Functional family therapy for adolescent behavior problems.

Abstract

Adolescents with disruptive behaviour problems represent one of the most difficult and recalcitrant treatment populations. These youth and their parents often enter treatment unwilling or unable to try new behaviours. Family interactions are laced with blame, hostility, hopelessness, and rejection, all of which create a context that interferes with adaptive change. This book explains how to provide Functional Family Therapy (FFT), an empirically supported, highly successful family intervention for delinquent and substance-using adolescents. FFT systematically alters important risk and protective factors associated with the problem behaviours. The FFT therapist first increases family members' motivation to change by disrupting their dysfunctional attributions about themselves and each other and replacing them with more positive and adaptive perceptions. The therapist then works with the family to eliminate the problem behaviours and generalise new skills and interaction patterns to broader community relations. Robust yet flexible, the FFT model has been replicated successfully in juvenile justice, mental health, and child welfare settings, as well as traditional substance treatment and school-based programs. Given FFT's high success rate and ability to fit an array of settings, this book is ideal for all therapists and administrators who work with troubled youth and their families. Readers will learn the therapy goals and techniques for each phase of FFT, as well as recommendations for supervision and administration.