Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain

Table of Contents:
Part I. The Essence of Adolescence -- The Benefits and Challenges of Adolescence -- Maintaining the Power and Purpose of the Adolescent Mind into Adulthood -- Adolescence from the Inside Out -- Risk and Reward -- Pushing Away -- The Timing of Puberty, Sexuality, and Adolescence -- The Stress and Distress of Our Extended Adolescence -- Adolescent Transitions and the Centrality of Our Relationships -- Mindsight Tools #1 Seeing and Shaping the Sea Inside -- Three Basic Kinds of Mindsight Maps -- Seeing Inside the Sea Inside -- Mindsight Practice A. Insight and SIFTing the Mind -- Physical Sight of the Material World Versus Mindsight of the Inner World -- Mindsight Practice B. Mindsight Illuminated -- Empathy -- Mindsight Practice C. Empathy -- Integration -- Mindsight Practice D. Sensing the Harmony of Integration -- When Integration Is Not Present: Chaos or Rigidity -- Mindsight Practice E. Name It to Tame It -- Mindsight Practice F. Detecting Chaos or Rigidity and Balancing the Mind -- Mindsight Strengthens the Mind, the Brain, and Our Relationships -- Part II. Your Brain -- Dopamine, Decisions, and the Drive for Reward -- Family, Friends, and Fooling Around -- The Purpose of Adolescence -- Making Decisions -- Don't Do It Doesn't Do It: The Power of Promoting the Positive -- Integrating Your Brain -- A Handy Model of the Brain -- Adolescence as the Gateway to Creative Exploration -- Creating Collaboration Across the Generations -- Vulnerability and Opportunity -- The Remodeling Brain and Flipping Our Lids -- Adolescence Builds Integration in the Brain -- The Emotional Lower Brain -- Hardwired for Adventure and Connection -- Mindsight Tools #2. Time-In -- Time-In, Mindsight, and Mindful Awareness -- Being Present for What Is Happening as It Is Happening -- Mindsight Practice A. Breath Awareness -- Building Mindsight's Lens -- Integrating Consciousness with the Wheel of Awareness -- Mindsight Practice B. The Wheel of Awareness -- Reflecting on the Wheel -- Part III. Your Attachments -- Safe Harbor and Launching Pad -- The Ways We Attach -- The Secure Model -- The Avoidant Model -- The Ambivalent Model -- The Disorganized Model -- Reactive Attachment -- Earning Secure Attachment and Integrating the Brain -- Reflecting on Your Attachments and Making Sense of Your Life -- Questions for Reflection on Attachment 163 Our Attachment Narratives and the Two Sides of the Brain -- Avoidance, Emotional Distance, and the Left Side of the Brain -- Ambivalence, Emotional Confusion, and the Right Side of the Brain -- Disorganized Attachment and a Dissociating Brain -- Creating a Safe Harbor and Launching Pad for Adolescents -- Mindsight Tools #3. Time-Between and Reflective Conversation -- Making Sense of How Our Models Shape Our Present -- Mindsight Practice A. Reflecting on How Your Attachment Models Shape Your Reflective Conversations -- Reflection, Integration, and the Origins of Empathy -- Mindsight Practice B. Reflective Conversations -- The PART We Play in Creating Ourselves in Relationships -- Mindsight Practice C. Repairing Ruptures -- Part IV. Staying Present Through Changes and Challenges -- Honoring the Person an Adolescent Is Becoming -- Leaving Home -- Puberty, Sexuality, and Identity -- Hooking Up -- Romance and First Love -- First Be Present -- Changes and Challenges to Integration -- Acceptance, Letting Go of Expectations, and Sexual Orientation -- Drug Use or Abuse? -- Returning Home: Reflection, Realignment, and Repairing Ruptures -- Mindsight Tools #4. The Mindsight Simple Seven -- Mindsight Practice A. Time-In -- Mindsight Practice B. Sleep Time -- Mindsight Practice C. Focus Time -- Mindsight Practice D. Downtime -- Mindsight Practice E. Playtime -- Mindsight Practice F. Physical Time -- Mindsight Practice G. Connecting Time -- Conclusion: MWe and the Integration of Identity -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Biographical Note:
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, founding codirector of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, and executive director of the Mindsight Institute. He is also coauthor of Parenting from the Inside Out and The Whole-Brain Child, and the proud father of two children in their twenties.

Review Quotes:
"Brainstorm is a must read book for every parent if they want to avoid emotional turbulence in their own lives as their children go through adolescence. It's lifesaving for the whole family."
--Deepak Chopra, MD