The Twentysomething Treatment

The author of The Defining Decade explains why the twenties are the most challenging time of life and reveals essential skills for handling the uncertainties surrounding work, love, friendship, mental health, and more during that decade and beyond. There is a young adult mental health crisis in America. So many twentysomethings are struggling—especially with anxiety, depression, and substance use—yet, as a culture, we are not sure what to think or do about it. Perhaps, it is said, young adults are snowflakes who melt when life turns up the heat. Or maybe, some argue, they’re triggered for no reason at all. Yet, even as we trivialize twentysomething struggles, we are quick to pathologize them and to hand out diagnoses and medications. Medication is sometimes, but not always, the best medicine. For twenty-five years, Meg Jay has worked as a clinical psychologist who specializes in twentysomethings, and here she argues that most don’t have disorders that must be treated: they have problems that can be solved. In these pages, she offers a revolutionary remedy that upends the medicalization of twentysomething life and advocates instead for skills over pills. In The Twentysomething Treatment, Jay teaches us: -How to think less about “what if” and more about “what is.” -How to feel uncertain without coming undone. -How to work—at work—toward competence and calm. -How to be social when social media functions as an evolutionary trap. -How to befriend someone and why this is more crucial for survival than ever. -How to love someone even though they may break your heart. -How to have sex when porn is easier and more available. -How to move, literally, toward happiness and health. -How to cook your way into confidence and connection. -How to change a bad habit you may not know you have. -How to decide when so much about life is undecided. -How to choose purpose at work and in love. The Twentysomething Treatment is a book that offers help and hope to millions of young adults—and to the friends, parents, partners, teachers, and mentors who care about them—just when they need it the most. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to find out how to improve our mental health by improving how we handle the uncertainties of life.

In Skills Over Pills, clinical psychology Dr Meg Jay sounds the alarm about a problem which has reached epidemic proportions: the over-prescription of antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs to young people who are in many cases going through normal developmental challenges. Psychologist, Dr Meg Jay makes the point that our twenties are the most challenging time of life and why over-medicating isn't the answer to the mental health problems facing young people. She goes onto advise how young people can develop the skills needed to navigate work, love, friendship, mental health, and more during that decade and beyond. Jay is not opposed to the use of drugs, when necessary, nor is she minimising the mental health crisis that many people are experiencing today. Instead, Jay wants to build a program of compassionate skill-building in which accessible insights and techniques are developed to reduce anxiety and manage the challenges that life throws our way. In Skills Over Pills, Jay teaches readers how to acquire essential skills such as: - How to be social when social media functions as an evolutionary trap. - How to befriend someone and why this is more crucial for survival than ever. - How to love someone even though they may break your heart. - How to make sex more fulfilling than you thought was possible. - How to move, literally, toward happiness and health. - How to face, rather than avoid, bad feelings so they won't haunt you. - How to cook your way into confidence and connection. - How to change a bad habit. - How to decide when so much is undecided. - And how to find purpose at work and in love. Throughout the book Jay offers relatable case studies and conversations she's had with her students and clients who are learning to embrace uncertainty and live full lives. Skills Over Pills is a practical, hopeful message, which presents a far more promising future for our young people than a life on medication.

The author of The Defining Decade explains why the twenties are the most challenging time of life and reveals essential skills for handling the uncertainties surrounding work, love, friendship, mental health, and more during that decade and beyond. There is a young adult mental health crisis in America. So many twentysomethings are struggling—especially with anxiety, depression, and substance use—yet, as a culture, we are not sure what to think or do about it. Perhaps, it is said, young adults are snowflakes who melt when life turns up the heat. Or maybe, some argue, they’re triggered for no reason at all. Yet, even as we trivialize twentysomething struggles, we are quick to pathologize them and to hand out diagnoses and medications. Medication is sometimes, but not always, the best medicine. For twenty-five years, Meg Jay has worked as a clinical psychologist who specializes in twentysomethings, and here she argues that most don’t have disorders that must be treated: they have problems that can be solved. In these pages, she offers a revolutionary remedy that upends the medicalization of twentysomething life and advocates instead for skills over pills. In The Twentysomething Treatment, Jay teaches us: -How to think less about “what if” and more about “what is.” -How to feel uncertain without coming undone. -How to work—at work—toward competence and calm. -How to be social when social media functions as an evolutionary trap. -How to befriend someone and why this is more crucial for survival than ever. -How to love someone even though they may break your heart. -How to have sex when porn is easier and more available. -How to move, literally, toward happiness and health. -How to cook your way into confidence and connection. -How to change a bad habit you may not know you have. -How to decide when so much about life is undecided. -How to choose purpose at work and in love. The Twentysomething Treatment is a book that offers help and hope to millions of young adults—and to the friends, parents, partners, teachers, and mentors who care about them—just when they need it the most. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to find out how to improve our mental health by improving how we handle the uncertainties of life.

Clinical psychologist and author of The Defining Decade, Meg Jay takes us into the world of the supernormal: those who soar to unexpected heights after childhood adversity. Whether it is the loss of a parent to death or divorce; bullying; alcoholism or drug abuse in the home; mental illness in a parent or a sibling; neglect; emotional, physical or sexual abuse; having a parent in jail; or growing up alongside domestic violence, nearly 75% of us experience adversity by the age of 20. But these experiences are often kept secret, as are our courageous battles to overcome them. Drawing on nearly two decades of work with clients and students, Jay tells the tale of ordinary people made extraordinary by these all-too-common experiences, everyday superheroes who have made a life out of dodging bullets and leaping over obstacles, even as they hide in plain sight as doctors, artists, entrepreneurs, lawyers, parents, activists, teachers, students and readers. She gives a voice to the supernormals among us as they reveal not only "How do they do it?" but also "How does it feel?" These powerful stories, and those of public figures from Andre Agassi to Jay Z, will show supernormals they are not alone but are, in fact, in good company. Marvelously researched and compassionately written, this exceptional book narrates the continuing saga that is resilience as it challenges us to consider whether -- and how -- the good wins out in the end.

The Defining Decade has changed the way millions of twentysomethings think about their twenties—and themselves. Revised and reissued for a new generation, let it change how you think about you and yours. Our "thirty-is-the-new-twenty" culture tells us the twentysomething years don't matter. Some say they are an extended adolescence. Others call them an emerging adulthood. In The Defining Decade, Meg Jay argues that twentysomethings have been caught in a swirl of hype and misinformation, much of which has trivialized the most transformative time of our lives. Drawing from more than two decades of work with thousands of clients and students, Jay weaves the latest science of the twentysomething years with behind-closed-doors stories from twentysomethings themselves. The result is a provocative read that provides the tools necessary to take the most of your twenties, and shows us how work, relationships, personality, identity and even the brain can change more during this decade than at any other time in adulthood—if we use the time well. Also included in this updated edition: Up-to-date research on work, love, the brain, friendship, technology, and fertility What a decade of device use has taught us about looking at friends—and looking for love—online 29 conversations to have with your partner—or to keep in mind as you search for one A social experiment in which "digital natives" go without their phones A Reader's Guide for book clubs, classrooms, or further self-reflection

A mother-daughter writing team reports on what's really up with kids today Science writer Robin Marantz Henig and her daughter, journalist Samantha Henig, offer a smart, comprehensive look at what it's really like to be twentysomething—and to what extent it’s different for Millennials than it was for their Baby Boomer parents. The Henigs combine the behavioral science literature for insights into how young people make choices about schooling, career, marriage, and childbearing; how they relate to parents, friends, and lovers; and how technology both speeds everything up and slows everything down. Packed with often-surprising discoveries, Twentysomething is a two-generation conversation that will become the definitive book on being young in our time. "The fullest guide through this territory . . . A densely researched report on the state of middleclass young people today, drawn from several data sources and fi­ltered through a comparative lens." —­The New Yorker

“For an age group overwhelmed with information, Bradbury-Haehl finds a way to make it all manageable.” --Publisher’s Weekly Let’s face it: adulting isn’t easy. That’s why young-adult minister Nora Bradbury-Haehl created this essential guide to help you avoid the mistakes, missteps, and financial failures that took others years to learn. Each chapter includes practical, actionable advice that addresses the full range of life’s challenges, including how to: make a new city feel like home; find the right job for you—and thrive once you’ve landed it; ward off loneliness and build meaningful post-grad relationships; set boundaries and live in harmony with your roommates—whether they’re your peers or parents; and replace destructive habits with ones that make your life better. Whether you’re seeking meaning and purpose in your life and career or just feeling stuck and confused about your next steps, within these pages you’ll find answers to your most pressing questions and advice, encouragement, and inspiration from others who want to help you through these challenging years—together.

Our twenties are a seemingly simple, yet daunting decade. It's a time that tends to be surprising, unsettling, freeing, yet so much fun. Twenty something begins by sharing the story of its end, as the author, Cimber Cummings, contemplates her inevitable and upcoming thirtieth birthday. As she reminisces on the past ten years, she remembers all that God has taught and revealed and changed in her since then. She thinks back to how beautiful and tragic, equally hopeful, and yet impossible those years were. And so to celebrate all that God has done, Cimber shares with her readers the journey of her twenties as short stories written by a friend. Whether through relationships failed, promotions given, or moves made across the country, she shares the gems of wisdom and truth God instilled in her through seasons of disappointment and delight. She knows she hasn't gleaned a lifetime's worth of knowledge about anything yet, but she learned some things about a few things that when added together, made up the deeply meaningful decade she came to love. As she journeys back and tries to make you laugh, she also doesn't apologize if she makes you cry a little too. Because we all need the realization that when navigating life as a twenty-something, we're not alone, or crazy, or at least not both at the same time.