Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein is a best-selling author and film maker who uses positive psychology concepts to help kids deal with bullying, anxiety, depression, loneliness, school shootings and social media issues.
WILMINGTON, NC, February 10, 2024 /24-7PressRelease/ — Growing up, now known as coming of age, has always presented unique human challenges for young people. All kinds of life-changing social factors come to the forefront, and concerns like body image issues, particularly for girls, start to emerge. These challenges are both physical and psychological.
Mental health especially, while always a focal point, has now taken center stage in a world in which these kids face lockdowns, school shootings, anxiety, climate change and social media bullying. The effects of mental health problems during these years will have lasting implications, extending into adulthood. The roles parents, grandparents and educators can play have become diminished, due to the fact that older adults cannot understand, let alone offer effective approaches, to things they have not experienced and perhaps cannot understand. Most of us have never been told to hide under a desk and turn out the lights. Very few of us have been wakened by a ding in the middle of the night to find out we have been ostracized from our peer group. None of us believed the world could cease to exist before we reached adulthood.
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, a visionary psychologist, film maker and author, has spent decades developing tools and techniques to help girls enhance self esteem and resilience. One of those tools, a workbook for girls titled, ‘Looking Good, Feeling Good’, just achieved bestseller status, an honor that many of her other books have achieved. The ebook hit the top of the Teen and Young Adult Self Esteem eBooks.
In this workbook, Each girl is offered an engaging opportunity to develop her creative talents and potential as she processes and better understands the angst of growing up and how it can be successfully handled. She can bring her own talents to her thoughts and responses to the issues presented which will further take her along a road of enhanced resilience and better self esteem. She can share her creative thoughts and answer questions, and even create poetry, start a play, draw a picture, or she can get out her phone and use it as a diary, or a means of sharing ideas about growing up with a friend, her mom or grandma. Or she can actually make selfie films with her phone which can be a great enhancer for self esteem and sharing one’s creative talents.
She has also announced the release of a new selfie film series. The new series includes 7 films:
Self Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 1. The Truth – A Short Film
A young girl shares her diary – falling in love, hating her mother, hating her parents fighting, being afraid to grow up, being upset that they may move, loving the locket her aunt gives her and feeling loved in ways by her aunt that her parents can’t seem to muster, wishing the boy she is in love with would grow taller, confronting her disappointment that she has no relationship with him, sharing her glee at having a best friend and confiding in each other, coming to terms with growing up, letting go of her first love, getting ready to move and more.
Self Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 2. Falling In Love – A Coming Of Age Selfie Film
A young teen talks to ‘you’ via Selfies on her smart phone. In these conversations the girl shares her loneliness moving, losing her best friend, her beginning friendships with new kids, and her realization that she has fallen in love again.
Self Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 3. Secrets – A Coming Of Age Selfie Film
Based on Secrets, Diary of a Gutsy Tween, this 10 minute film takes the audience on the complicated roller coaster ride of being 13. The ‘girl’ hates her parents, falls in love, has puberty and body concerns, realizes that secrets matter and finds herself in a miserable accidental situation. But all ends on an upbeat note with the girl realizing she is most in touch with happiness and a sense of joy when she is being true to herself.
Self Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 4. Conflict And A Bit Of Magic – A Coming Of Age Selfie Film
The ‘Girl’ is traumatized by being ditched by a boyfriend, a bully, alcohol and kids taking drugs. Who can understand and help her? Maybe her aunt, who she gets to visit. A seance with a Medium in which the ‘girl’s’ great-grandmother comes through gives her the courage she needs to ask her mom questions and in turn to learn some family secrets.
Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 5. The Medium – A Coming Of Age Selfie Film
The girl, unhappy, goes to visit a favorite aunt who takes her to see a medium. The girl’s great grandmother is channeled in and changes happen for the better. Was this real of a set-up? Does that matter?
Self Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 6. Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction – A Coming Of Age Selfie Film
Two traumatic events structure the ‘Girl’s’ high school year: a lockdown and a family secret. She is shocked yet manages to recover and to understand the importance and value of family and the complexity of truth.
Self Esteem And Resilience Series – Video 7. Lockdown
Three teens find themselves in the girls’ bathroom during a lock down in school. Each respond emotionally differently. All are affected.
All the films are available at https://vimeo.com/showcase/10863899, and on the Roku channel, The Enchanted Self Presents.
Dr. Holstein hopes to bring parents, teachers, librarians, grandparents and media together to accomplish one goal: Change in the lives of young people who suffer from anxiety and a growing sense of hopelessness and despair.
Dr. Holstein wraps Positive Psychology concepts in forms of media that young people find engaging, relatable and inspiring. These include:
Five bestselling, award-winning books (perfect for school libraries)
Five self-esteem workbooks for girls 8 and up
Award-winning films and coming of age selfie films
Podcasts
Dedicated websites
Stage plays
A library of articles
Ted-style talks
As a school psychologist and in her private practice, Dr. Holstein has worked with many children and parents, helping them to develop life skills in decision-making, recognition of their own talents, feel more courageous, and helping both kids and parents develop more successful inter-generational skills. Her last book, ‘Conflict and a Bit of Magic’, helps kids build self-esteem though reading the journal of a girl, identifying with the girl, and understanding they have more courage and resiliency than they thought they had. The book is based on the experiences of the already famous “girl” from ‘The Truth, Diary of a Gutsy Tween’ and ‘Secrets, Diary of a Gutsy Teen’, and achieved bestseller status in the multi-generational families category.
One of Dr. Holstein’s workbooks for kids, ‘Secrets’ achieved bestseller status in the ‘Teen & Young Adult Nonfiction on Depression’ category.
Dr. Holstein’s cutting-edge presentations, most recently based on the Covid-19 pandemic issues, can be found on both YouTube, Vimeo and on the Roku channel and Amazon Fire TV, titled as ‘The Enchanted Self Presents’.
Dr. Holstein recently created The Selfie Showcase, a new project emerging from The Selfie Project, that allows young people to voice their opinions on subjects that matter to young people, including the pandemic.
The Selfie Showcase allows kids, teens, and young adults ages 13 to 18 to candidly express their concerns, worries, observations and possible solutions by creating selfie videos or films around important subjects using a smartphone. Dr. Holstein’s mission is to help rectify, in several ways, some issues young people face by giving them a chance to engage with others in meaningful ways about the anxiety and stress they must grapple with constantly.
Dr. Holstein is available for media interviews and can be reached using the information below or by email at [email protected] information about the Selfie Showcase is available at http://www.selfiefilmmakers.com. Selfie videos and selfie films can be uploaded at the site. Potential podcast guests can contact Dr. Holstein by email. More information is available at her primary website at http://www.enchantedself.com.
Profile:
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, internationally known Positive Psychologist is the creator of The Enchanted Self ®, a positive psychology method for happiness and a pioneer in Selfies as Film. Dr. Holstein’s Enchanted Self website was included as one of the best websites in positive psychology. She is in private practice in Long Branch, New Jersey with her husband, Dr. Russell M. Holstein.
Dr. Barbara can be found on the web, interviewed, writing articles and posting video ‘TED’ style talks on Happiness, Positive Psychology, Relationships and Parenting. Her Roku channel is: The Enchanted Self Presents.
She has been a contributor to Your Tango, Heart and Soul, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Honey Good, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Redbook, Real Simple, Women’s World, The Wall Street Journal, Psychcentral.com, Time online, Readers Digest, Parade, the Today Show and Family Circle Magazine.
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