Review of The Thriving Adolescent:
By Reyelle MeKeever
ACT for adolescents provides an exciting opportunity to develop processes uniquely relevant for this population. At the ANZ ACBS Chapter Conference in Wellington, New Zealand I was fortunate to attend a workshop presented by Dr Louise Hayes on ‘ACT for Thriving Adolescents’. The workshop presented a new theoretical model specifically for adolescents developed by Louise and Dr Joseph Ciarrochi.
The DNA-V model is premised on considering, ‘How do young people grow flexibly?’. This is different from helping adult clients shift from inflexibility to flexibility. ACT was initially grounded in psychopathology – this new model strives to teach adolescents to grow in their development using a bottom-up approach rather than trying to fit adult models for this population using a top-down approach.
The components of the DNA-V model include the Discoverer, the Noticer and the Advisor with Values being the compass to model the young person across the three roles. In the workshop, Louise explained the model was formed when reviewing the vagal system and research work including that by Stephen Porges. The model covers all components across contextual behaviour science, RFT and social context. Louise’s workshop presented on the evolution science and evidence base for the model very clearly and convincingly.
Values are the bookends of the model. They are the lightly touched upon at the beginning of teaching the DNA-V model and returned to later once deeper work has been undertaken. Values are the basis for selection and retention of behaviour, and form a compass for adolescents to move around the three components: Noticer, Discoverer and Advisor.
The Noticer is the ability to notice the world and those in it. It is present from birth. Babies are mindful ‘noticers’ and experience the world just as it is, without evaluation or judgments (but this can be uncomfortable). Children are mindful until they are taught not to be and become influenced by the impact of their actions on others. Part of the DNA-V model is reconnecting young people back with their Noticer by teaching them to listen to the information in their body and know how to react to that information.
The Discoverer builds on our early knowledge that we can influence, move, manipulate and make things happen – that we have agency in our world. This is an evolutionary skill that current social structures possibly inhibit for adolescents. Usually learnt through safe risk taking and social connection, adolescents have both a skilled and unskilled Discoverer. Our role is to help them build behavioural repertoires by stepping out of the Advisor role into the physical world to discover what we love about it. The Discoverer helps us to experience life in a way that is unseen by our Advisor.
The Advisor is developed as early as we develop language skills to influence the world and speak for ourselves. Slowly we create a world by our thoughts, experiences and memories that is unique to ourselves. The Advisor becomes our ‘best friend’ – a constant companion of how we engage and manipulate the world inside our heads, like how we use our past to predict our future actions and expected outcomes.
The workshop included several practical and physical strategies to introduce the DNA-V model and each of the components. I them very engaging and easily applicable to working individually or in a group with young people. The creativity and playfulness of the exercises would appeal to young people and provide an environment for them to explore both their internal and physical worlds and grow flexibly. I believe that Louise and Joseph have created a rich and workable model for practitioners and I have regularly drawn on the model and its exercises in my clinical work with young people.