Treating the Adolescent in Family Therapy

Dr. Anne Fishel argues that teenagers exploring their separate identities fare best when they stay connected with their family. Honoring the simultaneous pulls on adolescents to be attached to, and independent of, their families, she challenges conventional assumptions about this developmental phase and suggests treatment approaches that promote growth while protecting and strengthening family relationships. The key features of family therapy are delineated by imaginatively addressing the problems of a single family with adolescents using seven perspectives_psychodynamic, experiential, structural, behavioral, strategic, systemic, and narrative. Drawing on her own rich clinical experience with adolescents in crisis, Dr. Fishel identifies and illustrates interventions for typical treatment dilemmas such as drug and alcohol use, truancy, suicidal risk, and sexual and aggressive feelings. Two common developmental variations are explored: adolescents having trouble growing up/leaving home, and those whose difficulties are actually rooted in their parents' marital problems. Literate, lively, and engaging, this book presents complex clinical material in an accessible way, offering practical clinical wisdom to therapists working with adolescents and their families.