Negotiating Parent-Adolescent Conflict: A Behavioral-Family Systems Approach

Parent-adolescent discord is often handled from a unitary perspective, whether the focus is on enhancing parenting skills, resolving conflicts in family relationships, or working to improve the behavior of the individual child. This important work shows the clinician how to incorporate all of these crucial elements into a single, research-based treatment program. Presented is the authors' influential integration of cognitive-behavioral constructs and family systems theory, grounded in consideration of adolescent developmental concerns. The book describes effective ways to conceptualize and assess the problems of embattled parents and teens; use assessment data in treatment planning; overcome resistance and other therapeutic hurdles; and implement carefully sequenced skills training, cognitive restructuring, and functional/structural interventions. The theoretical and empirical bases of the treatment approach are also discussed in depth.

1. Introduction 2. Theoretical Orientation 3. Empirical Evaluation of Behavioral/n-/Family Systems Theory 4. Assessment/m-/Overview and Interviewing 5. Questionnaire and Observational Assessment 6. Conceptualizing and Integrating Assessment Data 7. Treatment/m-/Overview and Problem-Solving Training 8. Communication Training 9. Cognitive Restructuring 10. Functional/Structural Interventions 11. Sequencing Intervention 12. Resistance 13. Case Studies 14. Treatment Outcome Research 15. Future Directions