Functional Family Therapy for High-Risk Adolescents

In Functional Family Therapy for High-Risk Adolescents, James F.

Alexander demonstrates his approach to working with families that have teenage children exhibiting behavior issues and associated emotional disruptions. Teens with behavior problems are one of the most difficult populations with whom therapists work, as adolescents and their families frequently enter treatment against their will, either under legal order or at strong insistence of authority figures such as school administrators.

Family interactions can be hostile, and a sense of hopelessness is not uncommon. Dr. Alexander's approach involves working to increase family motivation to change by disrupting negative attributions they may have about themselves and other family members and replacing these with more positive and adaptive attributions. In this video, Dr. Alexander works with a mother, father, and their 15-year-old son, who has been exhibiting behavior problems such as drug use and school truancy and who has recently been charged with breaking and entering.

The session focuses not only on the son, but also the mother and father, whose relationship has been under significant strain for years due to the mother's own substance use and frequent disappearances from the family. This DVD features clients portrayed by actors on the basis of a composite of several cases.