Publications
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Books
Narrative Practices and Emotions: 40+ Ways to Support the Emergence of Flourishing Identities
M.N. Beaudoin + Gerald Monk (March 2024) 20% off at wwnorton.com/npe - use code NPE20
Narrative practices and emotions offers a wealth of clinical questions, embodied exercises, and conversation maps. Exemplified by fascinating transcripts of therapeutic work, it proposes a long awaited way to combine effective narrative practices with cutting edge discoveries on mindfulness, Interpersonal Neurobiology, and Positive Psychology.Building on decades of powerful exploration of the mind-body connection, some of which is well known to collectivistic communities, this engaging book provides fresh perspectives on how to integrate classic narrative therapy ideas with invigorating possibilities of working directly with emotions without losing sight of socio-cultural factors. Practitioners will discover a wide variety of ways to empower people of all ages to reengage with a meaningful life, sustain well-being, and develop thriving identities.
Mindfulness in a busy world: Lowering barriers for adults and youth to cultivate focus, emotional peace and gratefulness
M.N. Beaudoin + Kelsey Maki (March 2020) 30% off at publisher website - use code 4MINDFUL22
How can we increase the likelihood that people will be able to control their wandering mind, let go of upsetting thoughts and feelings, and apply the wisdom of mindfulness training to their day-to-day lives? Mindfulness in a busy world offers a bridge between the ancient wisdom of Eastern mindfulness teachings and the busy Western lifestyle of the tech era where an increasing number of people experience stress, anxiety, impatience, and an inability to be present in meaningful interactions. While traditional practices offer incredible possibilities of well-being and development, many people struggle to access these states of mind and ripen the skills to sustain them. This book offers insights into ways of mobilizing the brain’s attention systems so that distracted minds—often habituated to the constant overstimulation of screens and media—can more readily cultivate focus, calm, and kindness. Our society invests years in instructing people how to read, write, count, and think critically, but often forgets to support the crucial foundation of these abilities: focusing the mind. Learning to tame the mind allows people of all ages to live a more fulfilling life, balancing being and doing, thinking and feeling, listening and talking, compassion for self and others, and being an individual while belonging to a community.
Collaborative therapy and neurobiology: Evolving practices in action
M.N. Beaudoin + Jim Duvall (April 2017)
Collaborative therapies and neurobiology is the book many clinicians have been waiting for: An integration of twenty years of scientific and therapeutic cutting edge ideas into concrete clinical practices! The birth of inspiring theories such as Interpersonal Neurobiology and the development of exciting new technologies which allow us to better understand the brain, have provided us with an enriched perspective on human experience. Yet, many clinicians wonder how to use this knowledge, and how these discoveries can actually benefit their clients. In particular, what are the concrete practices that each field uses to help clients overcome the issues in their lives, and how can these fields build on each other’s ideas? Could minimally developed concepts in each field be combined into innovative and powerful practices to foster client well-being? This book offers a collection of writings which provide theoretical food for thought, research evidence, and most importantly hands on, concrete clinical ideas to enrich therapists’ work with a variety of clients. Illustrated with numerous transcripts of conversations and clinical stories, the ideas in this book will stimulate the work of people interested in renewing their work with new ideas.
Boosting ALL Children's Social and Emotional Brain Power: Life transforming activities
M.N. Beaudoin (2013)
How can the exciting discoveries in neurobiology and brain sciences be used towards the development of ALL children's social and emotional skills in groups and classrooms? How can these new findings influence how counselors and educators prevent the many ramping problems in schools such as teasing, bullying, excluding, tattling, etc.? This book is written to give educators and counselors a variety of conversational tools and creative activities to foster social and emotional skills such as awareness, anger management, patience, impulse-control, kindness, tolerance, empathy, perspective, calm, helpfulness, and thinking before acting.
The activities in this book are unique in several ways: most education books and social skill training groups involve a top-down process where adults teach young people what they should do. But from a neurobiology perspective, the top-down teaching of life skills has shown itself to be fraught with many problems: children not remembering what to do at critical times because the type of brain activity during an emotional upset is very different than during a lesson; its over-generalized, one-size-fits-all approach which leads to the mental disconnection of children who most need these programs; and the fact that young people often find the material un-engaging or irrelevant to their own emotional lives. The research base and award winning activities in this book do exactly the opposite: they build on students' own unique brain wiring for problem solving, boost the specific area of the brain involved in self-regulation and impulse control, highlight the ingredients of successful problem solving attempts, and keep children interested by using cutting edge ways of exploring experiences, and entertaining activities. This powerful combination allows for a complex level of encoding since it reinvigorates and enriches emerging and uniquely personal neural connections.
This book contains clear conceptual explanations, cartoons, transcripts, and everything one needs to facilitate the exercises, including suggested facilitation transcripts and easy to photocopy handouts.
How do children’s brains learn best? How can we talk to children in a way that they will be engaged, respond with something other than “I don’t know”, and later on, use the important ideas we discussed together? This example filled book presents a helpful conversational map, ways of tapping into children’s memory, and a vast repertoire of questions that can invigorate transformative interactions with young people of all ages. Of particular interest, it offers an innovative way to enhance empathy and compassion that is effective even with young children.
Recently translated to French!
Les 1001 compétences en chaque enfant in Canada
Les 1001 compétences en chaque enfant in France
Also available in Spanish: CADA NIÑO PUEDE SER JUN MILLONARIO EN HABILIDADES
Responding to the culture of bullying & disrespect:
New perspectives on collaboration, compassion, & responsibility
M.N. Beaudoin & M. Taylor
Corwin Press/Sage Publ., 2010.
A translated best seller, this book offers fresh understandings, and a step by step process to effectively prevent and handle a large number of chronic problems such as bullying, disrespect, gossiping, tattling, peer pressure, impulsivity, and conflicts. It provides a thorough analysis of how problems in general develop, and continue in spite of adults’ best efforts. The book describes a variety of conversational practices, discussion maps, innovative interventions, and exercises, which can significantly increase children’s intrinsic motivation and actual ability to make preferred changes in their behaviors without needing adult’s surveillance all the time. Responding to the culture of bullying and disrespect includes several real-life examples from progressive schools, teacher stories, transcripts of conversations, and a set of engaging classroom activities.
Creating a Positive School Culture: How Principals and Teachers Can Solve Problems Together
M.N. Beaudoin & M. Taylor
Corwin Press/Sage Publ., 2004.
Featured in the California Educator and Educational Leadership, this book provides effective strategies for principals and teachers to understand, prevent, and solve staff related school climate problems. It describes a method for fostering collaboration between educators, and addressing many school culture obstacles such as gossip, negative talk, burn out, cliques, etc.
Working with Groups to Enhance Relationships
M.N. Beaudoin & S. Walden
Whole Person Assoc., 1998.
This unique book offers 46 powerful, thought-provoking, and fun group exercises to assist adults in developing, and enriching their relationships. This book is ideal for a variety of team building workshops with colleagues, couples or simply to develop any adults’ relationship skills in general. It includes entertaining exercises on communicating, listening, collaborating, gender issues, power imbalance, problem solving, etc.
Articles
Finding a Skillionaire in Every Child
Family Therapy Magazine
How can we effectively help young people develop their rich potential as they experiment with various ways of being and meander through childhood’s novel experiences?
Given that children are constantly changing, how can adults team up with the brain’s malleability (neuroplasticity) to foster social and emotional skills?
Thinkitis vs Mindfulness
Family Therapy Magazine
How often does your mind dwell at a different place than your body?
What can possibly be wrong with doing something as common as walking or driving while lost in thought?
Other articles available upon request
DVDs
If you've heard of these DVDs at a workshop/conference, feel free to call in your order, mention the event, and get a 50% discount!
Professionals working with various groups of children, such as classrooms or social skills' programs, will be delighted to discover completely novel ways of boosting children's social and emotional skills. Packed with interviews of educators, consultants, and children of all ages, this documentary contains a thought provoking theoretical backdrop, followed by footage of non scripted live sessions in a 2nd grade and 4th grade classroom. A number of concrete and life transforming projects, activities, metaphors, and experiences are illustrated and explained, as well as examples of cultural practices which foster the development of communities of children who appreciate and respect one another.
Finding the Skill'ionaire in Every Person: A Conversation Map to Enhance Social and Emotional Skills
The last two decades have seen an exciting explosion of research in the fields of neurobiology, mindfulness, and positive psychology. Can these findings shed light on effective ways to encourage children, adult, and families to strive?
Based on the popular book The Skill'ionaire in Every Child: Boosting Socio-emotional Skills Using the Latest in Brain Research, this film examines...
Neurobiology and Narrative Therapy: Therapeutic Practices for Lasting Change
How can we make insightful conversations, moments of wisdom, and people’s experiences of competency stick in their memories and become usable in their everyday lives? Using playful explanations of brain structures, funny demonstrations of their implications, and live interviews with adults and children, this video offers critical ideas on how to empower people to live to their fullest...