Emotional Literacy for Adolescent Mental Health: Experiential Counselling

Adolescent mental health is a perennial concern. Parents, teachers, youth counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other professionals are all working to find ways to support young people in their quest to develop self-confidence, a positive outlook, and strong mental health. With this book, author Patricia Sherwood recognizes that traditional talk-based therapy may not always be the best approach. Adolescence is defined as a time when personal privacy is important and verbal communication is often confined to peers in whom young people feel they can trust. This groundbreaking book offers a diversity of non-verbal experiential exercises, skills, and interventions for working with adolescents who may be facing particular challenges at a complex time in their lives. The activities are drawn from the artistic therapies, including drama/movement, clay therapy, and sand play, as well as meditation and nature-based/animal-assisted therapies. These practical methodologies and approaches are shown to be beneficial when addressing a range of adolescent mental health conditions, such as low self-esteem, self-judgment, anxiety, depression, anger, addiction, self-harm, psychosis, and despair.