Engaging Adolescent Drug Abusers and Their Families in Treatment A Strategic Structural Systems Approach

• Published in: Journal of consulting and clinical psychology Vol. 56; no. 4; pp. 552 - 557
• Main Authors: Szapocznik, José, Perez-Vidal, Angel, Brickman, Andrew L, Foote, Franklin H, Santisteban, Daniel, Hervis, Olga, Kurtines, William M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-08-1988
• Subjects: Adolescent; Biological and medical sciences; Children & youth; Drug Abuse; Family Members; Family Therapy; Family Therapy - methods; Female; Hispanic Americans; Human; Humans; Latinos/Latinas; Male; Medical sciences; Prognosis; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Psychotherapies. Psychological and clinical counseling; Social research; Substance Use Treatment; Substance-Related Disorders - psychology; Substance-Related Disorders - rehabilitation; Therapy; Treatments; Human; Drug abuse; Treatment; Family psychotherapy; Adolescent; Family environment; Familial relation
• ISSN: 0022-006X; 1939-2117
• DOI: 10.1037/0022-006X.56.4.552

This article presents evidence for the effectiveness of a strategy for engaging adolescent drug users and their families in therapy. The intervention method is based on strategic, structural, and systems concepts. To overcome resistance, the identified pattern of interactions that interferes with entry into treatment is restructured. Subjects were 108 Hispanic families in which an adolescent was suspected of, or was observed, using drugs. Subjects were randomly assigned to a strategic structural-systems engagement (experimental) condition or to an engagement-as-usual (control) condition. Subjects in the experimental condition were engaged at a rate of 93% compared with subjects in the control condition, who were engaged at a rate of 42%. Seventy-seven percent of subjects in the experimental condition completed treatment compared with 25% of subjects in the control condition.