ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 outlines the fresh approach of this book. Adolescents and young adults are given the opportunity to understand their difficulties and receive intervention without having to view themselves as ‘disordered’ or ‘ill’. The practice of CBT is separated from the diagnostic model and is grounded instead in emotion science. A scientific understanding of emotions provides a normative framework that is clear, easy to understand, and suggests interventions that are entirely consistent with the evidence upon which CBT is based. Adolescents and young adults learn about their emotions and emotional ‘traps’, view themselves as fundamentally similar to their peers, and as capable of bringing about change so that they can continue their development into adulthood. This chapter briefly outlines the theoretical principles of this approach, before detailing the five pillars of understanding that can be used with adolescents, young adults, and their families, to understand their difficulties: what are emotions? What are their functions? How are emotions regulated? Adolescent Development, and the Hand Brain.
