Pathways to Change, Second Edition: Brief Therapy with Difficult Adolescents - Hardcover

Selekman, Matthew D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1572309598 ISBN 13: 9781572309593

Publisher: The Guilford Press, 2005

Synopsis

This innovative, practical guide presents an effective brief therapy model for working with challenging adolescents and their families. It demonstrates powerful ways to help families gain new perspectives on longstanding problems and co-construct realistic, well-formulated goals, even when past treatment experiences have left them feeling demoralized. Solution-oriented techniques and strategies are augmented by ideas and findings from other therapeutic traditions, with a focus on engagement and relationship building. Illustrated with extensive clinical material, the book shows how to draw on each family's strengths to collaboratively bring about significant behavioral change.

About this title

About the Author

Matthew D. Selekman, MSW, LCSW, is a family therapist and addictions counselor in private practice and Director of Partners for Collaborative Solutions, an international family therapy training and consulting firm in Evanston, Illinois. He is an Approved Supervisor with the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Mr. Selekman served as the invited Henry Maier Practitioner-in-Residence at the School of Social Work of the University of Washington and is a three-time recipient of the Walter S. Rosenberry Award from Children’s Hospital Colorado for his significant contributions to the fields of psychiatry and behavioral sciences. The author of numerous professional articles and seven books, including Working with High-Risk Adolescents: An Individualized Family Therapy Approach; Pathways to Change, Second Edition: Brief Therapy with Difficult Adolescents; and Collaborative Brief Therapy with Children, Mr. Selekman consults worldwide to schools and treatment programs serving adolescents and their families. Since 1985, he has given workshops extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. His website is www.partners4change.net.

Review

"This is the best book I've ever read on the solution-focused approach. The ideas are easy for students to understand and the book is fun to read. It doesn’t read like a textbook, but I use it as one because it is so comprehensive and accessible. Selekman captures the essence of a creative therapist whose goal is to help clients be successful, and he does a masterful job of teaching this technique. Students have told me it is the best book they've bought for any class!"--Laurel Edgecomb, MFT, instructor, Graduate Counseling Program, St. Mary's College of California  "Pathways to Change is an engaging, practical, and scholarly text that I highly recommend to students at all levels and to practitioners who work with adolescents and their families. The second edition highlights the importance of multiple intelligences, emphasizes practitioner use of self, encourages improvisation, and advocates for an ecological approach that values parents and relevant others as co-collaborators. Selekman offers readers a refreshing, down-to-earth, humanistic, and strengths-based approach."--Andrew Malekoff, MSW, CASAC, North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center, Roslyn Heights, New York

"Incorporating the best of solution-based therapies, narrative therapy, positive psychology, cognitive therapy, and newer advances in multiple intelligences and mindfulness, Selekman has done a major update of a useful and readable book on working with adolescents--often the most difficult of our clients to engage and treat. Pathways to Change, Second Edition, is chock-full of case examples and practical techniques."--Bill O’Hanlon, MS, LMFT, author of Thriving Through Crisis

"Matthew Selekman has taken an excellent book and made it even better. He has further developed his solution-focused intervention approach, has integrated other therapy techniques into his model, and has added some significant new features. A chapter on the therapist's improvisational use of self reminds us that therapy is an art as well as a science. In addition, the second edition specifically addresses working with difficult parents and mandated therapy, two major challenges in adolescent treatment. I highly recommend this book as a text for courses in counseling or therapy with adolescents. For therapists who work with adolescents in their practice, it is a 'must read.'"--Anthony P. Jurich, PhD, School of Family Studies and Human Services, Kansas State University; past president, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

"The second edition of Pathways to Change takes Selekman’s integrative and strengths-based therapy model for adolescents and their families to a new level. Offering numerous practical guidelines and clinical vignettes--and daring to be unconventional and sensible at the same time--Selekman invites readers to rethink the way they conceptualize adolescents and their problems, and provides new therapeutic tools for their repertoire. Practitioners of any level of experience, as well as students, will unquestionably benefit from Selekman’s experience, confidence, compassion, optimism, and down-to-earth manner. The richness of Pathways is immeasurable: you must read it for yourself!"--Harlene Anderson, PhD, Houston Galveston Institute and Taos Institute

"It is quite apparent that Selekman wrote this new edition with today’s troubled adolescents--and those of us attempting to work effectively with them--in mind. As strange as it may sound, working with youth today is even more challenging than it was a decade ago. This edition is full of innovative, creative, and thoughtful strategies for effectively engaging and treating adolescents who are angry, aggressive, or disaffected. A no-nonsense, easy-to-read, straightforward book that will be ideal for graduate trainees and experienced therapists alike, this is a 'must read' for anyone interested in promoting change in the lives of difficult adolescents."--Kenneth V. Hardy, PhD, Department of Marriage and Family Therapy, Syracuse University, and the Eikenberg Institute for Relationships, New York City

"The original Pathways to Change seemed very difficult to improve, but this new edition is indeed even better! Without losing sight of his brief family therapy roots, Matthew Selekman charts new territories by describing in detail how to use an amazing variety of therapeutic techniques in a truly integrative, context-sensitive, research-based practice. Psychotherapy students will be able to see how techniques and concepts of the major family therapy and psychotherapeutic approaches can be blended together in an elegant, effective, and creative way. Seasoned clinicians will find plenty of useful tools and inspiration to be creative and push their own limits in therapeutic work with adolescents and their families."--Mark Beyebach, PhD, Systemic Therapy Master's Program, Pontificia University of Salamanca, Spain


"This is one of those special books that reflects the kind of skill, wisdom, and clarity that comes only through experience. If you have not already done so, read this book because Selekman skillfully describes even more pathways to change with difficult adolescents and their families. Although solution-oriented therapy is already more eclectic than straight solution-focused therapy, this book presents an even more liberal application of such ideas....Realistic case examples are provided throughout the text. The author demonstrates specific techniques that foster respectful engagement with adolescents who can be unrealistic, disrespectful, pretentious, intentionally misleading, silent, or openly defiant....New and seasoned therapists alike will be impressed by the book's depth of knowledge and clarity of presentation. The approach can be tailored to fit a variety of treatment settings." (Journal of Marital and Family Therapy 2008-06-04)

"Describes effective techniques to engage families and teenagers who are convinced therapy has nothing to offer them....Useful for adolescent psychiatrists wanting to improve their family therapy skills." (American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry Newsletter 2008-06-04)

Edition details

• Publisher: The Guilford Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1572309598
• ISBN 13: 9781572309593
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 292