UBC Press Young People and the Curse of Ordinariness book Paperback 144 pages

Again and again, young people return to the question, "Am I the same as other people or am I different?" It's a difficult question to answer. Everyone knows that they're the same as other people in lots of ways yet they suspect that they might also be different. Or they want to be different... Or they accuse other people of being different... Or they get beaten up for being different...This book is about young people trying to find answers, or at least trying to live more comfortably with the question. Using dozens of recognisable vignettes, Luxmoore explores young people's anxieties about ordinariness and extraordinariness, anxieties that affect everything: their behaviour, choices, relationships, happiness. He describes ways of working supportively and imaginatively with young people so that they can begin to find a better balance, enjoying their lives and achieving all sorts of things without losing sight of the fact that - underneath everything and like everyone else - they're ordinary, and there's nothing wrong with that. This original and thought-provoking book will enable professionals in counselling, teaching, youth work and youth justice to support young people struggling with these anxieties and the eternal question, "Am I normal?"

Nick Luxmoore is a school counsellor, trainer, teacher, youth worker and UKCP registered Psychodrama psychotherapist. He has over 30 years' experience of work with young people and with the professionals who support them. He has previously published Listening to Young People in School, Youth Work and Counselling; Working with Anger and Young People; Feeling like Crap: Young People and the Meaning of Self-esteem and Young People in Love and in Hate, all published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. He currently works as the College Counsellor at King Alfred's College, Wantage.