This is a guide to the emotional and interpersonal issues you may encounter as a young adult, packed with advice and real-life stories of hope and resilience from people in similar situations. This book will help you to gain an understanding of the influence of your early emotional experiences, and share tried-and-tested strategies, drawing on a range of psychological approaches and evidence-based strategies.
This book also looks at how emotions can affect our relationships, with a focus on building empathy for others, getting what you want out of friendships and relationships and dealing with the hard parts like boundaries and saying no, making amends when needed, and recognising and breaking problematic relationship patterns.
With personal stories and resources throughout, this is a guide to refer to as little or often as you like, helping you to understand your emotions and find the strategies that work best for you.
About the Authors
Dr Bridie Gallagher is a Senior Psychologist working for the NHS to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people in the secure estate.
Dr Sue Knowles is a senior clinical psychologist with longstanding experience of working with young people and their carers in a range of settings. She works for the psychological services organisation Changing Minds UK.
Phoebe McEwen is a college student with lived experience of anxiety.
Industry Reviews
The perfect book for any young person who no longer wants to be controlled by their feelings. Perfectly pitched, superbly practical with just the right amount of science and info to help you understand what to do and, crucially, why. -- Dr Pooky Knightsmith
This book is absolutely brilliant. The authors took a library full of therapy books and distilled their essence into a book all 14-year olds and almost every therapist will be able to understand. It is crystal clear, wide ranging, and always helpful. For the first time I have a book that I can with absolute confidence recommend to all young people I see who are persistently distressed by their intense emotions. The lively text will help the reader through the darkest moments and the copious practical advice is magically written to provide support in a highly collaborative and never in a patronizing way. This book deserves to win many prizes but, if there is one for the bursting the balloon of psychotherapeutic pretension, it is the uncontested winner." -- Professor Peter Fonagy OBE FMedSci FBA FAcSS, Chief Executive, Anna Freud National Centre for Children & Families
This is an excellent book for young people, who want to understand themselves and their emotions better. This easy to read, self-help book if full of excellent insights and practical suggestions to help manage emotions and improve friendships and relationships. The book draws on the latest research evidence which is translated into straightforward, pragmatic suggestions and advice, suitable for young people and their parents and carers. Written by experts with clinical and lived experience, the book takes an integrative approach to bring together ideas from CBT, DBT and mentalization-based approaches. It is also an excellent resource for any practitioner working with young people in school mental health support teams, child and adolescent mental health services, and social care settings. -- Dr Duncan Law Consultant Clinical Psychologist, AFBPsS, EuroPsy, Honorary Associate Professor at University College London (UCL) Faculty of Brain Science
My Intense Emotions Handbook is a brilliant resource to help young people (aged 14-25) understand and make sense of intense emotional experiences. The authors dismiss many unhelpful myths around mental health diagnosis and instead have found a way to describe and address difficult experiences to aid self-understanding. They draw on psychological theories and use evidence based techniques to give young people the formula to understand their experience, normalise their feelings and quieten the voice inside their heads that can say "what's wrong with me?". Ideas are presented in a digestible manner, with the author's signature tone of empathy and understanding. It is wonderfully reassuring and hopeful in showing that emotions are there to help in all sorts of ways and managing them is a skill that can be learned. By reflecting on past experiences and looking after relationships, difficult patches in life can pass. In that decade of life when all young people are trying to make sense of their experience and when emotions are intense, this should be essential reading. -- Dr Bettina Hohnen, Clinical Psychologist and author of The Incredible Teenage Brain
