Books for Therapists on Working with Adolescents
For a therapist, connecting with an adolescent may be a difficult and demanding task; however, this list of publications aim to assist you in creating and maintaining a healthy connection with your adolescent patient, consequently leading to a successful intervention. Some of the works also discuss different therapy approaches, and how they apply to teenagers.
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“Breaking Through to Teens” by Tafel
Modern teenagers frequently suffer from a high level of anxiety and involve themselves in risky behavior. To understand better how today’s teenagers function and create a meaningful and successful alliance, expert Ron Taffael wrote this book full of techniques on how to engage the teen in his own psychotherapeutic process, from telling them the truth about their lives to not-so orthodox ways, like suggesting that the patient brings a friend to the session.
“Counseling Adolescents: The Proactive Approach for Young People” by Gelard, Gelard, and Yin Foo
Counseling Adolescents is a well-known guide forevery therapist and counselor that has ever faced a problem when working with a teenager, or simply wants to better his or her skills. Offering detailed theory on psychotherapy with adolescents, the book also provides great tools to proactively listen and approach the patient in an empathic and effective way.
“Dialectical Behavioral Therapy with Suicidal Adolescents” by Miller, Rathus, Linehan, and Swenson
Providing treatment to suicidal adolescents is often a tricky and complex process, but this book offers techniques and principles from dialectical behavior therapy to guide clinicians through it. With effective and research-based methods, it aims to auxiliate professionals everywhere to integrate multiple aspects of a patient’s life to provide a powerful intervention.
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“Therapeutic Activity Ideas for Children and Teens” by Joiner
This book is an extremely helpful asset when it comes to work with children and adolescents. With more than one-hundred fun activities that involve all kinds of art, like poetry, film, painting or music, this book provides tested and approved projects that help children and teenagers work with their feelings of anger, conflict, anxiety and others in a constructive and creative way. The activities are also flexible and adaptable, with some applicable to groups, to get the best results possible.
“Defiant Teens: A Clinician’s Manual for Assessment and Family Intervention” by Barkley, Edwards, and Robin
This manual is a tested and widely recognized intervention plan that aims to assist the family of a defiant adolescent to better communicate and coexist with them. The intervention consists of 18 steps that are thoroughly detailed and explained with the objective of teaching the family of the teenager how to exercise problem-solving, negotiation and communication. Additionally, the manual offers easy to print materials and access to a Web page with more content on the intervention.
“Treating Anxious Children and Adolescents: An Evidenced-Based Approach” by Rapee, Wignall, Hudson and Schniering
Anxiety disorder is, unfortanetely, of common occurrance between children and adolescents, making Anxious Children and Adolescents an essential book in the treatment of this kind of patients. By providing evidence-based theory and strategies applied to the context of psychotherapy, this books proves itself of great use to many therapists and counselors looking for the best treatment possible for children and teenagers.
“Cognitive Therapy for Adolescents in School Settings” by Creed, Reisweber, and Beck
Author and top of the field psychologists Creed, Reisweber and Beck, bring us this complete and practical guide on all matters concerning cognitive therapy for adolescents in school settings, sharing innovative framework for involving the adolescents in the process. Touching on the most common clinical disorders on teenagers, this book proves to be a useful aid on the fruitful approach to adolescents in school settings.
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