Stopping the Pain: A Workbook for Teens Who Cut and Self Injure

by Lawrence E. Shapiro

Overview

If you’re cutting or hurting yourself you’re not alone. Thousands of teens across the country think that hurting themselves is the only way they can feel better, even though they continue to feel alone and out of control.

There are a lot of reasons why teens hurt themselves. None of them are your fault. You can’t change your past, but there is a lot you can do, right now, to make your future a place you’d like to spend some time, a place free from the pain, loneliness and isolation of cutting. This workbook offers a great way for you to make it happen.

The exercises in Stopping the Pain will help you explore why you self-injure and give you lots of ideas how you can stop. The book will help you learn new skills for dealing with issues in your life, reduce your stress, and reach out to others when you need to. Work through the book, or just check out the sections that speak to you the most. This is your own personal and private road map to regaining control of your life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781572246027
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	03/01/2008
Series:	Silly Stories About Vegetables #01-02
Pages:	168
Sales rank:	28,742
Product dimensions:	8.00(w) x 10.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Lawrence E. Shapiro, PhD, is an internationally known child psychologist and parenting expert in Norwalk, CT. He has written over fifty books for parents, children, and mental health professionals.

Table of Contents

To the Professionals Reading This Book     v
To the Teens Reading This Book     vii
Getting Ready to Help Yourself     1
What You Say Is Private     3
SI Does Not Have to Be a Secret     5
What Do You Know About SI?     8
Why Do People Hurt Themselves?     14
Are You Ready to Stop Hurting Yourself?     17
Thinking About Yourself and Your SI     21
What Is Your Self-Image?     23
You Can Change Yourself If You Want To     27
What Is Your Body Image?     30
Can You Treat Your Body Better?     35
Understanding Why You Self-Injure     38
Are You Like Other People Who Self-Injure?     41
Describing Your SI     44
You Are Much More Than a Person Who Self-Injures     47
Understanding Your Feelings     50
What Causes Your Feelings?     54
Faulty Thinking Can Contribute to Feelings of Helplessness and Despair     58
You Can Correct Your Faulty Automatic Thoughts     61
Doing Things That Will Make You Happy     64
Avoiding Things You Can Use to Hurt Yourself     68
What You Can Do Instead of Hurting Yourself     72
Connecting with Others     77
Talking with People About Who You Really Are     79
Your Parents Need to Know How You Are Feeling     86
Telling Your Parents What They Should or Shouldn't Say     90
Conquering Your SI     95
Finding a Safe Place Where You Can Stop Hurting Yourself     97
Creating a Safe Place in Your Mind     101
Setting Goals for Yourself Will Help You Stop Your SI     104
Creating an SI Emergency Kit     109
Coping with Stress     111
Learning to Be Mindful     115
Dealing with Upsetting Thoughts and Feelings     118
What Triggers Your Upsetting Thoughts and Behaviors?     121
Desensitizing Yourself to Your Upsetting Thoughts and Feelings     124
Facing Your Problems Around Food     128
Do You Have a Healthy Lifestyle?     131
Facing Problems with Drugs and Alcohol     134
Spiritual Faith May Help You Stop Self-Injury     137
Are You Prepared to Stop Your Self-Injury?     139
Reviewing What You Have Learned About Your SI     142
You Can Help Yourself by Helping Others     145

Editorial Reviews

This review addresses several books in the "Instant Help Book for Teens" series. The first exercise in What's Eating You? is a three-page questionnaire to help teen looks at their eating behaviors. The activities that follow are structured, nonthreatening, self-probing, blame releasing, and hopeful. In Stopping the Pain, Shapiro explains that there are many misconceptions about cutting; for example, that teens who self-injure are just trying to get attention, are very sick people, or are crazy. In reality, most who self-injure do so as a way of coping with the trauma or pain in their lives. This workbook helps individuals look at their lives, find a path out of the pain, and create a path back to health. Coping with Cliques takes a different tone from the others workbooks in this series, as the author attempted to use teen slang that is already outdated and in doing so the problem of female-to-female harassment is trivialized. Other workbooks in this series include: Anxiety Workbook for Teens by Lisa M. Schab; Beyond the Blues by Lisa M. Schab; The Social Success Workbook for Teens by Barbara Cooper and Nancy Widdows; The Anger Workbook for Teens by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann; and The Divorce Workbook for Teens by Lisa M. Schab. Reviewer: C.J. Bott

VOYA - C.J. Bott