The efficacy of family intervention in adolescent mental health

Abstract

The term 'family therapy' is used to encompass a range of approaches that share a common view about the importance of family involvement in psychiatric disorders. This paper reviews the effectiveness of family interventions in adolescent mental health with a special emphasis on single session therapy. Research evidence shows that the family intervention in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety and anorexia not only provides better outcomes, but also increases client satisfaction with services. Among the family therapy approaches, single session therapy (SST) seems to be a flexible and very effective model for adolescent mental disorders, which seem to offer an efficient means of providing rapid access to services whilst removing some of the difficulties associated with other forms of family therapy approaches. A new service development model is also discussed by drawing together a number of ideas encountered in practice settings.