Lisa Damour | |
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![]() Damour in 2017 | |
Born | Lisa Kendall Damour November 7, 1970 Denver, Colorado, United States |
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Language | English |
Nationality | American |
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Period | 2000–current |
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Lisa Kendall Damour (born November 7, 1970) is an American clinical psychologist and author specializing in the development of teenage girls and young women.
Born in Denver, Colorado, Damour was raised in Denver, London, and Chicago. She graduated from Denver's Manual High School in 1988 before attending Yale University. After graduating with honors from Yale, Damour worked for the Yale Child Study Center. She then received her doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Michigan. [1]
Throughout these years, she held fellowships from Yale's Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy, the University of Michigan's Power Foundation, and the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Damour maintains a private psychotherapy practice while also serving as senior advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University and executive director of Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls. [2] [3]
Damour has published academic papers, chapters, and books related to education and child development, including two editions of the college textbook Abnormal Psychology with James Hansell (2005, 2008) and three editions of First Day to Final Grade with Anne Curzan (2000, 2006, 2011).
Her first New York Times best seller, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood (Random House, 2016), describes the seven distinct developmental transitions that turn girls into grown-ups. [4] [5]
Damour's 2019 book, Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls (Random House), examines sources of stress and anxiety for adolescents and ways that adults can support them. [6] [7] Under Pressure was a New York Times best seller. [8]
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents (Random House, 2023), another New York Times best seller, helps parents understand the emotional lives of their teenagers and support them through that developmental stage. [9] [10]
Damour writes about adolescents for The New York Times and is a regular contributor to CBS News [11] and UNICEF. [12]
Damour lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with her husband and two daughters. [13]
In 2016, Damour received a Books for a Better Life: Childcare and Parenting Award for Untangled. [14] In 2019, Damour was recognized as a Thought Leader by the American Psychological Association. [15]
Preadolescence is a stage of human development following middle childhood and preceding adolescence. It commonly ends with the beginning of puberty. Preadolescence is commonly defined as ages 9–12 ending with the major onset of puberty. It may also be defined as simply the 2-year period before the major onset of puberty. Preadolescence can bring its own challenges and anxieties.
Teenage pregnancy, also known as adolescent pregnancy, is pregnancy in a female adolescent under the age of 20.
Child psychopathology refers to the scientific study of mental disorders in children and adolescents. Oppositional defiant disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism spectrum disorder are examples of psychopathology that are typically first diagnosed during childhood. Mental health providers who work with children and adolescents are informed by research in developmental psychology, clinical child psychology, and family systems. Lists of child and adult mental disorders can be found in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Edition (ICD-10), published by the World Health Organization (WHO) and in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). In addition, the Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood is used in assessing mental health and developmental disorders in children up to age five.
Child poverty refers to the state of children living in poverty and applies to children from poor families and orphans being raised with limited or no state resources. UNICEF estimates that 356 million children live in extreme poverty. It is estimated that 1 billion children lack at least one essential necessity such as housing, regular food, or clean water. Children are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as adults and the poorest children are twice as likely to die before the age of 5 compared to their wealthier peers.
Child abuse is physical, sexual, emotional and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential wrongful harm to a child and can occur in a child's home, or in organizations, schools, or communities the child interacts with.
Emotional dysregulation is characterized by an inability in flexibly responding to and managing emotional states, resulting in intense and prolonged emotional reactions that deviate from social norms, given the nature of the environmental stimuli encountered. Such reactions not only deviate from accepted social norms but also surpass what is informally deemed appropriate or proportional to the encountered stimuli.
The sexuality of US adolescents includes their feelings, behaviors and development, and the place adolescent sexuality has in American society, including the response of the government, educators, parents, and other interested groups.
Childhood trauma is often described as serious adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Children may go through a range of experiences that classify as psychological trauma; these might include neglect, abandonment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and physical abuse, witnessing abuse of a sibling or parent, or having a mentally ill parent. These events have profound psychological, physiological, and sociological impacts and can have negative, lasting effects on health and well-being such as unsocial behaviors, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and sleep disturbances. Similarly, children whose mothers have experienced traumatic or stressful events during pregnancy have an increased risk of mental health disorders and other neurodevelopmental disorders.
Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable humans to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. This concept is also termed as psychosocial competency. The subject varies greatly depending on social norms and community expectations but skills that function for well-being and aid individuals to develop into active and productive members of their communities are considered as life skills.
Major depressive disorder, often simply referred to as depression, is a mental disorder characterized by prolonged unhappiness or irritability. It is accompanied by a constellation of somatic and cognitive signs and symptoms such as fatigue, apathy, sleep problems, loss of appetite, loss of engagement, low self-regard/worthlessness, difficulty concentrating or indecisiveness, or recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.
The effects of domestic violence on children have a tremendous impact on the well-being and developmental growth of children witnessing it. Children can be exposed to domestic violence in a multitude of ways and goes beyond witnessing or overhearing, although there is disagreement in how it should be measured. Children who are exposed to domestic violence in the home often believe that they are to blame, live in a constant state of fear, and are 15 times more likely to be victims of child abuse. Close observation during an interaction can alert providers to the need for further investigation and intervention, such as dysfunctions in the physical, behavioral, emotional, and social areas of life, and can aid in early intervention and assistance for child victims.
Parentification or parent–child role reversal is the process of role reversal whereby a child or adolescent is obliged to support the family system in ways that are developmentally inappropriate and overly burdensome. For example, it is developmentally appropriate for even a very young child to help adults prepare a meal for the family to eat, but it is not developmentally appropriate for a young child to be required to provide and prepare food for the whole family alone. However, if the task is developmentally appropriate, such as a young child fetching an item for a parent or a teenager preparing a meal, then it is not a case of parentification, even if that task supports the family as a whole, relieves some of the burden on the parents, or is not the teenager's preferred activity.
Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls is a 1994 book written by Mary Pipher. This book examines the effects of societal pressures on American adolescent girls, and utilizes many case studies from the author's experience as a therapist. The book has been described as a "call to arms" and highlights the increased levels of sexism and violence that affect young females. Pipher asserts that whilst the feminist movement has aided adult women to become empowered, teenagers have been neglected and require intensive support due to their undeveloped maturity.
Separation anxiety disorder (SAD) is an anxiety disorder in which an individual experiences excessive anxiety regarding separation from home and/or from people to whom the individual has a strong emotional attachment. Separation anxiety is a natural part of the developmental process. It is most common in infants and little children, typically between the ages of six to seven months to three years, although it may pathologically manifest itself in older children, adolescents and adults. Unlike SAD, normal separation anxiety indicates healthy advancements in a child's cognitive maturation and should not be considered a developing behavioral problem.
Family estrangement is the loss of a previously existing relationship between family members, through physical and/or emotional distancing, often to the extent that there is negligible or no communication between the individuals involved for a prolonged period.
The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) is a self-report screening questionnaire for anxiety disorders developed in 1997. The SCARED is intended for youth, 9–18 years old, and their parents to complete in about 10 minutes. It can discriminate between depression and anxiety, as well as among distinct anxiety disorders. The SCARED is useful for generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, phobic disorders, and school anxiety problems. Most available self-report instruments that measure anxiety in children look at general aspects of anxiety rather than Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) categorizations. The SCARED was developed as an instrument for both children and their parents that would encompass several DSM-IV and DSM-5 categorizations of the anxiety disorders: somatic/panic, generalized anxiety, separation anxiety, social phobia, and school phobia.
Conflicts and emergencies around the world pose detrimental risks to the health, safety, and well-being of children. There are many different kinds of conflicts and emergencies, for example, violence, armed conflicts, war, and natural disasters. Some 13 million children are displaced by armed conflicts and violence around the world. Where violent conflicts are the norm, the lives of young children are significantly disrupted and their families have great difficulty in offering the sensitive and consistent care that young children need for their healthy development. One impact is the high rates of PTSD seen in children living with natural disasters or chronic conflict.
A systematic review notes that children with COVID-19 have milder effects and better prognoses than adults. However, children are susceptible to "multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children" (MIS-C), a rare but life-threatening systemic illness involving persistent fever and extreme inflammation following exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Robin Stern is an American psychoanalyst at Yale University, associate director for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, an associate research scientist at the Yale Child Study Center, and is on the faculty of Teachers College, Columbia University.