Real-world advice for parents of depressed teens.
by Carol Brady, Ph.D.
by Katharina Manassis, M.D., and Anne Marie Levac, R.N.
Woodbine House, $19.95
Purchase Helping Your Teenager Beat Depression
At last, here's a source of reliable, real-world advice for parents of teenagers battling depression. Too often parents of depressed teens are given false reassurance - told that moodiness and self-imposed isolation are normal aspects of adolescence. But Helping Your Teenager Beat Depression, co-written by a psychiatrist at Toronto's renowned Hospital for Sick Children, tells parents how to get help - and how to work with a physician or psychotherapist.
Central to the book is the so-called L.E.A.P. approach: Helping parents Label their own emotions ... Empathize and Explore responses... Apply new ways to respond ... and Pick and Plan the most appropriate ways to interact with the depressed teen.
Therapists may find it hard to hang onto this book: the day it arrived in my office, two clients asked to borrow it. Guess I'll pick up a few more copies.