Helping Adolescents and Adults to Build Self-Esteem

Understanding self-esteem and helping people to build self-esteem is such a key issue that it is great to have a book which focuses on this and offers practical exercises and theory. I found this book to be very accessible and can imagine it becoming one of my favourites.

In Helping Adolescents and Adults to Build Self-Esteem Deborah Plummer uses her clinical experience and practical writing skills to explain the complex psychology of self-esteem in terms that are easy to understand and relate to practice. As a youth worker, I often work with young people struggling through the torrent of feelings, emotions and self-doubt that adolescence can bring, and the links Plummer makes between self-esteem, self-concept and self-evaluation will be invaluable in helping me devise curricula that explore these different facets and develop self-help skills. I particularly liked the section on images and associative sensitivity as it has put a name to something I too have noticed within groups of people who have built an understanding and empathy with each other. This is particularly so with young people in out-of-home settings. In the second half of the book she offers a range of activities, some familiar and some new. From the concise instructions and additional facilitator notes it is clear that Deborah is a writer who is also an experienced practitioner. This adds an honesty and credence to her work that inspires practitioners to feel confident when facilitating the suggested activities, without necessarily being an expert. There is too much to read and learn to be able to condense into a few words. This is a book that I will come back to again - not just for the activities, which are great, but also as a reliable peer-to-peer guide through the complexities of self-esteem.

Positive self-esteem is the cornerstone to living a fulfilling and meaningful life. Helping Adolescents and Adults to Build Self-Esteem is a well-written and resourceful guide to help increase self-esteem. This book has an easy-to-follow format that provides some fundamental theories and practices to improving self-awareness and self-acceptance; all while promoting and building healthy self-esteem. Helping Adolescents and Adults to Build Self-Esteem is a must-have book for professionals wishing to improve their client's levels of self-confidence and self-respect.

Deborah Plummer has that rare ability to make everything she writes easily and enjoyably accessible to everyone. Whether she is giving a theoretical introduction, a "neuro nugget" or a practical exercise. This book is literally an eye-opener, for it opens the inner eye of the imagination to support and guide us.

This fully updated new edition of Deborah M. Plummer's popular resource is filled with practical ideas for building healthy self-esteem. Easy-to-use photocopiable activity sheets encourage participants to use existing skills and develop new techniques to nurture confidence and feelings of self-worth... Suitable for work with individuals and groups in a wide range of educational and therapeutic settings, this resource will prove indispensable to teachers, speech and language therapists, professionals working in adult education centres, counsellors at schools and universities, social workers and other individuals working with young people.

Deborah Plummer's photocopiable resource book contains the theory necessary for practitioners to help clients to practise and build on a range of strategies to improve their wellbeing, and a set of activities to support permanent change... One aspect of this edition that I particularly enjoyed is the 'neuro nuggets' (...), detailed notes on use of the photocopiable information and activity sheets, more neuro nuggets, and diagrams, such as a pyramid structure to demonstrate successful communication. Aimed primarily at groups of clients or pupils, the worksheets can be used equally well with individuals and adapted for different ages of adolescents or adults, according the need, while allowing discussing or structure activities.

This truly is a resource book and the photocopiable worksheets enable the worker to take the relevant piece of work to appointments. Though structured for group work for 15-year-olds and above, the book can easily be used in direct work with individuals at home, in children's centres or even office interview rooms...