Reading Group Guide

INTRODUCTION
Media, peers, and even parents send teen girls dangerously conflicting messages about what it means to look and act just right and to be good, hip, attractive, and desired. Frighteningly, everyday events can start a teen on a downward spiral. The growing rate of depression in teens is alarming, and parents need to understand the difference between "normal adolescent girl angst" and trouble. The Disappearing Girl explores, how to recognize signals OF problem behavior, why silence reflects a girl’s desperate wish for inclusion, how to build self esteem, and the vulnerabilities inherent in dating, friendships, school, and family.

Dr. Machoian also offers guidance for parents and daughters, therapists and teachers, with specific activities each can do to help keep girls from falling into depression. Combining twenty years OF research and conversations with parents, teachers, social workers, therapists, counselors, caregivers, and troubled teens, Dr. Machoian explores teen life and depression and provides essential tools for helping the girls we love.

Dr. Lisa Machoian taught in Harvard Graduate School of Education's Department of Human Development and Psychology and was also the director of their Gender Studies Concentration. She has worked for more than twenty years with teenage girls, and her articles have appeared in many publications. She now devotes her time to lecturing, consulting, and conducting workshops for parents, teens, professionals, and institutions, and works as a psychotherapist and teen life and parenting coach. Dr. Machoian serves on the board of Retreat from Violence, an organization that works on preventing teen violence. She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from Harvard and lives in Cambridge.