This article illustrates the multidimensional impact of violence during infancy and the effectiveness of a relationship-focused treatment, child-parent psychotherapy (CPP), in addressing the traumatic consequences of exposure to violence. The authors describe the treatment of a 3-year-old boy and his mother and highlight three key points: (a)…

Shelter-recruited adolescents are known to have high rates of substance abuse and co-occurring internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Many studies have documented these mental health concerns, but only a small number of studies have tested interventions that may be useful for ameliorating these vulnerabilities. The current study…

An efficacious treatment is diminished in value if consumers do not seek it out and adhere to it, making treatment acceptability an important predictor of the effectiveness of treatment. This study examined the acceptability of treatments for depression to 67 female high school students. All participants read a vignette describing a depressed…

Forty-eight child psychotherapy outcome studies offering direct comparisons of an individual child treatment group to a combined parent-child/family therapy treatment group were included in this meta-analytic review. Results indicate that combined treatments produced a moderate effect beyond the outcomes achieved by individual child treatments,…

The predictors and moderators of treatment outcome for adolescents with bulimia nervosa (BN) are explored among those who participated in family based treatment or individual supportive psychotherapy. It is concluded that family-based treatment of BN may be most effective in those cases with low levels of eating disorder psychopathology.

Despite the overall efficacy of psychotherapy, dropouts are substantial, many clients do not benefit, therapists vary in effectiveness, and there may be a crisis of confidence among consumers. A research paradigm called "patient-focused research"--a method of enhancing outcome via continuous progress feedback--holds promise to address these…

This article examines the effectiveness of Mode Deactivation Family Therapy (MDT) in an outpatient setting as compared to Treatment as Usual (TAU). MDT is an evidence-based psychotherapy and has been shown to be effective treating adolescents with a variety of problems involving emotional disorder, physical and sexual aggression, as well as…

Objective: To examine the relative efficacy of intensive versus weekly cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) for children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Method: Forty children and adolescents with OCD (range 7-17 years) were randomized to receive 14 sessions of weekly or intensive (daily psychotherapy sessions) family-based…

Attachment theory provides a useful conceptual framework for understanding trauma and the treatment of abuse in children. This article examines attachment theory and traditional models of family therapy from the perspective of behavior analysis, and provides a rationale for a behavioral treatment approach for abused children and their foster or…

Conducted meta-analysis of 163 randomized trials to examine differences in outcome associated with different theoretical orientations, differences between marital and family therapies versus individual therapies, clinical significance of therapy outcome, differences between marital versus family therapies in both outcomes and problems treated, and…

Discusses a descriptive study on solution-focused brief family therapy in a children's mental health facility. Results, based on work with 59 children and their families, indicate a 64.9% success rate (average of 5.5 therapy sessions over 3.9 months). Findings support the applicability of solution-focused brief family therapy to a wide range of…

Although psychotherapy traditionally has been thought of as talking therapy, written communication can be used as an effective supplement, across a range of theoretical approaches and therapeutic stages. Writing can aid clients in deepening awareness and enable them to use their inherent resources for becoming whole persons. For example, one…

This document presents a definition and description of anorexia nervosa as a disorder that occurs predominantly in girls and that can affect 1 out of every 250 girls between the ages of 12 and 18 years. The existence of a distorted mental body image among anorexics is discussed and symptoms of the disorder are described, including amenorrhea…

Interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT-A) is a brief, time-limited therapy developed for use with adolescents diagnosed with major depression. IPT-A has been shown to be effective with adolescents in family counseling milieus. Music therapy techniques also have been successfully used to treat adolescent depression. This article provides mental health…

This article presents outcome data from an ongoing nonintrusive method for evaluating counseling services. Applied to one agency's delivery of solution-focused brief therapy, the method is brief and easily integrated into clinical practice. Using two scaling questions (one to measure daily functioning and the other to measure emotional coping),…