Multidimensional Family Therapy: What It Is And How It Works
The social, economic, legal and emotional difficulties of a family can have a substantial impact on the development of each of the individuals that make it up; and especially adolescents, who are experiencing a moment of special effervescence.
Given that the family functions as a system, everything that affects one of the parts has its echo on the others, becoming a problem that alters the whole and requires an integrative and multidisciplinary treatment (psychologists, social workers, etc.) .
The end of Multidimensional family therapy is to provide a set of therapeutic measures to address situations of extreme conflict such as crime or drug consumption, which can completely destroy the unit in its ability to adapt to the environment.
Next we proceed to delve into everything essential to know it better; highlighting its definition, the dimensions susceptible to intervention and the measures that could be used for this.
Multidimensional family therapy aims to offer adequate coverage for all areas of operation that may be affected within the family, especially when dangerous situations for their development occur (such as drug abuse or crime). It is a procedure that has an obvious restorative purpose, and that puts into motion a myriad of social and human resources for this purpose.
The fundamental emphasis is aimed at the care and surveillance of adolescents and their parents, so that the necessary mechanisms will be orchestrated to address any conflict in the relationship between all of them. This implies that mental health takes on special relevance, since it is not uncommon for substance use and/or crime to be the cause or consequence of a disorder in this domain.
From now on we will elaborate on the areas that are of interest from this particular integrated form of intervention, which requires a multidisciplinary approach in which the educational and judicial system participates. It has demonstrated extensive empirical evidence regarding its ability to stop substance abuse and enhance the group’s ability to adapt to the environment.
Objectives by area
Next, we present all the objectives pursued with the application of multidimensional family therapy; which coincide with the individual elements of the family unit (the adolescent and his parents), the internal dynamics between them (the family) and their relationships with the outside (the community).
1. Teenager
Regarding the adolescent, the basic objective of the intervention is to prevent or address the use of illegal substances, as well as to stimulate one’s own abilities to regulate emotions and communicate with people around them. By doing this all areas of daily functioning are taken into consideration among which we highlight the school/institute and/or the imminent access to the labor market (in case there is no interest in continuing academic training).
2. Parents
The adolescent’s parents are, without a doubt, one of the main links for their well-being. The program is sensitive to your needs, mainly in everything related to parenting styles and promotion of constructive relationships with the minor This seeks to promote their mental health, as well as explore any circumstance in this area that could be the subject of intervention.
The family is a system of relationships that exists between parents and their children. It includes specific parenting styles and forms of interaction between all its members. The basic objective of this program is improve communication at all levels, as well as increase the number of genuine exchanges of affection
4. Community
The community refers to the different organizations, institutions and groups with which the family interacts; for the purpose of meeting their social, human or other needs. In short, these are relationships towards the outside that contribute decisively to the dynamics of the interior. This dimension includes the school, the neighborhood and the courts; that must be used in a positive and balanced way.
Procedures
Once the areas of interest in multidimensional family therapy have been located, let’s look at the different procedures that can be deployed during its application and development. The educational and judicial systems are inextricably linked in the process
1. Service and community collaboration
Multidimensional family therapy promotes the relationship between the family and all the community services that may be available to them in case of need. In this sense, it seeks to provide information about the aid that the system can provide; especially related to access to housing, energy or basic foods to survive in healthy and balanced conditions.
The intention is to remedy, whenever and wherever possible, any difficulty in accessing the most basic living conditions It is a cardinal element of the process, in which the entire necessary support system is deployed so that adequate control can be assumed over one’s own life and over the options with which to properly integrate into the academic and work environment. The foundation is to preserve dignity and ensure the principle of equal opportunities.
In cases in which criminal conduct has been incurred and the different legal entities are involved it is essential that the family receives advice on how to interact with judicial officials and probation officers, whose role is to dissuade those who have committed a crime from continuing to reoffend in activities of this type.
2. Training for home and school
Home and school are the two spaces in which adolescents spend the most time, and therefore they have special importance in multidimensional family therapy. It is necessary Identify parents’ individual needs and address them appropriately since their poor mental health is one of the main risk factors for problems to manifest in the adolescent or child.
In addition to parenting styles and family dynamics, which are essential in order to prevent forms of mistreatment or abuse, the following should be considered: problems controlling impulses or emotions such as anger, deficits in social skills, and deficiencies in establishing assertive contact. . Often all of this is reproduced in adults and minors in the same family, so it may be necessary to organize an intervention aimed at training all of them, since these are circumstances that are usually related to conflict inside and outside the home.
The school should also be an object of interest for multidimensional family therapy, since A very important part of adolescent life unfolds in it, especially at the level of relationships between equals (for which close supervision is essential). The objective is to minimize the risk of “bullying” (in the roles of victim or perpetrator), to encourage positive experiences as much as possible and to reinforce the desire to continue training tailored to the interests of the minor.
Vocational guidance is a very important tool in this sense, and must be accompanied by strengthening the will of parents to participate in school life, which implies attendance at meetings and/or other events organized by the school management. or the faculty. It is known that the involvement of parents in these types of activities is essential so that there is a space conducive to the development of their child’s academic potential.
3. Development of specific skills
This part of the intervention makes use, above all, of psychoeducation The purpose is to provide the most accurate information possible to parents and their children about some of the most dangerous circumstances that the latter face in the developmental period of adolescence: the use of drugs for recreational purposes, the possibility of contracting a disease. of sexual transmission (HIV or others), accidents due to irresponsible use of a vehicle, etc.
Controlling anger is also very important, and for this it is necessary to articulate strategies of various types, especially aimed at making it an affect that does not translate into acts of intra- or extra-familial violence. Cognitive techniques aimed at exploring mental contents underlying emotion in order to restructure them and provide them with a non-aversive meaning, are useful to reduce conflict in the family and to perceive reality in a way adjusted to its objective terms.
It is also important to provide parents with information about adolescence, as it is a stage that poses challenges both to those who are going through it and to those close to them, including specific forms of communication that are useful to facilitate healthy exchanges between all the components of the family. the family unit. In this sense, it is essential to provide knowledge about the application of reinforcements and punishments, as well as the management of privacy and the application of limits.
Along the same lines as above, It is essential that knowledge be offered about the most common risk practices at this time of life, such as unprotected sex or the use of vehicles (motorcycles, for example) in an irresponsible manner. It will delve into sexually transmitted infections (not only HIV, but also the prevalent human papillomavirus or hepatitis, including syphilis and even gonorrhea or chlamydia) and also the consequences of a potential traffic accident. All this in order to seek the prophylaxis of health problems that potentially involve extreme severity.
Finally, it will be necessary to improve the training that parents and adolescents have available. to look for a job, including the use of professional social networks and strategies to look for work or face an interview with the employer. It is also interesting to provide information on courses and training supplements offered by different institutions, to the extent that they can provide knowledge/skills that facilitate access to the labor market.
4. Drug use
The specific approach to drug use is one of the basic objectives of multidimensional family therapy, especially when it involves the adolescent or child (since these are times when the nervous system is in full development and any use becomes a form of abuse). This step is necessary to build a life adapted to the environment, and must ensure that the history of consumption and its current characteristics are defined both quantitatively and qualitatively, with emphasis on the consequences on one’s own personal and family life.
In the event that there is no consumption, the necessary tools will be available to maintain abstinence over time If the adolescent is an active consumer, a treatment can be articulated aimed at stimulating motivation for change, reorganizing social networks, controlling stimuli associated with drug use and proposing pleasant or personally significant activities. Active listening is essential, as well as informing parents of the possible difficulties that could arise during quitting the habit and the processes that are inevitably related to the phenomenon of dependence (tolerance and withdrawal syndrome).
If there is substance use in the family, this should also be established as one of the objectives of treatment, since it is known that it is associated with both the onset and maintenance of abuse and/or dependence among adolescents.
5. Judicial aspects
In those cases in which the adolescent has engaged in criminal or antisocial acts, it is possible that he or she will be immersed in an active judicial process, which represents an extremely intense experience of stress for the family In this case, all its members must be provided with the necessary skills for communication with the different agents that emerge as elements of the system (such as the judge, secretaries or attorneys). All of this so that they can collaborate appropriately with the authorities during the resolution of their contentious situation.
The aim is for parents to be actively involved in the judicial process, accepting the imposition of sanctioning measures in the civil or criminal sphere. The purpose of the entire effort is to prevent illegal acts from occurring again in the future, as these could definitively condition the future and life of the adolescent or her family.
