About Elisa Nebolsine, LCSW
Therapist, Author and Educator
As an author and cognitive behavioral therapist specializing in brain health, my work is deeply influenced by the principles of Positive Psychology developed by Martin Seligman.
His groundbreaking research on "learned helplessness" revealed how people can overcome feelings of being stuck or powerless by changing their thought patterns—a cornerstone of CBT practice.
What drives my work
I believe in the power of prevention, intervention, and education before suffering takes hold.
By teaching practical skills based on research, I help people understand their own minds and develop healthier thought patterns. My work focuses particularly on recognizing three thought patterns that often lead to low mood:
Permanent thinking: The belief that problems will never improve ("I will never figure this out")
Personal blame: Assuming you're always at fault ("This is all because of me")
Pervasive impact: Feeling that one problem ruins everything ("I failed this test, and now I won't get into a good college")
My forever fascination with our developing brain
When I was writing the book, Your Amazing Teen Brain, I often would reflect back to my own adolescence and try and make connections between what I was learning and my memories of my experience. I am curious what it would've been like to have this knowledge during that time, and how it would've affected or not affected my choices. Having a greater understanding of your brain makes a big difference.
One of the funny things I find just as an anecdote is that the music we listen to as teens tends to get pretty cemented into our brain. And this is just a fun fact, if you talk to adults and ask them about the songs they listen to in their teenage years, they invariably will be able to recite them if not verbatim, pretty close to it. There's just so much that is deeply felt about the teenage years, and the more you can understand what's going on internally with your brain, the better it is.
Books based on research & science. And at the heart informed by living dialogue with teens
I wrote Your Amazing Teen Brain during the Covid lockdown. I was very lucky to have a community where my kids could be around other kids, and we had a lot of interaction.
I led a community service group for kids in our neighborhood for more than 10 years, and those kids were often around during Covid and were very important in the development of this book.
It was not uncommon for me to read to them a chapter that I was working on and get their feedback about how it impacted them how it resonated with them, and their thoughts and feelings about it.
Your Amazing Teen Brain did feel like a collaboration between the young people in my life and the research and science I was absorbing during that period of time.
Knowledge shapes your perception of your experiences
I am the parent of three young adults, and my youngest called me recently from school to tell me about a study she had read about the impact of being left out of situations.
I laughed and asked her if she'd ever read my brain book. She admitted she had not. I had asked her because the study she was referring to was actually in the book.
I say this because the studies cited in the brain book are relevant and interesting to kids.
When you understand what's happening within your brain, within your relationships, and within your experience, it does change how you see things. It often makes things feel more normalized and makes people feel less alone. This is a developmental experience versus this is me and I am broken.
Interesting fact:
I live and work in the Del Ray community of Alexandria, Virginia. I have had the unique privilege of painting the community piano, painting many storefronts for holidays, and, most recently, for an upcoming dog festival. And, one of the things I am most proud of was collaborating with the local citizens group to begin a new category in the holiday house decoration contest- the Clark W. Griswold award for the most outrageous and wonderfully over-the-top decorated home. I was very proud to serve as a judge for that category.
I also did an entire painting series of various animals blowing bubbles. The only remaining image is of a squirrel my niece very graciously kept.
