The Trauma and Adversity Workbook for Teens - by Gina M Biegel & Stacie Cooper (Paperback)

About the Book

Teens who experience toxic stress--strong, frequent, and prolonged adversity such as family illness or economic hardships, neglect, and abuse--grow up at risk for life-long mental and physical health consequences. Written by an expert in teen mental health, this important workbook offers powerful skills for overcoming trauma and adversity using mindfulness, neuroplasticity, and emotion regulation.

Book Synopsis

You can move past toxic stress, let go of fear and anger, and build resilience! This workbook will show you how.

Do you often feel sad, anxious, angry, or upset and don't really know why? Do you no longer enjoy the things you used to enjoy, or feel like the world is a bad place? If you've experienced extreme stress or trauma--such as abuse, neglect, a family member's illness, or living through a natural disaster--you may need help healing and moving forward in your life. It's important to know that you are not alone, and there is nothing to be ashamed of. Most importantly, there are ways to feel better.

Written by an expert in teen mental health, this healing workbook offers powerful skills to help you overcome the effects of toxic stress, trauma, and adversity using mindfulness, neuroplasticity, and emotion regulation. You'll learn all about how your mind and body respond to stress, how to identify triggers, and how to ground and calm yourself in the moment when your emotions feel too big to handle.

If you're struggling with the effects of stress or trauma, you should know that you can move forward in your life with confidence, self-compassion, and resilience. This workbook will help you, every step of the way.

Review Quotes

"A beautiful and connective energy weaves its way through the pages of the workbook, helping young readers feel seen, supported, and encouraged to remember that they are not alone in their life's journey. Biegel and Cooper share practical, applicable knowledge in a way that feels just as authentic, protective, and empowering as the treasured advice of a wise and loving older sibling."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Life--Sharon Salzberg

"A powerful, empowering guide to personal growth and recovery. Gina Biegel lays out a clear path with many useful tools for self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-growth."
--Christopher Willard, PsyD, faculty at Harvard Medical School, and author of Alphabreaths--Christopher Willard, PsyD

"Gina Biegel and Stacie Cooper have created a wise, caring, and helpful guide for any teen who has experienced significant adversity in their lives. Filled with clear explanations of cutting-edge ways of understanding trauma and the threat states of mind it can create, this important book helps the adolescent reader to identify overwhelming experiences that have stressed their ability to cope well, and the persistent shadows that cast darkness in daily life. Clear steps to noting understandable but now unhelpful ways of dealing with these adversities are then followed by practical tools to build life-affirming skills of thriving. Hope and healing are just moments away in this fabulous manual to move from struggling with trauma to living freely and fully with strength and joy."
--Daniel J. Siegel, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Brainstorm and IntraConnected, clinical professor at UCLA School of Medicine, and executive director of Mindsight Institute--Daniel J. Siegel, MD

"Gina Biegel is one of the world's leading experts on helping teenagers manage stress and grow resilient well-being. In this wonderful book, she offers a super-practical tool kit along with her personal stories and tremendously caring and nurturing heart. Highly recommended!"
--Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Making Great Relationships--Rick Hanson, PhD

"Gina Biegel's decades of strong work with adolescents and trauma are reflected in her excellent new workbook's innovative organization and wise content. It is a workbook for and about teens that meets them where they are with love, intelligence, and practical tools to help adolescents heal from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and successfully navigate an increasingly complex and ever-changing world."
--Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of Mindful Games, The Mindful Child, and The Inner Kids Model--Susan Kaiser Greenland

"I have known Gina Biegel for nearly a decade and her work has been a resource in supporting my patients. She has dedicated her career to teaching teens to understand the impact of their experiences, their emotions, and their desires on their actions, while empowering them to be mindful and intentional in how they respond to their world. This book is a deeply personal work inspired by years of study, experience, and further enriched by Stacie Cooper's knowledge. It sensibly teaches adolescents to acknowledge, navigate, and grow through adversity. I will be adding this book as a key resource for the teens I work with."
--Daniel Emina, MD, child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist; associate medical director at Amen Clinics Inc.; and coauthor of The Suicide Solution--Daniel Emina, MD

"Life can be challenging at times to navigate, especially when you're a teenager. While I wish I had The Trauma and Adversity Workbook for Teens as a resource as a young girl, I'm happy that this is a tool that is available today. It's practical, easy to navigate, and immediately applicable in moments of crisis and introspection alike. The graphics, exercises, and bite-size chunks help to simplify big concepts and make them less overwhelming. It's a portable trauma tool kit. As a parent, I'd recommend this invaluable compendium of resources to anyone with a teenager because learning to navigate trauma and adversity early in life is something that will carry a child into a more navigable future throughout every decade of their existence."
--Shelly Tygielski, founder of Pandemic of Love, and author of Sit Down to Rise Up--Shelly Tygielski

About the Author

Gina M. Biegel, MA, LMFT, is a California-based psychotherapist, researcher, speaker, and author who specializes in mindfulness-based work with adolescents. She is founder of Stressed Teens, which has been offering mindfulness-based stress reduction for teens (MBSR-T) to adolescents, families, schools, professionals, and the community since 2004. She created MBSR-T to help teens in a large HMO's outpatient department of child and adolescent psychiatry whose physical and psychological symptoms were not responding satisfactorily to a multitude of other evidence-based practices.

Biegel is an expert and pioneer of bringing mindfulness-based approaches to youth. She is author or coauthor of the The Trauma and Adversity Workbook for Teens, Take in the Good, The Stress Reduction Card Deck for Teens, The Mindfulness Workbook for Teen Self-Harm, Be Mindful and Stress Less, Mindfulness for Student Athletes, The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens, and Be Mindful. She also has a mindfulness practice audio CD, Mindfulness for Teens, to complement the MBSR-T program. She provides worldwide multiday trainings and intensive ten-week online trainings, and works with teens and families individually and in groups. Her work has been featured on The Today Show, CNN, Psychology Today, Reuters, TheNew York Times, US News & World Report, and Tricycle to name a few. For more information, visit her website at www.stressedteens.com.

Stacie Cooper, PsyD, is a published author, transition coach, and Pilates and mindfulness instructor with twenty years of experience helping teens and young adults on their journey to uncover their strengths, find purpose, and navigate major life transitions. In 2009, she graduated from Pepperdine University with her doctorate in clinical psychology, and completed her training at Duke University's student counseling center.

Stacie has had a passion for working with youth in transition and women for her entire career, and founded Aware and Thriving in 2016 to focus on preventative and strengths-based efforts emphasizing mind and body. She has been a mentor for Girls Incorporated's College Bound Mentorship Program, and a keynote speaker for their Eureka summer camp for middle school girls. She teaches group reformer Pilates classes in the local community, and private reformer sessions out of her house. See www.awareandthriving.com for more information.

Illustrator Breanna Chambers specializes in watercolor, ink, and digital mediums. She is the illustrator for Take in the Good. She currently lives in San Luis Obispo, CA, with her partner and her cat, Mr. Goose.

Foreword writer Rhonda V. Magee is a renowned mindfulness teacher and innovator of mindfulness-based social justice principles, concepts, and practices. She is professor of law at the University of San Francisco.