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. Seventy-five percent of all mental health disorders emerge by the age of twenty-five, and twentysomethings are more likely to face depression, anxiety, and substance abuse than any other age group. The pandemic has intensified this crisis, but it was underway well before 2020, in large part because young people and the professionals who treat them have rushed to prescribe pills, rather than helping them develop essential life skills for dealing with the uncertainties that abound in our twenties. 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 of them don’t have disorders that must be they have problems that can be solved. It is time to upend the medicalization of young adult life or else we risk hobbling—even sickening—an entire generation. In The Twentysomething Treatment, Jay teaches us how to acquire essential skills such -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 make sex more fulfilling than you thought was possible. -How to move, literally, toward happiness and health. -How to face, rather than avoid, bad feelings so they won’t haunt you. -How to cook your way into confidence and connection. -How to change a bad habit. -How to decide when so much is undecided. -And how to choose purpose at work and in love. Along the way, Jay shares dozens of rich, revealing stories of students and clients who are learning to embrace uncertainty and live full lives. The Twentysomething Treatment is essential reading for anyone who wants to find out how mental health gets better when we get better at life.
Author
She is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Virginia and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville, Virginia. Dr. Jay’s book, The Defining Decade, was a 2012 Slate.com Staff Pick and her 2013 TED talk “Why 30 Is Not the New 20″ has been viewed more than 2 million times. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Forbes, Psychology Today, and NPR. Dr. Jay earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and in gender studies, from the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, Dr. Jay was a research associate on the Mills Longitudinal Study, one of the longest-running studies of female adult development in the world. Her research on women, depression, and gender was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, and was published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association and as the Symonds Prize article in Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Her work on the assessment of depression has been published in Psychological Assessment. An award-winning lecturer, Dr. Jay served as adjunct faculty at Berkeley where she taught Clinical Psychology, Personality Psychology, Social Psychology, and Psychology of Gender. Dr. Jay currently supervises doctoral students in clinical psychology at the University of Virginia. Dr. Jay has served as a fellow for the American Psychoanalytic Association, the Center for the Study of Sexual Cultures, and the Robert Stoller Foundation. Dr. Jay earned a B.A. with High Distinction in psychology from University of Virginia. She spent her own early twentysomething years as an Outward Bound instructor.
