Family Treatment Approaches for Depression in Adolescent Males

Adolescent depression is a serious and common disorder. Though adolescent males are less likely to report depression than females, they have serious risks associated with the disorder, like suicide, future substance abuse, and illegal activity. Several gender differences have been observed among depressed adolescents and should be considered in assessment and treatment. Little efficacy research exists for family treatments of depression in adolescent males, though several approaches have been proposed. These approaches include Structural Family Therapy, Interpersonal Family Therapy, and Attachment-Based Family Therapy. These treatments have been found useful in clinical settings, but much more efficacy research is necessary.     

Counseling Adolescent Males

This article describes the developmental tasks faced by adolescent males. Biological and psychological changes that occur during adolescence are discussed. Finally, common problems encountered by counselors working with adolescent males are reviewed.     

Contrasting Approaches in Marital Counseling

My Aim in this paper is to look at the therapist-marital couple relationship as a social system, and from this perspective to outline some aspects of the difference between treating a husband or wife as an individual patient and treating them together as a marital couple.
I will try to differentiate individual treatment and treatment of the marital pair on two dimensions: their respective use as sources of data about the marital relationship, for both therapy and research, and their potentialities for changing the marital interaction.     

Marriage and Family Counseling

This article provides an overview of marriage and family counseling, including the growth and interest of this specialty within the American Counseling Association (ACA). Areas discussed include the evolution of marriage and family counseling within ACA, standards for training, credentialing, and unique ethical considerations when counseling couples and families.     

Live-In Family Counseling: An Integrated Approach

This article presents an integrated family counseling approach that utilizes observation and intervention in the home setting.     

Religiosity and Adolescent Narcissism: Implications for Values Counseling

The authors show that the distinctive character of values counseling as a therapeutic intervention can be justified on empirical grounds. The fact that religiosity has been consistently associated with positive mental health outcomes is a warrant for counselors to explore the resources of one's religious tradition for therapeutic change. The authors also argue that pastoral counseling is particularly suited for addressing the ego development needs of adolescents and that the vicissitudes of adolescent narcissism can be effectively mobilized to support self-transcendence and relational autonomy, tasks that have both developmental and religious significance.     

Exploring Genetic Counseling Communication Patterns: The Role of Teaching and Counseling Approaches

The educational and counseling models are often touted as the two primary professional approaches to genetic counseling practice. Yet, research has not been conducted to examine how these approaches are used in practice. In the present study, we conducted quantitative communication analyses of BRCA1 genetic counseling sessions. We measured communication variables that represent content (e.g., a biomedical focus) and process (e.g., passive listening) to explore whether genetic counselor approaches are consistent with prevailing professional models. The Roter Interaction Analysis System (RIAS) was used to code 167 pre-test genetic counseling sessions of members of a large kindred with an identified BRCA1 mutation. Three experienced genetic counselors conducted the sessions. Creating composite categories from the RIAS codes, we found the sessions to be largely educational in nature with the counselors and clients devoting the majority of their dialogue to providing biomedical information (62 and 40%, respectively). We used cluster analytic techniques, entering the composite communication variables and identified four patterns of session communication: Client-focused psychosocial, biomedical question and answer, counselor-driven psychosocial, and client-focused biomedical. Moreover, we found that the counselors had unique styles in which they combined the use of education and counseling approaches. We discuss the importance of understanding the variation in counselor communication to advance the field and expand prevailing assumptions.     

Spirituality and Loss: Approaches for Counseling Grieving Adolescents

The death of a loved one has serious implications for adolescent growth and development. The authors review relevant research on the grief process and spirituality in adolescence, and they give a rationale for integrating spirituality into adolescent grief work. By way of a case illustration, they draw implications for counselors’ use of spirituality in addressing adolescent grief.     

Play-Based Activities in Family Counseling

Traditional family therapists often work with family members of similar cognitive levels and exclude small children from the therapeutic process. Recent research indicates that children and families benefit when all family members can be involved in counseling (e.g., Thompson, Bender, Cordoso, & Flynn, 2011). Using an integrative intervention model, this article will focus on specific play-based activities which can be used to effectively include children in family therapy. A developmental, step-by step protocol is introduced and specific play-based activities are discussed.     

Circumplex Model of Family Systems: A Treatment Tool in Family Counseling

The Circumplex Model and its diagnostic inventory, FACES III, are emerging as important tools for the family counselor. The authors describe the model and inventory and illustrate their use through a case study with a multiproblem family.     

Understanding Workaholism: A Review of Causes and Counseling Approaches

Is workaholism an addiction or a rewarding work style and life-style that may be harmful to one's family and co-workers? This central question directed the review of definitions and causes of workaholism. Thereafter, the authors discuss the role of “Type A” and obsessive-compulsive traits on the behavior of some workaholics, review the effects of workaholism on workaholics themselves and on others, and suggest counseling approaches that might be helpful to workaholics.