Enhancing Self-Control in Adolescents

This book offers an innovative, trans-diagnostic approach to enhancing self-control in adolescents based directly on personality and social psychological science. It thus fills a void. While several books address specific disorders such as ADHD, poor school performance, and aggression, this is one of the first books to translate social and personality psychology research into a set of generally applicable treatment strategies. This literature as a whole is not well known to cognitive behavioral therapists or other applied mental health professionals and will be a valuable addition to their clinical knowledge base. Because the interventions described in the book target the underlying processes common to self-control (rather than to specific diagnostic entities), clinicians do not have to master a treatment manual for each individual disorder. Instead, they are provided with treatment tools that they can modify and use flexibly with the large number of adolescent referred because of problems with self-control, who typically present with a range of symptoms and co-morbid disorders.

Norman M. Brier, PhD, is a psychologist who was a Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He has directed an adolescent division serving youngsters with learning, attention, emotional, and self-regulation disorders for more than 40 years. Dr. Brier has written a number of original articles and several books related to adolescents and self-control. He maintains a private practice in Bedford, New York.

1. The Construct of Self-Control 2. Adolescents and Self-Control 3. An Outline of the Strategies to Facilitate Motivation, Planning, and Rehearsal 4. Motivational Interviewing Techniques 5. Implementation Intentions 6. Mental Simulation 7. Combining and Employing the Strategies of Implementation Intentions and Mental Simulation to Facilitate Self-Control 8. Case Illustrations 9. Summing Up