Generating nonnegative attitudes among parents of depressed adolescents: The power of empathy, concern, and positive regard

Abstract

Parental negativity is associated with the onset and maintenance of adolescent depression. Reducing parental negativity is a primary focus of family-based treatments for this clinical population. This study examined the association between therapist relationship-facilitating and attachment-oriented interventions and the valence (i.e., positivity–negativity) of parents’ attitudes toward their depressed adolescent in a sample of 13 sessions of attachment-based family therapy. Lag sequential analyses revealed that in good alliance sessions relationship-facilitating interventions, such as empathy and positive regard for the parent, were associated with parents’ nonnegative attitudes toward their adolescent in the five speech turns subsequent to the intervention. Attachment-oriented interventions, such as relational reframes, addressing core relational themes, and highlighting vulnerable emotions, were also intermittently associated with nonnegative parental attitudes in good alliance sessions. No such effects were evident for the comparison interventions. This study represents a first step in the process of testing specific strategies for reducing parental negativity in family therapy.