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

The increasing incidence of teenage conflict with parents and/or institutions indicates the dire need for an effective means to handle adolescent difficulties. Therapists of many diverse backgrounds have long debated the efficacy of particular approaches to parent-adolescent discord, some focusing on parental training in the management of adolescents, some on the marital relationship as the key to disturbance, and others on the adolescent as an individual. Drs. Robin and Foster are among the first of the researchers and practitioners engaged in this debate to recognize the need for an intervention strategy that utilizes both cognitive-behavioral and family systems theories, thus broadening the descriptive and analytical skills necessary to in-depth treatment planning. In this volume, Robin and Foster have forged an integrative model for the assessment and treatment of these conflicted family members, basing their theoretical framework on empirical data in order to test effectively the heuristic tools employed.