The Mindfulness Workbook for Teen Self-Harm: Skills to Help You Overcome Cutting and Self-Harming Behaviors, Thoughts, and Feelings

by Gina M. Biegel MA, LMFT, Stacie Cooper PsyD

Overview

Powerful mindfulness tools to help you move beyond self-harming thoughts and behaviors, so you can get back to living your life.

Being a teen in today’s world isn’t easy. Maybe you’ve been bullied. Maybe you feel like your family or friends just don’t get you. Or maybe you feel like you don’t have control of your life, or you’re just tired of trying to be perfect all the time. You aren’t alone. Many teens struggle with difficult feelings and thoughts—and sometimes, when these thoughts feel overwhelming, you just want to feel something else. This is where self-harming behaviors, such as cutting, come in. But there are better ways to manage your pain. This book will help guide you.

In this workbook, you’ll learn about the power of mindfulness, and how it can help you create your own special space for simply being with your thoughts. When you’re dealing with difficult emotions, you’ll have this safe space to go to again and again—no matter where you are or what you’re doing. You’ll learn how to be mindful of your senses, techniques for managing difficult feelings before they escalate, and move past self-judgment to embrace self-compassion and self-awareness.

Pain is a normal part of life—it’s how you react to this pain that really matters. Let this workbook guide you toward better strategies for dealing with stress and emotional pain, so you can be safe, happy, and in control of your life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781684033676
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	09/01/2019
Series:	Instant Help for Teens Series
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	318,393
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Gina M. Biegel, LMFT, is a San Francisco Bay Area-based psychotherapist, researcher, speaker, and author specializing 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, who were not receiving relief or amelioration of their physical and psychological symptoms with the use of a multitude of other evidence-based practices.

She is an expert and pioneer in bringing mindfulness-based approaches to youth. She is author of Take in the Good; Be Mindful and Stress Less; The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens; and the Be Mindful: A Card Deck for Teens. She also has a mindfulness practice audio CD, Mindfulness for Teens: Mindfulness Practices to Reduce Stress and Promote Well-Being to complement the MBSR-T program. She provides worldwide intensive ten-week online trainings, and works with teens and families individually and in groups. Her work has been featured on The Today Show and CNN, and in Psychology Today, Reuters, The New York Times, and Tricycle to name a few. For more information, visit her website at www.stressedteens.com.

Stacie Cooper, PsyD, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Pepperdine University in 2009. She has counseled teens and young adults privately and in a variety of inpatient and outpatient settings, as well as led groups and psychoeducational trainings on adolescent mental health issues. She is certified in MBSR-T, and has facilitated workshops in community centers and schools throughout Orange County, CA.

Table of Contents

A Letter to Teens vii

To Professionals, Parents, and Caregivers ix

Trauma and Mental Health Treatment: What This Book Is and Isn't 1

Pledging a Pause to Self-Harm 5

Section 1 Self-Harming Behaviors

Activity 1 Self-Harm Inventory: You Can Be a Survivor! 8

Activity 2 Self-Harm Awareness Calendar: Keeping Score of Self-Harm 14

Activity 3 Pain Is there for a Reason 21

Activity 4 Stress Equals Pain Times Blocking (S = P X B) 26

Activity 5 Responding to Stress: The Fight-Flight-or-Freeze Response 33

Activity 6 Grounding Yourself When You Are in Pain 37

Activity 7 Negative Coping Behaviors and Positive Coping Skills 41

Activity 8 Letting Go Is a Process That Is Possible 45

Section 2 Be Mindful, Not Harmful

Activity 9 Sense Awareness: A Mindfulness Practice 52

Activity 10 Mindful Check-In: Your Highs And Lows 56

Activity 11 Riding the Waves: Pain Will Pass 62

Activity 12 Finding Your Anchor: A Grounding Practice 68

Activity 13 Befriending Your Body: The Body Scan Mindfulness Practice 73

Activity 14 Bringing Mindfulness into Everything You Do 80

Activity 15 Taking A Mindful Pause to STOP Before You Self-Harm 85

Activity 16 Mindful Messaging 88

Section 3 Self-Harming Thoughts and Feelings

Activity 17 Self-Harming Thoughts and Feelings 92

Activity 18 Awareness: Where Do You Put Your Attention? 99

Activity 19 Quieting the Judgmental Mind 103

Activity 20 The Thinking Trap: Past-Now-Future 108

Activity 21 Knowing Your Feelings and the Information They Provide 114

Activity 22 Welcoming Unexpected Visitors 117

Activity 23 Make a New Playlist 121

Section 4 Take Control of Your Life

Activity 24 Taking In the Good: Learn to Resource Yourself 128

Activity 25 Gratitude and the 5 Gs 132

Activity 26 Focus on Your Strengths 136

Activity 27 Growth and Resilience 143

Activity 28 Respecting Yourself By Setting Boundaries 148

Activity 29 Keeping Your Water Bottle Full With the Self-Care Tracker 152

Activity 30 Taking Control of Your Life: Surviving and Rising Strong 159

Pledging to Stop Self-Harm 167

Resources 169

Journal Pages 171

Interviews

Biegel resides in Campbell, CA (The Greater San Francisco Bay Area); Cooper resides in Orange County, CA.

Editorial Reviews

This book makes a perfect complementary resource for student support teams in middle schools and high schools, or for any other helping professional working with teens. Gina and Stacie’s warmth and sincerity permeate the pages as they soothe and gently guide readers through activities to help them understand the relationship between stress, trauma, thoughts, emotions, and self-harm. Readers will learn how to nourish themselves using a variety of mindfulness strategies, including how to ‘take in the good’ for more well-being and peace.”
—Tracy Heilers, executive director of Coalition of Schools Educating Mindfully

Tracy Heilers

An incredible and indispensable resource. Biegel and Cooper are exemplary guides using compassion and grace in supporting teens struggling with self-harm. Packed with highly relatable and accessible tools, teens will learn not only to be incredible survivors, but to perfect their ‘awesome sauce recipes’ as well! Teens, parents, therapists, and caregivers will equally benefit from the invaluable tools that integrate mindfulness and much more in this workbook.”
—Goali Saedi Bocci, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist, and author of The Social Media Workbook for Teens

Goali Saedi Bocci

Gina and Stacie have written an incredibly important workbook offering very practical mindfulness strategies to help teens overcome the damage that comes from all manner of self-harming behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. This book will have a lasting positive empowering effect on all the teens, parents, and professionals who read it!”
—Todd Corbin, CPC, is a mindfulness teacher, motivational speaker, certified parenting coach, and author of Mindfulness for Student Athletes

Todd Corbin

The Mindfulness Workbook for Teen Self-Harm is a wonderful and practical guide, not only for teens/adolescents, but really anyone looking to better understand themselves and to effectively manage overwhelming feelings/stressors, constantly arising in today’s fast-paced, stressed-out, modern world. The authors have taken a very difficult subject to talk about—self-harm—and have, with open hearts and arms, taken it out of the dark and shined a healing light on it. They have created a brilliant and creative step-by-step guide to help those struggling in darkness to find a way out of their pain and suffering, back into the light. It is written in a way where one feels as if the authors are right there with you, holding your hand, guiding you every step of the way without judgment, just love and support. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to help heal their emotional pain and suffering.”
—Alexander Bacher, PsyD, clinical psychologist at Passages Treatment Center in Malibu, CA

Alexander Bacher

As a researcher of social and emotional learning and mother of two teen girls, I literally breathed sighs of relief while reading this workbook. It opens up exactly the conversation that teens, parents, and professionals need to have about normalizing and facing with compassion the dark thoughts that teenagers have always had. Whereas we used to think that doing so meant approving and encouraging self-harming behaviors, we now know the opposite is true. Biegel and Cooper strike the perfect tone while providing gradual action steps that will unquestionably resonate with the teens of today, and bring relief from suffering that can feel insurmountable.”
—Amanda J. Moreno, PhD, associate professor and founder/director of the Social and Emotional Learning Initiative at Erikson Institute

Amanda J. Moreno

Biegel and Cooper have captured every possible helpful angle to help teens who struggle with self-harming urges and behaviors. Loaded with personal self-harm assessments and a wide range of highly effective, easy-use strategies, this workbook leaves nothing out. I highly recommend it for teens, therapists, and educators seeking a workbook that delivers much needed coping strategies to those who self-harm and to those seeking to truly understand it.”
—Jeffrey Bernstein, PhD, licensed psychologist, author of The Stress Survival Guide for Teens, Mindfulness for Teen Worry, Letting Go of Anger for Teens Therapeutic Card Deck, and 10 Days to a Less Defiant Child

Jeffrey Bernstein

Adolescents have needed Biegel and Cooper’s The Mindfulness Workbook for Teen Self-Harm for years. The book is a masterpiece, with dozens of meaningful exercises and ways for teens to relate to what is going on inside of them. The clarity of the authors’ writing and experience with teens shines through every page. Explaining thoughts, emotions, and judgments through activities will enable readers to embody what they learn. The ideas in this book will help young people stop and think before they engage in self-harm. Teenagers are hurting desperately, and the number of young people engaged in self-harm is alarming. This book should be on the shelf of every counselor and therapist. Parents and teachers should be trained in these practices so they can help their children and students build healthy self-images.”
—Laurie Grossman, director of social justice and educational equity at Inner Explorer, Inc., and cofounder of Mindful Schools

Laurie Grossman

This workbook attends to the needs of teens who self-harm with the embodied practice of mindfulness: compassion, non-judgement, and presence. Teens will feel supported and empowered as they are held in the wisdom of Gina Biegel and Stacie Cooper. Like breadcrumbs intentionally left to create a path, the authors use practical exercises and deep understanding to guide teens to their own inner knowing; a place where they can not only survive, but thrive. All preteens and teens could benefit from this thoughtful, inspiring, and healing work.”
—Lisa Grady, chief strategy officer for Inner Explorer, Inc., a nonprofit changing the World, One Student at a Time Through Daily Mindfulness

Lisa Grady

With loving confidence Gina Biegel and Stacie Cooper guide teens through a step-by-step exploration of their worth in this practical and supportive book. Helping people overcome self-harm without inflicting additional blame and shame is no easy task, but in speaking directly to teens in language that is simultaneously clear and nuanced, direct and compassionate, the authors have managed to create a voice worth trusting, a sense of collaboration in the process, and an invitation to step into healing at one’s own pace”
—Jennifer Cohen Harper, founder of Little Flower Yoga, author of Little Flower Yoga for Kids, and coauthor of Yoga and Mindfulness Practices for Teens Card Deck

Jennifer Cohen Harper