Helping teenagers do more of what matters to them Let's Talk About CBT

How does doing more of what matters help teenagers with low mood and depression? And what can we all learn from this, particularly at the moment? Prof Shirley Reynolds speaks to Dr Lucy Maddox.
 
Show Notes and Transcript
If you want to know more the following resources might be helpful.
Books
Shirley has written two books about depression in teenagers, one for teens and one for parents:
For parents: Teenage Depression:  CBT Guide for Parents https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teenage-Depression-CBT-Guide-Parents/dp/147211454X
For adolescents: Am I Depressed and What Can I Do About It? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Am-Depressed-What-Can-About/dp/1472114531/ref=pd_lpo_14_t_0/260-4076808-4951665?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1472114531&pd_rd_r=bd1ea151-b4d3-40bc-99bc-583aa3824613&pd_rd_w=xtKq9&pd_rd_wg=CFBxI&pf_rd_p=7b8e3b03-1439-4489-abd4-4a138cf4eca6&pf_rd_r=MFANFKSAD9RE92R6XS65&psc=1&refRID=MFANFKSAD9RE92R6XS65
Websites
BABCP website www.babcp.com
Register of BABCP accredited therapists https://www.cbtregisteruk.com/
These resources about child and adolescent mental health might also be useful
Young Minds https://youngminds.org.uk/
MindEd https://www.minded.org.uk/
Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health https://www.acamh.org/
Other resources
Shirley is running a course with Future Learn from 1st week in June about adolescent depression – aimed to help parents and professionals understand and help young people who struggle with low mood: https://www.mooc-list.com/course/understanding-depression-and-low-mood-young-people-futurelearn
Have you seen the BABCP animation about what CBT is? Only 1 minute long and available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRijYOJp5e0
Photo by Daria Tumanova on Unsplash
Podcast episode produced by Dr Lucy Maddox for BABCP
Transcript 

Lucy: Hi and welcome to Let’s Talk About CBT with me, Dr Lucy Maddox. This podcast is all about CBT, what it is, what it’s not and how it can be useful. Today I’m speaking to Professor Shirley Reynolds from the University of Reading about how doing more of what matters can help teenagers boost their mood, and how this might be particularly helpful for all of us to remember at the current time.  

Shirley: The thing I’m really mostly interested in is understanding more about adolescent depression in order to help us really develop better treatments and better ways of preventing young people from developing depression. So that we can really try and divert them away from a path that can lead into a lifetime of problems with low mood.  

Lucy: Fantastic. And at this time in particular when we’re all shutting doors a bit because of the pandemic and teenagers are shutting doors as well, what can your research tell us that might be helpful at this time in particular do you think? 

Shirley: I think there are some general points and some more specific points. I think the general point is that one of the things we know, not just from our own research but from many people’s research is that when you’re a teenager, most teenagers are going to be incredibly attached to and reliant on having relationships with their friends, their peers.  

The family becomes a bit less important, it’s not unimportant, but the importance of it becomes a little bit less and that’s replaced by a really, really strong focus on needing to be part of a social group. Being accepted by other people, contributing to things with your friends, being part of something bigger than yourself.  

And so what that tells us then is that a period like now when young people simply cannot have those relationships in the normal ways, that this is a potential point of really massive stress for them and distress for them. And we need to try and support them; to maintain any relationships they already have, in whatever way is possible.  

And what most parents are currently struggling with, but I think getting a handle on, is that currently that