Working with High-Risk Adolescents: An Individualized Family Therapy Approach

338 Pages·2017·4.61 MB·English

by  Matthew D. Selekman

ebook
THE GUILFORD PRESS
WORKING WITH HIGH-RISK ADOLESCENTS
Also by Matthew D. Selekman
Collaborative Brief Therapy with Children
Working with
High-Risk
Adolescents
An Individualized Family Therapy Approach
Matthew D. Selekman
Foreword by Harlene Anderson
THE GUILFORD PRESS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Selekman, Matthew D., 1957– author.
Title: Working with high-risk adolescents : an individualized family therapy
approach / Matthew D. Selekman ; foreword by Harlene Anderson.
Description: New York : The Guilford Press, [2017] | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016057578 | ISBN 9781462529735 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Adolescent psychotherapy. | Family therapy. | BISAC:
PSYCHOLOGY / Psychotherapy / Child & Adolescent. | MEDICAL / Psychiatry /
Child & Adolescent. | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Work. | PSYCHOLOGY /
Psychotherapy / Couples & Family.
Classification: LCC RJ503 .S446 2017 | DDC 616.89/140835—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057578
To the late Carolyn S. Selekman,
mother and teacher extraordinaire!
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,
Mr. Selekman consults worldwide to schools and treatment programs
serving adolescents and their families. Since 1985, he has given work-
shops extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, South
America, Europe, Southeast Asia, South Africa, Australia, and New Zea-
land. His website is www.partners4change.net.
vi
Foreword
We live in a fast-changing world, characterized by people on all conti-
nents and in all walks of life who demand to have a voice in decisions that
affect their lives. They are tired of institutional oppressions: expert, top-
down silo structures that declare what people need. People want to have
a say in what services they need and how these services are delivered. In
the context of therapy, clients are asking to be collaborative partners in
their treatment. To meet this need and be coactive partners with clients,
it is incumbent upon therapists to challenge the traditions and ethics of
family therapy. Collaborative therapies in general, and certainly Selek-
man’s “solution-determined” and “collaborative strengths-based” family
therapy model, have taken up this challenge. Collaborative therapies cen-
ter on the clients and their local knowledge rather than the therapist and
his or her knowledge. This is the political and social justice orientation of
collaborative therapies.
The political and business institutions that fund psychotherapeu-
tic services want brief, economical, efficient, and evidence-based treat-
ment. This agenda trickles down to local therapeutic institutions and to
the therapists in the room. Therapists become constrained as they try
to wedge clients into institutional quota demands and one-size-fits-all,
predetermined problem designations and solution methods. Therapists
consequently risk not only losing their creativity and adaptability, but also
interfering with clients’ natural strengths and resources.
My colleagues and I have long questioned the traditions of psycho-
therapy in general and family therapy specifically (Anderson, 1997; Ander-
son & Goolishian, 1988) as well as therapy with adolescents (Anderson,
vii
viii Foreword
1993; Goolishian & Anderson, 1987). Early in my career, when working in
the pediatric and child and adolescent psychiatry departments of a state
medical school, I wondered why the “revolving-door” families described
as multiproblem and unmotivated treatment failures were stereotypically
viewed as immune and resistant to help. My curiosity motivated me to ask
the families about their experiences with prior “helpers” (e.g., physicians,
therapists, teachers, judges). I wanted to learn what was and was not so
helpful and what advice they had for these “helpers” (Anderson, 1997). In
other words, I wanted to access the clients’ clinical wisdom. What I learned
strongly influenced the development of what I call collaborative–dialogic
therapy (Anderson, 1997, 2012; Anderson & Gehart, 2007; Goolishian &
Anderson, 1987).
Adolescence is a major discourse in psychology and psychiatry today,
such that it is hard to imagine that only the categories childhood and adult-
hood were recognized prior to the late 19th century. The concept and
category of adolescence as the physical, emotional, psychological, social,
and cognitive transition from childhood to adulthood acquired visibility
in the literature around 1900 (Demos & Demos, 1969). The psychologist
G. Stanley Hall is credited with introducing the term adolescence (Arnett,
2006). In 1959, the sociologist James Coleman coined the term adoles-
cent society and called attention to the role of educational systems in the
segmentation of adolescents from adult society and reinforcement of a
distinct peer subculture (Coleman, 1959, 1961). Since the 1960s, psychia-
trists, psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists have continued to
add to the discourse on adolescence. Most theories highlight the impor-
tance of institutions (e.g., education, health, legal, familial) and rapidly
changing cultural and societal influences (e.g., economical, environ-
mental, ideological, political, and technological) on this subculture. Col-
laborative therapies remind us that the provision of therapy and other
services for adolescents and their families must keep these influences in
mind. Collaborative therapies caution that adolescence is not a category
of people branded by fixed characteristics and predictable problems.
Rather, each person and their familial and social networks is unique and
must be met as such. Selekman’s “solution-determined” and “collabora-
tive strengths-based” family therapy model exemplifies the importance of
this caution and consideration.
Selekman suggests that our conception of adolescence is critical to
delivering successful or unsuccessful services. Adolescence, I suggest, is
not a developmental stage, nor does it represent a homogeneous subcul-
ture. It is, simply put, the process of a child developing into a young adult.
Similarly, a family is always in process—uniquely developing and adjusting
to meet shifting circumstances, regardless of its composition and context
or how long the current members have been a family. Although there