Mind over Monsters Supporting Youth Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge

An investigation into the mental health crisis affecting young adults today, and an impassioned argument for creating learning environments characterized both by compassion and challenge.

Alarming statistics in recent years indicate that mental health problems like depression and anxiety have been skyrocketing among youth. To identify solutions, psychologist and professor Sarah Rose Cavanagh interviews a roster of experts across the country who are dedicating their lives to working with young people to help them actualize their goals, and highlights voices of college students from a range of diverse backgrounds.

Cavanagh also brings the reader on an invigorating tour of pedagogical, neuroscientific, and psychological research on mental health—one that involves her own personal journey from panic to equilibrium.

The result of these combined sources of inquiry indicates that to support youth mental health, we must create what Cavanagh calls compassionate challenge— first, we need to cultivate learning and living environments characterized by compassion, and then, we need to guide our youth into practices that encourage challenge, helping them face their fears in an encouraging, safe, and even playful way.

Mind over Monsters is a must-read for teachers, administrators, parents, and young people themselves.

Sarah Rose Cavanagh is the senior associate director for teaching and learning at the Center for Faculty Excellence and an associate professor of practice in psychology at Simmons University. Her research considers whether the strategies people choose to regulate their emotions and the degree to which they successfully accomplish this regulation can predict trajectories of psychological functioning over time. Sarah’s first book, The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion, was published in 2016 and her second book, HIVEMIND: The New Science of Tribalism in Our Divided World, was published in 2019. Connect with her on Twitter @SaRoseCav.

PREFACE
Monster Night

PART ONE: CRISIS, COMPASSION, CHALLENGE

CHAPTER ONE
Crisis and Complexities

CHAPTER TWO
Our Youth Need Compassionate Challenge

PART TWO: BODIES

CHAPTER 3
Infused with Eros—Embodied Mental Health

CHAPTER 4
Unruly Bodies in an Unpredictable World

PART THREE: BELIEFS

CHAPTER FIVE
Seeking Oneself—Energy and Value

CHAPTER SIX
Determining Oneself—Direction and Expectancy

PART FOUR: BEHAVIORS

CHAPTER SEVEN
Arousal, Action, and Uncertainty

CHAPTER EIGHT
Play and Improvisational Learning

CONCLUSION
The Monster at the End of This Book

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index