The Twentysomething Treatment: A Revolutionary Remedy for an Uncertain Age

by Meg Jay Narrated by Meg Jay

Overview

The author of The Defining Decade explains why the twenties are the most challenging time of life and reveals essential skills for handling the uncertainties surrounding work, love, friendship, mental health, and more during that decade and beyond.

There is a young adult mental health crisis in America. So many twentysomethings are struggling-especially with anxiety, depression, and substance use-yet, as a culture, we are not sure what to think or do about it. Perhaps, it is said, young adults are snowflakes who melt when life turns up the heat. Or maybe, some argue, they're triggered for no reason at all. Yet, even as we trivialize twentysomething struggles, we are quick to pathologize them and to hand out diagnoses and medications.

Medication is sometimes, but not always, the best medicine. For twenty-five years, Meg Jay has worked as a clinical psychologist who specializes in twentysomethings, and here she argues that most don't have disorders that must be treated: they have problems that can be solved. In these pages, she offers a revolutionary remedy that upends the medicalization of twentysomething life and advocates instead for skills over pills.

In The Twentysomething Treatment, Jay teaches us:
-How to think less about “what if” and more about “what is.”
-How to feel uncertain without coming undone.
-How to work-at work-toward competence and calm.
-How to be social when social media functions as an evolutionary trap.
-How to befriend someone and why this is more crucial for survival than ever.
-How to love someone even though they may break your heart.
-How to have sex when porn is easier and more available.
-How to move, literally, toward happiness and health.
-How to cook your way into confidence and connection.
-How to change a bad habit you may not know you have.
-How to decide when so much about life is undecided.
-How to choose purpose at work and in love.

The Twentysomething Treatment is a book that offers help and hope to millions of young adults-and to the friends, parents, partners, teachers, and mentors who care about them-just when they need it the most. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to find out how to improve our mental health by improving how we handle the uncertainties of life.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

02/26/2024

Clinical psychologist Jay (The Defining Decade) presents a brisk and pragmatic guide to mental health for young adults. Critiquing what she sees as a crisis of overmedication and overdiagnosed mental illness, Jay posits that most 20-somethings “don’t have disorders that need to be treated; they have problems that need to be solved,” many of which stem from the inherent uncertainty of that stage of life, which can catalyze depression, substance abuse disorders, and other mental health issues. As an alternative, Jay outlines brass-tacks skills for tackling challenges such as career shifts (in an uncertain job landscape, 20-somethings should focus on accruing skills that are “transportable across jobs or locations”) and social stress (“The only way to feel more sure of yourself socially is to spend more time being social... only experience can teach your brain that this isn’t as dangerous as it feels”). While Jay’s assertion that “we ought to proceed thoughtfully... when considering psychiatric medications” for young adults is well-taken, readers may be left unsure about how to harness that information in terms of seeking psychiatric care and deciding whether to go on medication themselves. Still, the author’s can-do attitude and experience-based advice will do plenty to reassure that uncertainty is an inevitable element of young adulthood that needn’t be incapacitating. This is a solid resource for the stressed-out. (Apr.)

Kirkus Reviews

2023-12-05
Caught between adolescence and maturity, twentysomethings are spiraling into crisis, argues a developmental clinical psychologist.

The time between the ages of 20 and 30 is often depicted as a time of freedom, experimentation, and personal growth. Jay, a clinical psychologist who specializes in this age group, disagrees. Her experience, which she bolsters with medical statistics, is that members of this demographic are likely to face depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and loneliness, and their common responses—to reach for therapy, medication, recreational drugs, or social media—often make their problems worse. They seem to have little idea about how to make friends and build relationships, and they’re constantly worried that any emotional connection will leave them hurt and scarred. They crave certainty, but as the author shows, that’s not going to happen. Jay has plenty of stories to illustrate her points, and she’s constantly surprised that the people she treats seem so unprepared for adult life. She covered some of this territory in an earlier book, The Defining Decade, and this book can be read as a follow-up concerned primarily with possible remedies. Even with her solid psychotherapy credentials, Jay’s focus is on non-medical solutions. She offers practical advice on developing social relationships, choosing a suitable job, finding a purpose, and even falling in love. Learning to cook—actual cooking, not throwing something into the microwave—is surprisingly beneficial. So is physical movement, whether it’s a dance class or a stroll around the block. The author also notes that readers should be prepared to accept some scrapes and bruises as essential parts of growing up. “Life is the best therapist of all,” Jay concludes, “and it is affordable, accessible, and right outside your door.”

Jay combines therapeutic experience with personal insights, providing a wealth of guidance to those who most need it.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940159548764
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	04/09/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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