Review of "Helping Students Overcome Depression and Anxiety"
By Kenneth W. MerrellGuilford Press, 2008
Review by Wendy C. Hamblet, Ph.D., SAC (Dip.) on Dec 2nd 2008
Counselors, whether serving as support professionals in private practice or in the public social service or mental health industry, often find it difficult, in the context of the mushrooming mental health epidemic in the industrialized West, to remain on the cutting edge of mental health theory, once they have become engaged in the generally overwhelming workloads of their professional positions. The difficulty is even greater for those professionals treating mental health disorders in children and adolescents. There exists scant research into mental health in children and adolescents, studies of depression and anxiety in this age group are scarce, and few resources are allocated toward filling this void, because only lately have professionals been prepared to admit that children and young adolescents could indeed suffer from these types of mental disorders.
Professionals working in schools, private youth counseling, and public family services find themselves in great need of a thorough but readily accessible guidebook that collects current data, assesses its implications, advises regarding topical theories, and offers a selection of practical strategies for treating depression and anxiety in the young people they serve. These benefits are precisely what Kenneth Merrell gives us in his Helping Students to Overcome Depression and Anxiety: A Practical Guide, now in its second edition. Merrell intends his guidebook as a readily accessible resource to fill the unfortunate gap in practical supports for service professionals working directly with at-risk children and adolescents.
Merrell offers in this work a comprehensive survey of the budding literature on the subject, available programs for addressing the growing crisis in children's mental health, and, especially impressive, a smorgasbord of technical responses for prevention and intervention. First, Merrell carefully delineates his subject by clarifying the language of his study, distinguishing internalizing problems (depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, and somatic problems) from externalizing disorders (acting out and aggressive responses). He follows this wealth of theory with a series of vignettes describing actual cases he has handled in his practice with children and adolescents. This applied study renders more palpable the problems he is addressing and more comprehensible the treatments he is proposing. Merrell then discusses in dense detail the plethora of factors giving rise to internalizing disorders, from biological influences, family problems, psychological stressors in life events to cognitive and behavioral influences. A comprehensive analysis of the symptoms and consequences of internalizing problems is then compared and contrasted to closely related disorders.
Merrell's guidebook is an excellent refresher course for professionals working in the field of child and adolescent counseling. The strongest benefit of this guidebook resides in the wealth of intervention techniques that are outlined in great detail and complemented with tracking charts and self-scoring registers, to map client successes and challenges. Merrell's practical strategies include cognitive therapy interventions, rational-emotive therapies, attribution retraining strategies, learned optimism training, and journal exercises, as well as relaxation training techniques, modeling exercises, mappings of anxiety hierarchies, and desensitization techniques. This broad spectrum allows the mental health professional to design a therapeutic program to fit the special needs of each young patient, learning to cope with and overcome anxiety and depression disorders.
Positive attitudes lead to positive thinking and positive change in a young person's state of well-being, and strategies for developing and maintaining positive attitudes can be explicitly taught and learned, then applied during the new challenges that arise during difficult life moments. Conditioning in the direction of positive thinking and self-empowerment is the core of Merrell's approach. He reports a high rate of success in emotionally retraining his own young patients, through simple but concerted applications of unique combinations of a number of practical strategies, fully outlined in his book.
Merrell's guidebook offers the professional mental health counselor a wealth of options for treatments of depression and anxiety in young people. But parents and teachers as well would greatly benefit from keeping this guidebook on hand and applying its various innovative strategies in helping their young wards to deal successfully with an increasingly alienating and isolating, industrialized, consumerist world.
© 2008 Wendy C. Hamblet
Wendy C. Hamblet, Ph.D., SAC (Dip.), North Carolina A&T State
Resources
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Articles
- What is Anxiety?
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The Biopsychosocial Model of Anxiety
- The Biopsychosocial Model: Causes of Pathological Anxiety
- Biological Explanations of Anxiety Disorders
- Biological Explanations of Anxiety: Part II
- Biological Explanations of Anxiety: Part III
- Biological Explanations of Anxiety: Part IV
- Psychological Explanations of Anxiety Disorders
- Psychological Explanations: Part II
- Social Explanations of Anxiety Disorders
- Development & Maintenance of Anxiety Disorders
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Classification & Diagnosis of Anxiety Disorders
- The Classification and Diagnosis of Anxiety Disorders
- Panic Attacks: A Classic Symptom of Several Anxiety Disorders
- Panic Disorder
- Separation Anxiety Disorder
- Selective Mutism
- Agoraphobia
- Specific Phobias and Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
- Other Anxiety-Related Disorders
- Anxiety and Other Psychiatric Disorders
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Anxiety Disorder Theories and Therapies
- Anxiety Disorders: Theories and Therapies
- Behavioral Learning Theory and Associated Therapies
- Operant Conditioning
- Operant Conditioning and Avoidance Learning
- Contemporary Views of Behavioral Learning Theory
- Behavioral Therapies for Anxiety Disorders
- Cognitive Theory and Associated Therapies
- Cognitive Therapy
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
- Adjunct Therapies
- Pharmacologic Treatments (Medication)
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Treatment of Anxiety Disorders
- Treatment for Separation Anxiety Disorder
- Treatment for Selective Mutism
- Treatment for Panic Disorder
- Treatment for Specific Phobias and Treatment for Social Anxiety Disorder (Social Phobia)
- Treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
- Treatment for Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders (OCSDs)
- Conclusion
- Anxiety Disorder References & Additonal Resources
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News
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- False Memories
- Help! Please!
- Two Year Old Son Wandered
- Infections and The Brain
- Are Personality Disorders For Life?
- I am Terrified of Death.
- Anhedonia
- Our 23 Year Old Son Refuses to Get Help for His Anxiety Attacks and Depression.
- Anxiety
- Anxiety Disorder vs. Personality Disorder: Differences?
- Restroom Phobia
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- Post Brain Surgery Mental Problems
- Would Medication Help?
- obsessive strange thoughts about life and existentialism
- Am I Crazy?
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- Depressed 19 year old college student
- Depression helps to contribute to my unemployment! - Paula
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- Please help fix my mom. - Kenny
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- I have PTSD and I feel nothing
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- Repressed Memory
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- unwanted thoughts!
- crazy thoughts... all the time
- A very low threshold for stress tolerance
- Why can't I get gross images out of my head?
- fear of expiration
- SPECIFIC PHOBIA
- anxiety or going crazy?
- OCB
- visions of what could have been
- about depersonalization
- obsessive compulsive disorder
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- Anxiety
- Is this OCD?
- Worried about my therapist
- No Friends
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- phobia regarding uncertainty
- Obsessed with running out of things
- Do I Have OCD?
- Do environmental factors hold a person back?
- Never Had a Relationship
- Shy Rural Student
- Nursing Student's Anxiety
- I'm Afraid They Are Judging Me
- Part Time Work and Stress
- Anxiety
- Panic
- Bathroom Phobia
- Anxiety?
- Mastery Of Anxiety And Panic
- Very Determined Panicker In The South
- Panicking Boyfriend
- Alternatives For Anxiety Treatment
- Is Anxiety A Hereditary Factor?
- Unable To Keep Eye Contact
- Is It Really Panic? And How Do We Get Help
- A Cure For Claustrophobia?
- Panic Attacks
- Shyness And The Post Partum Blues
- Klonopin
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- Agoraphobia?
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- A Cure For Anxiety?
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- Anxiety?
- Social Anxiety
- Linda writes:
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Book & Media Reviews
- 8 Keys to Stress Management
- A Brief History of Anxiety
- Anxiety
- Anxiety
- Anxiety Disorders
- Anxiety, Phobias, and Panic
- Been There, Done That? DO THIS!
- Calm Beneath the Waves
- Elsewhere
- Exercise for Mood and Anxiety
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31 more
- Getting Control
- Helping Students Overcome Depression and Anxiety
- Just Checking
- Mind-Body Workbook for Anxiety
- Monkey Mind
- My Age of Anxiety
- Overcoming School Anxiety
- Panic Disorder
- Passing for Normal
- Phobic and Anxiety Disorders in Children and Adolescents
- Repressed Spaces
- Self-Coaching
- Stress
- Stress Survival Guide
- Textbook of Anxiety Disorders
- The 10 Best Anxiety Busters
- The Age of Anxiety
- The Anxieties of Affluence
- The Dutiful Worrier
- The Emotional Eater's Repair Manual
- The Male Stress Survival Guide
- The Places That Scare You
- The Stress Cure
- The SuperStress Solution
- Treating Affect Phobia
- Under Pressure and Overwhelmed
- Viniyoga Therapy for Anxiety
- When Words Are Not Enough
- Wish I Could Be There
- Yoga for Anxiety
- Yoga Journal's Yoga for Stress
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Self-Help Groups
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Links
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Videos
- How to Manage ADHD and Anxiety
- What You Need to Know about Students with ADHD and Anxiety
- How To Make Room For Gratitude In An Anxious Brain
- How to Stay Calm When You Know You'll Be Stressed
- Anxiety and Teen Girls with Lisa Damour, PhD
- Is it Anxiety or a Heart Condition?
- Identifying and Treating Anxiety in Kids and Teens
- Child Anxiety, It’s Real
- Helping Children Cope with Anxiety
- Anxiety, Trauma and How Prolonged Exposure Therapy Works For PTSD
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26 more
- OCD, Phobias and Anxiety
- How Weighted Blankets May Lift Anxiety
- Controlling Anxiety
- Too Scared: Social Anxiety Disorder
- Panic Disorders Video
- Phobias Video
- Treating Anxiety Disorders: A Unified Protocol
- Treating Youth Anxiety and Social Phobia
- Overcoming Anxiety in Children and Teens
- Treating Anxiety in Children and Teens with ASD
- Back-to-School Anxiety
- No More Shame: My life with Anxiety and Depression
- Adolescent Depression and Anxiety
- What is Social Anxiety Disorder?
- Living Without Fear
- What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
- What is Generalized Anxiety Disorder?
- School Anxiety! Activities To Help Kids and Teens Manage It
- Recognizing and Treating Problematic Fear and Anxiety in Children
- How To Stop Overthinking When You Have Anxiety
- My Anxiety Is Making Me Anxious!
- Evidence-Based Treatment Planning for Generalized Anxiety Disorder Video
- Managing Anxiety in Youth: More Action Than Talk
- Treatment of Social Anxiety Disorder
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Anxiety
- Recent Advances in Anxiety - Children/Adolescents
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More Information
- Wise Counsel Interview Transcript: An Interview with David Barlow, Ph.D. on the Nature and Treatment of Anxiety and Panic Disorders
- Wise Counsel Interview Transcript: An Interview with Dr. Michelle Craske on Anxiety Disorders Research and Treatment
- Wise Counsel Interview Transcript: An Interview with Richard Heimberg, Ph.D. on Anxiety Research and Treatment
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