Bronagh Starrs integrates psychological theory, developmental neuroscience, deep clinical wisdom, and profound empathy into a highly readable guide that belongs in the hands of anyone who cares for teenagers and their parents. This book brings Starrs’ thinking to life through vivid case examples, a clear organisational structure, and practical guidance on how to think about teenagers and the challenges they encounter as they move into adulthood. This book is a gift to anyone looking to deepen their understanding of adolescent development and improve their clinical skills with teenagers and their parents.
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Lisa Damour, PhD, New York Times bestselling author of Untangled, Under Pressure, and The Emotional Lives of Teenagers
This practical and sensitive book should be in the hands of every adolescent psychotherapist. Bronagh Starrs brings both therapist and ‘parenting adults’ to hear the young person’s often devastated experience - lost, confused, excluded, and so on. Then the disturbing behavior begins to make sense to everyone, and often to become less necessary. So well-written that it is hard to put down, this book is a humanistic treasure.
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Donna M. Orange, PhD, PsyD, author, The Suffering Stranger: Hermeneutics for Everyday Clinical Practice (Routledge, 2011) and Nourishing the Inner Life of Clinicians and Humanitarians: The Ethical Turn in
For years colleagues have raved to me about Bronagh Starrs’ work with adolescents and their worlds; -- now I understand why. This book is essential reading not only for therapists, counselors, teachers, and others who work with adolescents.Starrs places the emphasis of her approach right where outcome research shows it should be: on the therapeutic relationship itself, that crucial contact space which precedes and underlies all the acronyms and "how-to's" or ordinary models of other manuals. If this is a "how-to" book, it's about how to build that "meaningful therapeutic relationship," on which everything else depends. The goal and result are not just the"fixing" of a temporary symptom, but a restoration of healthy development and growth.
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Gordon Wheeler, Ph.D., President and CEO, Esalen Insititue, Big Sur, California, and author of Gestalt Therapy in the APA book series Major Methods in Psychotherapy, and co-editor (with Mark McConville) of　The Heart of Development: Gestalt Approaches to Children, Adolescents, and their Worlds (Vol. I: Childhood; Vol. 2: Adolescence)
This book is a fantastic contribution to the field of adolescent psychotherapy. There are few who can match Starrs’ depth of phenomenological attunement and degree of therapeutic sensibility with adolescents. She illustrates a masterful approach to understanding and supporting adolescents, capturing concrete therapeutic moments in vivid detail. Her engaging warmth and extraordinary humanity are evident on every page. Adolescent psychotherapists, irrespective of their approach, will find insights and applications to enrich their practice. A must-read for therapists, parents and anyone involved in the lives of teenagers.
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Richie Sadlier, bestselling author of Recovering and Let’s Talk