Product Detail

1. Differentiate the myths vs. clinically-useful, science-based realties of today’s adolescents.
2. Connect and describe the relationship of the knowledge-base about adolescents and families to the MDFT treatment principles.
3. Apply key content from the knowledge-base on adolescent development and problem formation and the MDFT treatment principles to create an MDFT case conceptualization.
4. Utilize the MDFT case conceptualization to formulate weekly case notes that emphasize goal formulation and individual, family, and systemic interventions.
5. Analyze and describe the clinical logic of the MDFT core sessions for the 3 stages of treatment.
6. Design individual and family interventions that derive from the MDFT conceptual framework and change theory.
7. Design individual and family interventions that increase adolescent and parent(s) treatment engagement and retention.
8. Analyze and differentiate MDFT intervention intentions, components, implementation, and therapeutic processes using an integrative framework for emotion, thinking, behavior and context.
9. Design multi-component interventions that begin and extend adolescent, parent, and family change processes within and between sessions.
10. Design multi-component interventions that enhance the youth’s and parents’ interactions with school and juvenile justice professionals.
11. Analyze why interventions succeed or fail, and learn how to adjust interventions according to in-session and between-session events.
12. Create a personal blueprint for therapist development using MDFT materials and other available resources.

A Foundation for Adolescent Treatment: Orientation and Knowledge Base

• Social ecological theory
• Vulnerability, risk and protection
• Determinants of substance use, behavioral disorders, depression and anxiety
• Clinical referred adolescents: Co-occurring problems are the norm
• A developmental systems framework: Logic and practicality

MULTIDIMENSIONAL FAMILY THERAPY (MDFT) IN-ACTION
Orientation

• Developmental tasks in life and in therapy MDFT change theory
  • Determine therapeutic targets
  • Design and tailor interventions to individuals and settings
  • Facilitate therapeutic individual and interactional processes
  • Adjust interventions throughout treatment

Framework: A Top-Down View

• Relationships and development – First, last, always
• Referral information and dynamics as keys to current circumstances
• Meet, greet, listen, evoke stories, assess with a checklist
• Motivate and engage
• Understanding, meaning, history, and contexts of behaviors
• Prioritize per need and access
• Define targets
• Design interventions from a systemic functional behavioral analysis
• Interventions
• Read results
• Refine and adapt
• Link to other priority targets and interventions

Treatment Stages: Organization and Milestones of Therapeutic Progress

• Stage 1: Build alliances and foundation for change
• Stage 2: Facilitate individual and family change
• Stage 3: Solidify change and exit

Intervention Domains: Components and Methods Within Each Stage

• Adolescent-Focused Interventions
• Psychoeducational aspects of treatment
• Life story methods and defining oneself
• Determine what’s important to the teenager and why
• Personal development as treatment’s “North Star”
• Foster a sense of agency
• Experience and interpret day-to-day events
• Journaling and personal narratives
• Emotion regulation, reading and reacting to others
• Burdens of trauma, victimization, and loss
• Parent-Focused Interventions
• Assess stress and burden
• Psychoeducational aspects of treatment
• Emotion and motivation focused techniques to address avoidance and blaming of youth
• Foster teamwork and collaboration
• Single parents, the influence of grandparents and other adults and multiple households
• Need and role of parenting practices
• Parent’s mental health, substance use, medical health
• Family-Interaction Focused Interventions
• The unique and critical role of family sessions
• Enactment as technique and change theory
• How family sessions target and change parent-youth relationships
• Family sessions step-by-step
• Community-Focused Interventions
• Conflictual relationships with school personnel
• Compliance with juvenile justice requirements
• Neighborhood influences
• Community supports and resources

Implementation Keys
From Case Conceptualization to Intervention Development and Implementation

• Develop a case conceptualization using MDFT outlines, case vignettes and video
• Plan a session using the case conceptualization
• Perform intervention analysis by watching clinical videos
• Plan next session using the specified analysis

Techniques to Overcome Common Treatment Obstacles

• Motivation and engagement
• Parental avoidance and blame of the youth
• Mandated treatment
• Overwhelmed caregivers
• Parents with alcohol, drug, or mental health impairments
• Treatment transitions (to outpatient or residential treatment)

Special Topics

• Guidelines for in-home sessions and park-bench therapy
• Evoke content that matters
• Focus on and use distress, suffering, crises, anger, resentment, history, remorse and legal issues
• Drug test results in therapy
• Link mental health and substance abuse treatment to overall adolescent health
• Available instruments on parenting, substance use, problem behaviors, family functioning

Therapist Development

• Create a realistic blueprint
• The interdependence of personal and professional functioning
• Prompt supervisor effectiveness
• Self-supervision: Journaling to build complexity and repertoire
• Signs of and tips to overcome burnout
• Communities of clinician development
• Access information on adolescents, parenting, families and treatment guidelines

Howard Liddle, EdD, ABPP, is an internationally known expert in the family therapy of adolescent substance abuse and delinquency and his published clinical DVDs and writings are used in therapist training programs around the world. He is the developer of Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT), an evidence-based adolescent treatment that is practiced at clinics around the United States and eight European countries. Dr. Liddle is professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. A board-certified psychologist, he is a Diplomate in Family Psychology in the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). Founding editor of the Journal of Family Psychology in 1985, Dr. Liddle has over 225 publications. His three-decade therapy research program focuses on the development, testing, implementation and dissemination of family-based treatment for adolescent substance abuse and delinquency. This work has been recognized with awards from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, the American Family Therapy Association, the Hazelden Foundation, and the American Psychological Association. Dr. Liddle is an inspirational clinical teacher and has trained family therapists in how to treat adolescents for over 40 years.

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Dr. Howard Liddle is Chairman of the Board of MDFT International, a 5013c not for profit entity that conducts training in and certifies clinicians in MDFT, Multidimensional Family Therapy. He receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

Non-financial: Howard Liddle is a Diplomate in Family Psychology in the American Board of Professional psychology (ABPP).

---

CE Information Coming Soon
Continuing education credit information is coming soon for this non-interactive self-study package.

CEs may be available for select professions, as listed in the target audience. Hours will be dependent on the actual recording time. Please check with your state licensing board or organization for specific requirements.

There may be an additional fee for CE certificates. Please contact our Customer Service at 1-800-844-8260 for more details.

**Materials that are included in this course may include interventions and modalities that are beyond the authorized practice of mental health professionals. As a licensed professional, you are responsible for reviewing the scope of practice, including activities that are defined in law as beyond the boundaries of practice in accordance with and in compliance with your professions standards.

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners. For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Licensed Clinical/Mental Health Counselors, Social Workers, Marriage & Family Therapists, Addiction Professionals, Psychologists, Certified Case Managers, School-Based Mental Health Professionals, Other helping professionals who work with adolescents 9-26 years of age