The Twentysomething Treatment

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.

Meg Jay, PhD, is a developmental clinical psychologist who specializes in twentysomethings. She earned a doctorate in clinical psychology, and in gender studies, from the University of California, Berkeley. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and on NPR and BBC. Her TED talk, “Why 30 Is Not the New 20,” is among the most watched of all time. Dr. Jay is on faculty at University of Virginia and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville.