGrath is managing editor of publications at US News & World Report, and is responsible for the company's signature guidebooks, published annually: Best Graduate Schools, Best Colleges, and Best Hospitals. She is an accomplished writer and editor with experience first as a reporter at Forbes and for thirty years as both a writer and editor at US News & World Report in the areas of personal finance and investing, K-12 and higher education, and health, mental health, and medicine. For several years, McGrath oversaw production of six additional special interest issues a year on topics ranging from America's first ladies to religion and the latest on space exploration and animal science. She is also the original editor of several books published by Sourcebooks on getting into law school, medical school, and schools of education.
