Synopses & Reviews
Disruptive behavior in the classroom, poor academic performance, out-of-control emotions: if you work with adolescents, you are well-aware of the challenges this age group presents. What if there was a way to calm these students down and arm them with the mindfulness skills needed to really excel in school and life?
Written by mindfulness expert and licensed clinical psychologist Patricia C. Broderick, Learning to Breathe is a secular program that tailors the teaching of mindfulness to the developmental needs of adolescents to help them understand their thoughts and feelings and manage distressing emotions. Students will be empowered by learning important mindfulness meditation skills that help them improve emotion regulation, reduce stress, improve overall performance, and, perhaps most importantly, develop their attention. The book also includes a website link with student handouts and homework assignments, making it an ideal classroom tool.
The book integrates certain themes of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, into a program that is shorter, more accessible to students, and compatible with school curricula. Students will learn to pay attention in the moment, manage emotions as they are perceived, and gain greater control over their own feelings and actions. These mindfulness practices offer the opportunity to develop hardiness in the face of uncomfortable feelings that otherwise might provoke a response that could be harmful (e.g. acting out by taking drugs, displaying violent behavior or acting in by becoming more depressed).
This easy-to-use manual is designed to be used by teachers, but can also be used by any mental health provider teaching adolescents emotion regulation, stress reduction and mindfulness skills. The author is a graduate of the MBSR advanced practicum at the Center for Mindfulness in Massachusetts, led by Jon Kabat-Zinn. She is also a clinical psychologist and a certified school psychologist and counselor for grades K-12. In the book, Broderick calls on her years of experience working with adolescents to outline the best strategies for dealing with disruption in the classroom and emotions that are out of hand.
The book is structured around six themes built upon the acronym BREATHE, and each theme has a core message. The program allows for themes to be delivered in 6 longer or 18 shorter sessions, depending upon time and needs of students. The 6 core lessons are: Body, Reflection, Emotions, Attention, Tenderness, and Healthy Mind Habits.
Learning to Breathe is the perfect tool for empowering students as they grapple with the psychological tasks of adolescence.
Review
I have had an opportunity to use the BREATHE program with a cohort of first semester college undergraduates. The move to college creates unique challenges, and the BREATHE program, which can be adapted for this population, provides powerful tools to help emerging adults manage this transition. Learning the basics of mindfulness, strengthening emotion recognition and emotion management skills, and developing compassion for self and others, are all extremely important skills for college students. . . . As Broderick writes, there is a difference between knowing
about emotions and knowing your own emotions
as they are experienced. The BREATHE program allows this distinction to emerge brilliantly.”
Sandra Kerr, PhD, professor in the department of psychology, West Chester University, PA
Review
Learning to Breathe is an invaluable resource for those looking to share mindfulness with adolescents. Broderick has carefully crafted a professional and wonderfully straightforward mindfulness curriculum that can be used in a variety of settings. Highly recommended!”
Doug Worthen, mindfulness teacher at the Middlesex School in Concord, MA
Review
Learning to Breathe couldn't have come at a better time! Educators are seeking new ways of meeting a rising tide of societal challenges. Compelling new research supports the benefits of learning a mindfulness practice. With a focus on adolescents, Broderick has intelligently created a flexible mindfulness curriculum that is user-friendly, evidence-based, and age-appropriate. Through this achievement she offers the opportunity to experience burgeoning self-awareness, self-regulation, and the emotional balance that supports fully engaged learning and well-being. Ideally, all schools would teach these practices.”
Marilyn Webb Neagley, education consultant, coeditor of Educating from the Heart, and author of Walking through the Seasons
Review
Engaging, varied, and user-friendly lessons make this an essential resource for any educator who wishes to bring mindfulness into the curriculum. From theory to practice, this guide provides teachers with the necessary information to make mindfulness come to life in their classrooms and in the lives of their students. A must-have for all those committed to the social and emotional health of adolescents.”
Karen Bluth, research fellow at the Program of Integrative Medicine at the School of Medicine at University of North Carolina, NC
Review
Learning to Breathe is an extraordinary curriculum, grounded in a deep understanding of adolescent learning, adolescent growth, and the daily experience of adolescent life. The brilliant design of the BREATHE program provides teachers with ease in implementation and flexibility to adapt for the uniqueness of each class, while at the same time providing the quintessential elements of mindfulness-based well-being in each lesson. Educators and school systems that adopt this creative program will be giving a gift to themselves and to the adolescents in their care for a healthier, more positive and productive future.
Irene McHenry, PhD, licensed psychologist, author, international speaker and workshop presenter, and currently executive director of Friends Council on Education
Review
The unfolding field of mindfulness education for tweens and teens is most fortunate to be gifted with Brodericks theoretically grounded and pragmatically written step-by-step guide. Broderick offers first-hand experiences and clear insights to encourage teachers and therapists teaching mindfulness practices to deepen their own practice while teaching and learning alongside youths. When offered in the spirit with which it is written, the
Learning to Breathe curriculum opens a conversation around the often overwhelming stressors that are simultaneously unique and universal to preadolescents and adolescents while offering them an array of exercises to meet the stressors with more clarity and care. In doing so, these exercises for youths can introduce a new way of being in the world that frees young people from automatic avoidance and risk-taking behaviors that often compound their stressthereby decreasing experiences of distress and increasing experiences of empowerment. Let the exploration begin!”
Laura J. Pinger, MS, senior outreach specialist at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center on the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Review
I have seen first-hand the transformational potential
Learning to Breathe has for a wide range of students in the high school setting. Broderick has done an amazing job of creating a mindfulness-based universal prevention program for high school applications. Those looking for a program to use to bring mindfulness to high school students in a curricular way need not look further than
Learning to Breathe.”
Todd D. Cantrell, house principal at Central Bucks High School West in Doylestown, PA
Review
I am delighted to provide an unequivocal endorsement of Brodericks
Learning to Breathe. This program for adolescents is beautifully designed and hits all the right notes for teaching mindfulness as a tool to navigate the ups and downs of adolescence. Grounded within a developmental framework and clinical understanding of adolescent issues, Brodericks book is user-friendly and will resonate with clinicians, educators, and parents alike. As a school social worker with experience of successfully implementing [the program] within a very diverse population, it is gratifying to have a program of this integrity that is compatible with multiple areas of the curriculum.”
Marjorie James, MSW, RSW, social worker with the Toronto District School Board
Review
This is an excellent, systematic, helpful, and practical workbook. Doing these practices brings many blessings. They will reduce your stress and truly transform your life.”
Jack Kornfield, Ph.D., author of The Wise Heart, A Path with Heart, and After the Ecstasy, the Laundry
Review
School reform is doomed to failure until it faces the reality of kids as they come: stressed-out, overwrought, and inattentive to school work. This marvelous book fills this gap with a curriculum that helps teenagers reduce stress, handle their emotions, and master their attention. A step-by-step guide for teachers and clinicians,
Learning to Breathe is clear, inventive, and practical, and it can be implemented starting tomorrow. This inspiring book is also a timely wake-up call for the nation.”
Jerome Murphy, Dean Emeritus at Harvard Graduate School of Education
Review
As a longtime instructor of mindfulness-based stress reduction, currently teaching instructors in two school districts, Brodericks book,
Learning to Breathe, is a welcome gift. It is filled with clear information about mindfulness, from both the educational and neurological perspectives, and presents an excellent, thorough, and complete curriculum for adolescents. This book will be welcomed, used, and gratefully received by teachers and students.”
Ferris Buck Urbanowski, MA, mindfulness instructor, South Burlington, Vermont School District, and Washington West School District, Waitsfield, VT
Review
Semple and Lee do a very good job integrating CBT with mindfulness-based approaches. Where similarities exist they are pointed out and where differences exist they are made known. Primarily aimed at practitioners, this book could also be a valuable adjunctive textbook in any graduate level psychology, psychiatry, or social work program where child- and family-focused psychotherapy are part of the curriculum. This does represent a new and exciting addition to those treatment paradigms focusing on childhood anxiety that have already received empirical support.”
Howard A. Paul, PhD, ABPP, FAACP, in a review from the journal, Child and Family Behavior Therapy, June, 2012
Review
Informed by the authors years of personal experience and rigorous methodological development, this book provides a treatment manual that is both clinically accessible and supported by empirical clinical trials. . . . Semple and Lees MBCT-C manual is one of the most detailed, thorough, and eloquently written manuals in the mindfulness intervention armamentarium.”
Joshua C. Felver, in a review for the journal, Mindfulness, October, 2011
Review
With wisdom, kindness, and inspiring clarity born from years of mindful living and teaching mindfulness, Amy Saltzman guides us through the research-proven, practical steps of how to help young people learn the fundamentals of resilience, focus, and compassion. Science-supported, clinically-sound, and educationally brilliant, this book will provide essential tools for all who wish to learn from a master about how children and adolescents can discover
A Still Quiet Place, a source of emotional and social intelligence and a lifelong center of inner peace.”
Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain and Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation; clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine; and codirector of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center
Review
With great clarity and uncommon attention to detail, Amy Saltzman gives us much more than a first-rate mindfulness program.
A Still Quiet Place is a portrait of a master teacher at work.”
Richard Brady, MS, cofounder and president of the Mindfulness in Education Network and coauthor of Tuning In: Mindfulness in Teaching and Learning
Review
Amy Saltzman has produced a highly illuminative and extremely practical mindfulness-based program for children and adolescents.
A Still Quiet Place provides step-by-step instructions for facilitators to administer the program in whole or in part. It is a must-have for mental health professionals, educators, and parents wishing to teach children and adolescents mindfulness and social and emotional learning. Highly recommended!”
Sam Himelstein, PhD, director of the Mind Body Awareness Project and author of A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Working with High-Risk Adolescents
Review
Amy Saltzman's authoritative book provides the wisdom and building blocks you'll need to share mindfulness with children and teens. Far more than a workbook, it's a curriculum that you can pick up and use to teach a class, written by someone who has been instrumental in the movement to bring mindfulness to youth since its inception.”
Susan Kaiser Greenland, JD, author of The Mindful Child
Review
A Still Quiet Place is exactly the guide that parents and professionals have been waiting for to take the mystery out of the practice of mindfulness. We all know that our children are too stressed, and we want it to change.
A Still Quiet Place is an essential antidote and accompaniment for the stressed lives that our children lead today. This crystal-clear program teaches children exactly how to bring thoughtful, calming awareness to their day-to-day experiences and struggles, not only reducing pressure and strain but enhancing their quality of life. Filled with child-friendly explanations and exercises, every child will benefit from finding their still quiet place within. Amy Saltzman is the perfect guide to lead them there.”
Tamar Chansky, PhD, author of Freeing Your Child from Anxiety: Powerful, Practical Solutions to Overcome Your Child's Fears, Worries, and Phobias
Review
In this clear and compassionate guide, Amy Saltzman offers a joyous path for leading children to peace and self-discovery through mindfulness.”
Christopher Willard, PsyD, author of Child's Mind
Review
Amy Saltzman makes teaching mindfulness widely accessible with this wonderful book. It is a brilliant distillation of years of experience teaching mindfulness to children kindergarten through twelfth grade. Saltzmans passion and experience flow through these pages.
A Still Quiet Place is a must-read for anyone who desires teaching valuable life skills. It is one of the best and most complete books on teaching mindfulness that Ive read.”
Brian Despard, author of You Are Not Your Thoughts: Mindfulness for Children of All Ages
Review
What our busy modern world needs is for more adults to introduce more children to
A Still Quiet Place. Finally, we have a step-by-step guide to building vital skills for children like kindness, resilience, attention, and stress management. Saltzman offers practical, everyday guidance to support children of any age and has created an irreplaceable resource in the field.”
Mark Bertin, MD, developmental pediatrician and author of The Family ADHD Solution. Learn more at www.developmentaldoctor.com.
Review
A Still Quiet Place is a smart, thoughtful, and encouraging guide to bringing mindfulness to children. Amys warmth and experience shine through her words, and her invitation to explore the world with kindness and curiosity is exactly what I would want for my own daughter. My teaching, and my parenting, will be better for having read this book.”
Jennifer Cohen Harper, author of Little Flower Yoga for Kids
In a time when it's needed more than ever, Amy Saltzman delivers an effective program that not only offers to ease the stress and emotional struggles of our children, but also provides a recipe to begin healing our world.”
Elisha Goldstein, PhD, author of The Now Effect and coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook
Synopsis
The breakthrough book Learning to Breathe presents a research-based curriculum for teachers and clinicians who are seeking ways to help improve behavior and bolster academic performance in adolescents. Drawing on a combination of mindfulness-based therapies, the brief interventions outlined in the book have a strong theoretical basis in both education and psychology, and are proven effective when it comes to dealing with adolescent students who act out in the classroom.
Synopsis
Help Adolescents Thrivein the Classroom and in Life
Disruptive behavior in the classroom, poor academic performance, and emotional highs and lows: if you work with adolescents, you are well-aware of the challenges this age group presents. What if there were a way to help these students focus while equipping them with the mindfulness skills they need to excel in school and in life? Learning to Breathe is a research-based curriculum designed to help adolescents reduce stress, improve their attention, manage emotions, and gain greater control over their own thoughts and actionsessential skills for optimizing classroom learning and promoting well-being. This breakthrough mindfulness-based program is structured around six themes that form the acronym BREATHE, and each theme has a core message. This book is the perfect tool for teachers, mental health professionals, or anyone who works with adolescents.
Bolster academic performance and positive behavior with these six core lessons:
- Body
- Reflection
- Emotions
- Attention
- Tenderness
- Healthy Mind Habits
- Empowerment
Synopsis
In A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, two mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) experts present a step-by-step, eleven-week program for effective stress reduction based on the concepts in Jon Kabat-Zinn's groundbreaking Full Catastrophe Living.
Synopsis
Stress and pain are nearly unavoidable in our daily lives; they are part of the human condition. This stress can often leave us feeling irritable, tense, overwhelmed, and burned-out. The key to maintaining balance is responding to stress not with frustration and self-criticism, but with mindful, nonjudgmental awareness of our bodies and minds. Impossible? Actually, it's easier than it seems.
In just weeks, you can learn mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), a clinically proven program developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of Full Catastrophe Living. MBSR is effective in alleviating stress, anxiety, panic, depression, chronic pain, and a wide range of medical conditions. Taught in classes and clinics worldwide, this powerful approach shows you how to focus on the present moment in order to permanently change the way you handle stress.
As you work through A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, you'll learn how to replace stress-promoting habits with mindful onesa skill that will last a lifetime.This groundbreaking, proven-effective program will help you relieve the symptoms of stress and identify its causes so that you can start living a healthier, happier life.
Synopsis
In Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Treating Anxious Children, two mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) researchers and practitioners present a powerful therapy plan that therapists can use in group or individual therapy to help children cope with anxiety.
Synopsis
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Anxious Children offers a complete professional treatment program designed to help children ages nine through twelve who struggle with anxiety. This twelve-session protocol can be used to treat anxious children in group or individual therapy. The poems, stories, session summaries, and home practice activities on the enclosed CD-ROM supplement child therapy sessions and parent meetings to illuminate mindful awareness concepts and practices. In twelve simple sessions, children will learn new ways to relate to anxious thoughts and feelings and develop the ability to respond to life events with greater awareness and confidence.
Help children manage the symptoms of all types of anxiety:
- Panic disorder
- Agoraphobia
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Social phobia
- Specific phobias
- Separation anxiety disorder
- School refusal
Synopsis
Todays children and adolescents face intense pressuresboth in the classroom and at home. A Still Quiet Place presents an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that therapists, teachers, and other professionals can use to help children and adolescents manage stress and anxiety in their lives. The easy-to-implement practices in this guide are designed to help increase attention, learning, resiliency, and compassion by showing children how to experience the natural quietness that can be found within. The book also includes links to helpful audio downloads.
Synopsis
Teaching kids stress management skills early in life will help them to grow into happy and healthy adults. And if you work with children or adolescents, you know that kids today need these skills more than ever. The pressures they face in the classroom, on the playground, in their extracurricular activities, and at home can sometimes be overwhelming. So how can you help lay the groundwork for their success? A Still Quiet Place presents an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that therapists, teachers, and other professionals can use to help children and adolescents manage stress and anxiety in their lives, and develop their natural capacities for emotional fluency, respectful communication, and compassionate action. The program detailed in this book is based on author Amy Saltzmans original curriculum, which has helped countless children and adolescents achieve significant improvements in attention and reduced anxiety.
One of the easiest ways to find the still quiet place within is to practice mindfulnesspaying attention to your life experience here and now with kindness and curiosity. The easy-to-implement mindfulness practices in this guide are designed to help increase children and adolescents attention, learning, resiliency, and compassion by showing them how to experience the natural quietness that can be found within. The still quiet place is a place of peace and happiness that is alive inside all of us, and you can find it just by closing your eyes and breathing. For more information, visit www.stillquietplace.com.
Synopsis
Written by a clinical psychologist and social worker, ACT for Adolescents presents the first flexible, ten-week protocol based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help adolescents overcome mental health hurdles and thrive. The powerful and effective step-by-step exercises in this book are tailored toward working with adolescents in individual settings, but also include modifications for group settings.
Synopsis
In this much-needed guide, a clinical psychologist and a social worker provide a flexible, ten-week protocol based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to help adolescents overcome mental health hurdles and thrive.
If you’re a clinician working with adolescents, you understand the challenges this population faces. But sometimes it can be difficult to establish connection in therapy. To help, ACT for Adolescents offers the first effective professional protocol for facilitating ACT with adolescents in individual therapy, along with modifications for a group setting.
In this book, you’ll find invaluable strategies for connecting meaningfully with your client in session, while at the same time arriving quickly and safely to the clinical issues your client is facing. You’ll also find an overview of the core processes of ACT so you can introduce mindfulness into each session and help your client choose values-based action. Using the protocol outlined in this book, you’ll be able to help your client overcome a number of mental health challenges from depression and anxiety to eating disorders and trauma.
If you work with adolescent clients, the powerful and effective step-by-step exercises in this book are tailored especially for you. This is a must-have addition to your professional library.
This book includes audio downloads.
About the Author
Bob Stahl, PhD, founded and directs mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) programs at Dominican Hospital, O’Connor Hospital, and El Camino Hospital. Stahl serves as a Senior Teacher for Oasis Institute for Mindfulness-Based Professional Education and Training at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, HealthCare, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Stahl is a coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Living With Your Heart Wide Open, Calming the Rush of Panic, and A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety. He is the guiding teacher at Insight Santa Cruz and visiting teacher at Spirit Rock and Insight Meditation Society.Elisha Goldstein, PhD, cofounded the Center for Mindful Living in Los Angeles, CA. He is coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, and author of Uncovering Happiness: Overcoming Depression with Mindfulness and Self-Compassion, The Now Effect: How a Mindful Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life, and Mindfulness Meditations for the Anxious Traveler. He developed the Mindfulness at Work™ program recognized by the National Business Group on Health for its success in stress management, the Mindful Compassion Cognitive Therapy (MCCT) program, and the premier eCourse Basics of Mindfulness Meditation, and codeveloped CALM (Connecting Adolescents to Learning Mindfulness) with his wife Stefanie Goldstein, PhD. He is a clinical psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles, CA.Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. He is professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and author of numerous books, including Full Catastrophe Living, Arriving at Your Own Door, and Coming to Our Senses.Afterword writer Saki Santorelli, EdD, MA, is executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and author of Heal Thyself.