The ACT Relationship Skills Workbook for Teens - by Sheri Turrell & Mary Bell (Paperback)

About the Book

Upgrade your social skills! This savvy guide shows you how to use ACT to build happy, healthy relationships with the people around you. Family? Friends? Dating? With the exercises and guidance in this book, you'll be equipped to handle all the relationship situations life throws at you.

Book Synopsis

Relationships are tough. Family, friendships, romance - they've all got their own complications. So, what can you do?

We're all wired differently and programmed to think and react in certain ways. Are you a people-pleaser or someone who trusts too easily? Do you find it hard to put your guard down or often compare yourself to others? This book helps you to see how your programming affects the way you communicate and relate to others, and gives you the tools to upgrade it.

Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a positive, practical approach for getting in touch with who and what matters to you and learning to take your thoughts and feelings with you to reach your goals, this book will give you the tools to get to know your own values, build healthy boundaries, and boost your communication skills. It will help you to better understand yourself so that you can build happy, healthy relationships.

Review Quotes

Many therapies seem to have this "Gotcha" moment where the clinician tells the person that they are doing something wrong and now they must change. Instead, this workbook teaches skills with gentle, compassionate, yet profound wisdom that is steeped in the obvious decades of combined wisdom of both authors. This book will be a beautiful and necessary addition to any clinician's toolkit. A beautifully woven tapestry of science, compassion, lived experience, wisdom and common humanity.--Founder/Director of Smithsfield Clinic Psychological Services and Co-Founder/Co-Director of New England Centre for OCD & Anxiety, Ireland

I have used "The ACT Relationship Skills Workbook for Teens" as Smithsfield Clinic's chosen book to guide our therapeutic book club. I have found it to be incredibly helpful at empowering our teens and young adults to grasp ACT concepts and strategies to use in their own relationships. We especially found the metaphor of the RelateApp useful and the Skills to Build sections very practical and helpful. We would use this book for our book club again.--Joanne Collier, Smithsfield Clinic Book Club Facilitator, Behaviour Analyst, M.A. Psychology, M.A. Applied Behaviour Analysis, BCBA, New England Centre for OCD and Anxiety, Irish Midlands, Staff Clinician

I think it was really good the way this book expressed how other people feel their emotions the same way that I do. I liked how the authors used examples of young people's emotions in different scenarios throughout the book. This helped me to understand my own emotions.--Bláthnaid, age 14

Reading this book was a brilliant key when I was locked in my thoughts. It was helpful, informative, and gentle, and I would recommend it to anyone struggling with anxious thoughts.--Ella, age 19

This book is great at using modern metaphors to explain how our minds can bring up unwanted thoughts and feelings which inevitably can sabotage our relationships. The book gives amazing strategies to help create distance between these unwanted thoughts and what's meaningful to us in our relationships.--Dr. Kelly Larkin, Smithsfield Clinic Book Club Facilitator Chartered Behavioural Psychologist D. Psych. BAT, BCBA, C. Psychol. Ps.S.I. New England Centre for OCD and Anxiety, Irish Midlands, Staff Clinician

Relationship skills are essential life skills that every teen must learn.

This workbook will teach teens the necessary skills to deal with others, be a better communicator, show up to others without hurting yourself, genuinely connect with the ones that matter to you, be truthful to themselves, and deal effectively with the messy moments the all relationships come with.

Congratulations and my sincere appreciation to the authors for putting their efforts and clinical skills onto this workbook!

--Patricia E. Zurita Ona, Psy.D. Author of "Acceptance and Commitment Skills for Perfectionism and High-Achieving Behaviors" and Founder of the East Bay Behavior Therapy Center

As a student of psychology, I thoroughly enjoyed the lessons and exercises in this book. The information is beneficial to all young adults. I came away with healthier perspectives and approaches to situations.--Fawcett K., young person

In The ACT Relationship Skills Workbook for Teens, Turrell and Bell provide an insightful perspective on navigating the difficult world of adolescent relationships. Their use of terminology and real-life examples are extremely relatable as a young adult.--Catherine, young person

The ACT Relationship Skills Workbook emphasizes the importance of creating and fulfilling goals within both ourselves and our relationships. Turrell and Bell successfully connect with and accommodate teens with such remarkability.--Young person

Sheri and Mary have written an extremely helpful resource for teens and young adults. With the help of two scientific frameworks, you get to try out fun, practical experiments that will help you to understand your relationships, enrich your personal life, and improve your communication skills.--Emanuele Rossi, PhD, peer-reviewed ACT trainer, author of La guida essenziale all'ACT

This book gives young people a real new way of looking at what is most important to them: relationships. Relatable technology metaphors help us understand things like boundaries and how to keep track of how we relate to others. I highly recommend this book for adolescents and adults.--Ralf Steinkopff, Peer Reviewed ACT Trainer, Licensed Psychotherapist and Psychologist

The ACT Relationship Skills Book for Teens is a valuable resource for therapists and teens looking to improve their relationship skills. With helpful examples and clear prompts, this book can teach teens how to create healthy, lasting relationships.--Jessica Borushok, Ph.D., Peer Reviewed ACT Trainer and creator of The ACT Therapist YouTube Channel.

The ACT Relationship Skills Workbook for Teens is filled with powerful life-skills. We all struggle with relationships at some stage in our lives, and this is a much-needed resource, with widely applicable strategies.--Tamar D. Black, PhD, Educational and Developmental Psychologist and author, ACT for Treating Children and The ACT Workbook for Kids

Every teenager can benefit from the wonderful resources within these pages. Written with wisdom, compassion, and humour, this enjoyable and life-changing book offers many powerful skills and strategies to overcome social problems, and build rich and meaningful relationships.--Dr Russ Harris, author of The Happiness Trap

About the Author

Sheri Turrell (Author)
Sheri Turrell is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst and an ACBS Peer Reviewed ACT Trainer. She is Adjunct Lecturer in the University of Toronto's Department of Psychiatry and the creator of the online self-help program for teens, Choose Your Life . She has been working with teens for over 20 years and is based in Toronto, ON, Canada.

Mary Bell (Author)
Mary Bell is a social worker in private practice in Toronto, Canada. She held previous clinical roles working with teens and their families at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and Trillium Health Partners in Mississauga, Canada.