I Want To Be Me But I Don't Know Who I Am: A Guidebook for Teens and Young Adults (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780998778600)

Madeleine Boskovitz, PhD, is a psychologist with years of experience with youngsters and teenagers in public schools, in inner cities and in outlying, underserved rural areas, and teen shelters. In addition, Dr. Boskovitz has much experience teaching junior college, undergraduate, and graduate students who needed much support in managing their life decisions. In each of these settings, she has found younger and older teens yearning to understand themselves, to feel empowered to manage their behavior, and eager to follow their dreams. In 1979, Dr. Boskovitz discovered the pioneering work of French Psychiatrist, Francoise Dolto, who promoted a respectful and authentic acknowledgement of the dignity and separateness of the "other," at any age. Dr. Dolto's work eventually inspired Madeleine to engage in formal studies in psychology. Her extensive doctoral research focused on adolescent development and difficult behaviors. Her dissertation, titled: Demographic, Experiential, and Developmental Correlates of Adolescent Self-Destructive Behavior, led her to demonstrate how much the inner and outer environment impacts identity development and behavior. She obtained her PhD in Counseling Psychology in 2000. In her Houston, Texas, practice, Dr. Boskovitz practices from a psychodynamic understanding of development. She promotes a healthy separation between parents and their children, of any age, so that two exciting developments can take place. The first is that children can begin to assume their own shape and begin to take responsibility for their behavior and their consequences. At the same time, parents who keep a healthy distance from their children feel more adequate as parents and can then offer their children the right amount of presence and support for their choices and endeavors as these grow throughout their life. From her developmental approach, Dr. Boskovitz assists teens and young adults in recognizing their strengths and using them to promote changes in those areas that are more difficult for her clients. Most of the time, these changes revolve around Identity development and lifestyle choices. She helps young people learn the skills illustrated in her book: improve emotional balance and manage behavior, learn self-soothing skills, recognize their own needs and assert themselves appropriately in social situations. Finally, she helps her clients become empowered to be who they are and want to become.