FROM THERAPEUTIC BLACK HOLES TO POSSIBILITIES: COLLABORATIVE STRENGTHS-BASED BRIEF FAMILY THERAPY WITH CHALLENGING CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

Children and adolescents presenting with longstanding difficulties with explosive and angry, highly oppositional, delinquent, school disruptive, self-harming, and heavy substance-abusing behaviors can be a nightmare for even the most seasoned of therapists to work with. Many of these clients come from families where they have experienced a great deal of emotional invalidation and disconnection, marital discord or post-divorce parental conflicts, and multiple treatment failures. Due to the chronicity and severity of their behaviors, they often attract an army of helping professionals from larger systems who have differing opinions regarding the causes of the presenting problems, treatment goals and expectations that only serve to further perpetuate the clients’ difficulties.

In this “hands on” practice-oriented two-day workshop, participants will learn a collaborative strengths-based brief therapy approach that capitalizes on the strengths and resources of adolescents, children, and their families, key resource people from their social networks, and involved helpers from larger systems to co-construct solutions. A special emphasis will be placed on the creative use of self to co-create with adolescents and children and their families compelling future realities. As a result of attending this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Create a climate ripe for change beginning with the initial telephone contacts with clients
• Tailor fit the relationship of choice with clients’ unique needs, cooperative styles, and characteristics
• Use the Blueprint for Change Plan to empower clients to create their own treatment roadmap for change
• Use of oneself as the catalyst for change
• Use therapeutic questions to elicit client expertise, well-formed goals, and untold stories to open up space for possibilities
• Effective engagement strategies with reluctant and difficult children and adolescents
• Use mindfulness meditations, multi-sensory, and related practices to help clients to achieve inner peace
• Engage and foster cooperative relationships with angry, highly pessimistic, laissez-faire, and mental health and substance abuse-impaired parents
• Use effective solution-oriented parent management tools and strategies
• Tap the imagination powers of children and adolescents and their families through the use of connection-building rituals, art, expressive writing, and drama to co-generate solutions
• Facilitate collaborative meetings with helping professionals from larger systems and concerned resource people from clients’ social networks that are solution-generating and transformative
• Use effective goal-maintenance and family relapse prevention tools and strategies to prevent clients’ from backsliding and keep them on track
• Use trouble-shooting guidelines to explore alternative therapeutic directions with complex and stuck cases

 

The workshop format provides information rich didactic presentation, extensive use of videotape examples of major therapeutic tools, live family therapy consultations, and skill-building exercises.