Every teen feels anxiety, fear, uncertainty or worry at some time. These normal emotions and reactions help people protect themselves, stay safe and solve problems. Usually these feelings don’t last long and don’t come too often, but, for some, these feelings are taken to extremes. There is a constant stream of doubt or fear in the young person’s mind that can be a controlling force that is not easily tamed.
Don’t Try Harder, Try Different is a stress management philosophy to restore balance. It is based on the notion that we are really good at trying harder at things that we already know do not work all that well. Why do we do this? We can always hope that this time might be the time something better happens, even though it has not happened yet. So, what if we did something different? Maybe instead of staying trapped in our usual patterns of doing things we ought to try to do something else. When we do this, we have the opportunity to become scientists – we can run our lives like an experiment and se
e if the changes we make help or hinder us. Staying the same and complaining about it is just not going to help anyone. Patrick McGrath will provide an authoritative guide for parents and professionals, offering sound advice and answers to our most pressing questions.
McGrath did a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute, an affiliate of the Department of Community and Family Medicine at the St. Louis University Medical School. His main area of focus was working in the area of anxiety disorders. Currently, McGrath is director of the Center for Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders and co-director of the School Anxiety and School Refusal Program at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates.
McGrath is the author of a stress management workbook, “Don’t Try Harder, Try Different,” as well as “The OCD Answer Book.”
Come join McGrath as he walks you through the steps to make some changes and put your thoughts into action if you want to see real change occur.
Flier for this event: Patrick McGrath
