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 clients—direct, authentic, skills focused, and as compassionate and human as possible. What’s more, we were, and still are, both devoted to our own personal mindfulness and meditation practices. And so that’s what readers—teens like you—will 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 what’s 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:
On the positive side, let’s also look at the following:
So yes, the time is right for you to be picking up this workbook. Depression is unfortunately too common for thousands of teens these days. But it’s also becoming increasingly common for therapists and people in general to learn and apply positive approaches such as mindfulness (which we’ll define for you shortly) to assist with many things in life, even the darkness of depression.
Although we’ve designed this book as a workbook, we hope it doesn’t feel like work. We want it to be informative, helpful, and maybe even fun. Our goal is for you to interact with the material and come away with skills that not only work for you but that you’ll also find useful enough to actually do.
One thing is certain—you’ll get out of this book only what you’re willing to put into it. Giving the exercises, activities, and strategies a shot is very important, and even if some feel lame or like a lot of work, we encourage you to try anyway. This is not a book to be read passively. It needs your attention and active effort. The book offers various activities, meditations, and questions for you to consider. We recommend that you pause at each, give it a thoughtful try, and move on only when you’re ready. You don’t have to write everything down in the spaces provided, but at least spend a few moments reflecting internally. Some of the materials can be downloaded at http://www.newharbinger.com/33827; you’ll find instructions at the back of the book for accessing these materials.
We recommend going through the pages in order (because the skills build on each other), but you can also try out various things from different chapters. All the skills complement and support each other. We definitely encourage you to go back again and again to anything that works for you, even if it works only a bit. At the end of each chapter, you will find a section titled “Down and Out or Up and In?” which is your chance to put into action in the coming days the skills you learned in that chapter. It’s your chance to decide what wins out—being in a down mood and feeling left out of the flow of your life, or using skills we’re suggesting to bring your mood up and leaning in toward engaging in daily life.
We live in a world where we are bombarded by choices about everything, including how to deal with depression. TV ads may suggest one medication, your parents may tell you to get more sleep, your friends may suggest yoga—and that’s all before you even talk to a professional! You might feel like you understand depression a bit but still be at something of a loss about what to actually do about it.
This book will help you sort through those choices to find what works best for you and your depression, and we suggest you figure that out with the help and support of someone else. Feedback and positive support are helpful for building a new skill and are crucial for managing depression, so push yourself to share your experience of the activities and your responses with someone who feels safe: a therapist or counselor if you have one, or perhaps a parent, mentor, trusted friend, or even a group. That decision alone will make a huge difference.
One thing we do think is important: whatever you do, commit to sticking with it for a while!