Professional Acclaim for Clear Thinking

"Clear Thinking, a psychoeducational cognitive therapy program for adolescents, goes well beyond currently available materials in providing educators, and other instructors, methods for presenting 'self-help" cognitive techniques in a classroom or group setting. . . The author adeptly provides tips for avoiding problems in the classroom setting when teaching particular subject areas, as well as references and suggested readings. . .

"This course would be applicable to a broad range of youth, from 'normal' to 'disturbed.' We would recommend Clear Thinking to anyone who has the challenge of working with an adolescent population."

A. John Rush, M.D. and Betsy D. Kennard, Psy.D.
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

"This is an outstanding series of lessons grounded in a fine understanding of students' behavioral and cognitive development. I will use it and recommend it to program staff with whom I consult."

Vernon Jones, Ph.D., Department Chair, Department of Teaching, School Counseling, & Educational Leadership, Lewis & Clark University

"We are now realizing that rather than changing behavior from the outside, we need to help our youth think more clearly themselves. Clear Thinking provides us with a structure for doing so. Such an approach empowers the youth who are involved to change their lives. This approach truly demonstrates a viable alternative to the 'curriculum of control' that has been observed in programs serving youth at risk.

"Clear Thinking brings structure to the richness of more clinical interventions to youth experiencing emotional and behavioral disorders. Nichols has done an outstanding job of recognizing the previous work that has been done with these approaches while weaving a rich, new fabric of educational interventions."

Carl Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Iowa State University
Project Director, Iowa Behavioral Alliance

"Troubled young people are in desperate need of self-understanding. . . Behavioral procedures, while powerful in supporting learning, can injure students' need to develop a sense of control over what happens to them . . . The materials you have developed will help teachers and students think, feel, and talk about possible behavior options. Once students have made choices among possible alternatives for behavior in situations that are important to them, directed learning experiences can facilitate mastery of the skills needed to carry through with those choices. . .

For the more mature students I see, and to whose stories I listen, attention the cognitive material seems to be important. I think this approach may offer a more useful approach than our past efforts to study 'self-concept.'"

Frank Wood, Ph.D., former Editor of the Journal of Behavior Disorders
Professor Emeritus, University of Minnesota

". . . a real contribution to the issue of therapeutic classrooms. . . This is one of the only things I know that psychologically approaches the issues. You do for this what Jones & Jones do for management."

William C. Morse, Ph.D., Consulting Psychologist
Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan