Adolescent Therapy
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CHAT, PARENTING: Teen Years
(25 Messages)
As hard as raising children seemed to me in the early years, it seems to me now that it was in so many ways a lot simpler. They were little; I was bigger, and I could *make* them do what they were supposed to do. They're 16 and 19 now, and a situation came up last night that was horribly upsetting to me, and to them, and to a lesser extent to their Dad (because he had already gone to bed and was trying to sleep.) My younger son was in a funk last night, and he told me that one of his best friend ...
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Family Therapy - Definition, Purpose, Description, Risks, Normal Purpose The goal of family therapy is to help family members improve communication, solve family problems, understand and handle special family situations (for example, death, serious physical or mental illness, or child and adolescent issues), and create a better functioning home environment. For families with one member who has a serious physical or mental illness, family therapy can educate families about the illness and work out problems associated with care of the family member. For children and adolescents, family therapy most often is used when ...
Description Family therapy is generally conducted by a therapist or team of therapists who are trained and experienced in family and group therapy techniques. Therapists may be psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, or counselors. Family therapy involves multiple therapy sessions, usually lasting at least one hour each, conducted at regular intervals (for example, once weekly) for several months. Typically, family therapy is initiated to address a specific problem, such as an adolescent with a psychological disorder or adjustment to a death in the family. However, frequently, therapy sessions reveal ...
Multisystemic therapy - Definition, Purpose, Description, Normal Definition Multisystemic therapy (MST) is an intensive family- and community-based treatment program designed to make positive changes in the various social systems (home, school, community, peer relations) that contribute to the serious antisocial behaviors of children and adolescents who are at risk for out-of-home placement. These out-of-home placements might include foster care, group homes , residential care, correctional facilities, or hospitalization .
Purpose MST is licensed by MST Services, Inc., through the Medical University of South Carolina and operates with the fundamental assumption that parents (defined as guardians), or those who have primary caregiving responsibilities to children, have the most important influence in changing problem behaviors in children and adolescents. The primary goals of MST are to: develop in parents or caregivers the capacity to manage future difficulties reduce juvenile criminal activity reduce other types of antisocial behaviors, such as drug abuse achieve these outcomes at a cost savings by decreasing rates ...
NIDA - Publications - Brief Strategic Family Therapy for Adolescent This chapter describes the BSFT approach to orchestrating change in the family. The first section describes how BSFT counselors establish a therapeutic relationship, including the importance of joining with the family, the role of tracking family interactions, and what is involved in building a treatment plan. The second section describes strategies for producing change in the family, including focusing on the present, reframing negativity in the family, shifting patterns of interaction through reversals of usual behavior, changing family boundaries and alliances, "detriangulating" family members caught in the middle of others' ...
The counselor's first step in working with a family is to establish a therapeutic relationship with the family, beginning with the very first contact with family members. The quality of the relationship between the counselor and the family is a strong predictor of whether families will come to, stay in, and improve in treatment (Robbins et al. 1998). In general, studies have found that the therapeutic relationship is a strong predictor of success in many forms of therapy (Rector et al. 1999; Stiles et al. 1998). Validating and supporting the family as a system and attending to each individual family ...
NIDA - Publications - Brief Strategic Family Therapy for Unfortunately, some counselors handle engagement problems by accepting the resistance of some family members. In effect, the counselor agrees with the family's assessment that only one member is sick and needs treatment. Consequently, the initially well-intentioned counselor agrees to see only one or two family members for treatment. This usually results in the adolescent and an overburdened mother following through with counseling visits. Therefore, the counselor has been co-opted into the family's dysfunctional process.
Not only has the counselor "bought" the family's definition of the problem, but he or she also has accepted the family's ideas about who is the identified patient. When the counselor agrees to see only one or two family members, instead of challenging the maladaptive family interaction patterns that kept the other members away, he or she is reinforcing those family patterns. In the example in which a mother and son are allied against the father, if the counselor accepts the mother and son into counseling, he or she is reinforcing the father figure's disengagement.