Mood Management Leader's Manual

A Cognitive-Behavioral Skills-Building Program for Adolescents

Adolescence is a confusing time: it can be compared to a roller coaster ride, so many highs and lows, twists and turns. It is a time when important decisions must be made, but these are hard to make when one is coping with the emotional turmoil of adolescence: Are you a child? Are you an adult? What is your identity?

Author and licensed psychologist Carol Langelier has developed a program that guides adolescents through this difficult developmental stage. The Mood Management: A Cognitive-Behavioral Skills Building Program for Adolescents, and its accompanying participant's Skills Workbook teach adolescents how to deal with their emotions by understanding what triggers the thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and physical responses that create conflict. Through a comprehensive seven-step program, this process demonstrates how to resolve self-conflict and create and maintain behavior change.

Designed to be used in classroom guidance programs as well as individual or group counseling, the Mood Management program provides adolescents with an opportunity to help one another "steer clear" of emotional traffic jams. The Leader's Manual is a valuable asset to the program, providing a brief introduction to the program, the Skills Workbook, answers questions, provides masters for transparencies that can be used as visual aid, and a guide for the transparencies. The Leader's Manual together with the Skills Workbook will make a complete program ready for counselors.

The Mood Management program is perfect for two different audiences. Counselors at the middle and high school level will find it useful in either their curriculum or as a training for students who have been designated as having behavior problems. The second group is social workers and counselors who do group work with adolescents.