Student’s NameInstitutional Affiliation
Effectiveness of Systemic Family Therapy in Adolescents with Depression
Introduction
Systematic family therapy offers effective help to people with different health difficulties. The range of difficulties addressed through family therapy include childhood conditions like mood and conduct disorders, drug misuse, and eating disorders. In addition to assistance of children and adolescents with difficulties, family therapy is helpful to adults, couple difficulties, and people with severe psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. Across the life span, systematic family therapy has displayed effectiveness in the management and treatment of depression and other chronic physical illness. Systematic family therapy is also effective in addressing problems which may arise in the family change or their way of life. Despite that the range of systematic family therapy is remarkable; its effectiveness is not so extraordinary. It is evident that many families are still coping with a number of difficulties. For instance, families with children and adolescents with serious mental health problems have been shown to seek other therapy with substantial resilience and strengths. Based on research, systematic family therapy has great efficacy and effectiveness for adolescents with depression. This kind of therapy has proved to be less costly and is sometimes significantly cheaper as compared to alternative treatments.
Literature review
Research by Carr (2009) gives substantial insights on the effectiveness of systematic family therapy on adolescents with depression. Based on the research, systematic family therapy is shown to effectively manage the conditions of youth with depression and conduct disorders. Youth with persistent and pervasive antisocial behavior also benefit significantly from systematic family therapy. The effectiveness of family therapy enables the parents and other professionals involved in the process to address a couple of disorders collectively. The problems of skills deficits, deviant peer group membership, low social support, and high stress among adolescents are collectively managed through family therapy. In a research conducted by Woolfenden et al (2002), it was established that family-based treatments such as multi-systematic therapy and functional family therapy offer a high level of care which is more effective than other routine treatment. Family therapy is very effective in the sense that it helps in reducing time spent in institutions, recidivism, and risks of re-arrest. The psychosocial interventions offered by systematic family therapy for adolescents with depression are very effective. This is in regards to the massive care offered to the victims. Systematic family is manualized approach to the treatment of adolescent with depression. This approach integrates family therapy and individual skills training of the victims. The therapy extends to the wider school as well as interagency network. Systematic family therapy helps the families, caregivers and professionals in understanding how the adolescents’ mental disorders are maintained in a recursive sequence. This approach uses individual and family strengths in developing and implementing the action plans as well as new skills (Cottrell Boston, 2002). In light of the seriousness of depression among youth, systematic family therapy helps in bringing the adolescents into a state of normalcy and good health. Depression is an episodic disorder which demonstrates irritable and low mood, retadardation, and psychomotor agitation, loss of interest, low self-esteem, fatigue, inappropriate excessive guilt, and impaired concentration. These problems are effectively addressed by family therapy. Family therapy helps in reducing stress as well as increasing support to the adolescents. It is important noting that not all adolescents respond to antidepressant medication. This makes it necessary to adopt other intervention measures, which make family therapy inevitable. Make adolescents opt for family therapy due to its zero side effects as compared to other medication (Henken et al, 2007). Family therapy is effective in the sense that it facilitates a clear parent-to child communication framework. The extent of adolescent depression is enhanced by lack of proper communication. In regards to this perspective, systematic family therapy ensures a good communication platform or channel between the adolescent and the parent. Family therapy promotes a secure parent-adolescent attachment and personal relationship. This is essential for ensuring that the adolescents gets the much needed social, emotional, psychological and physical support from their parents. On the other hand, family therapy removes the negative critical parent-adolescent interactions which may worsen the state of health of the adolescents. Since major depression is usually recurrent, sessions of family therapy should be extended to ensure the problem is adequately solved. Interventions are usually offered early, thus ensuring the problem is sufficiently countered. Systematic family therapy is usually well organized, thus permitting the options of multi-modal treatment in the family therapy as well as depression medication for cases of unresponsive or unsuccessful family therapy (Crane, 2007). Systematic family therapy is very effective for adolescent with depression since it has developed into different forms which meet the diverse needs of people who come for the therapy. Systematic family therapy has been created into family relationships and structures which ensure good relationships and communication between the parents and adolescents (Larner, 2003). Systematic family therapy is advantageous for treating adolescents with depression since the problems are treated in the context they occur. This approach is full empowered by the diverse resources at disposal. For instance, the other family members act as a good resource for change to the affected adolescents. In addition, therapeutic gains have been attained as a result of cooperation with family as well as other relational systems will continue in everyday living. A key point of concern is that systematic family therapy is effective in the sense that it helps in understanding where the problem of depression among adolescents comes from (Stratton, 2005). Family therapy is not only beneficial to the victim but also to the entire family, wince they learn how to handle future difficulties. Family therapy has many positive effect post treatment, mainly for behavioral measures. The benefits of family therapy among youth with depression are persisted. The interventions entailed in systematic therapy are brief, thus being cost and time efficient. It is imperative noting that systematic family therapy has developed with the structural, cognitive behavioral and strategic traditions. This makes it a rich intervention technique for different health problems including adolescent depression. The interventions in systematic family therapy are very effective in vast common adult psychological health as well as relationship problems. This is a key benefit which justifies their cost and time efficiency (Chamberlain & Rosicky, 1995). The cost effectiveness of family therapy is remarkable. The adoption of family therapy greatly reduces the likely of using healthcare. This is a key avenue for reducing the costs of treating or managing depression among youth. Research by Cottrell and Boston (2004) demonstrated that the inclusion of family therapy in healthcare programs has no considerable effect on overall healthcare costs. Family therapy ensures that all family members are fully engaged in the health services. Werner-Wilson (2001) argued that the engagement of family members is an added value to the effectiveness of systematic family therapy. This is because; the victims will be offered a favorable environment for consultation and interaction with their colleagues. This is unlike other treatment or medication approaches where the victims meet totally strange people, thus making them uncomfortable. The issue of close attention to the progress of the victims is also attained through systematic family therapy (Minuchin, 1998). In this case, the parents and caregivers are able to watch on the conduct of the adolescents on day to day basis.
Discussion
Family therapy which is at times referred to as family focus therapy or family systems therapy is very effective in attending to adolescents with depression. Family therapy is helpful to adolescents with depression by offering constructive care and stress management. Family therapy is very flexible and is very useful in diverse situations. As observed in the literature review, family therapy uses a number of conditions which helps in solving problems of adolescents with depression. The literature review has offered substantial evidence that family therapy is effective for adolescents with depression, substance abuse, conduct disorders, behavioral disorders, and anxiety disorders among others. As far as depression is concerned, systematic therapy helps in alleviating the conditions from the affected youth by offering adequate care and reducing stress (Chamberlain & Rosicky, 1995). The study has elaborately demonstrated the effectiveness of family therapy in addressing depression among adolescents. Systematic therapy has been proved to be helpful among adolescents with depression based on its ability to save time, costs, and ensure full family engagement. Systematic therapy focuses on communication, interactions and relationships among parents and adolescents. It also focuses on problem solving skills as well as education among the affected youth. By addressing these issues, family therapy help to effectively solve the depression conditions among adolescents. Despite of the various doubts on the effectiveness of systematic family therapy among adolescents, the study has clearly shown that this therapy is very good treatment for adolescents with depression. Little or no cost is incurred in the treatment process, hence demonstrating its cost-effectiveness (Carr, 2009). Systematic therapy is very beneficial in managing the conditions of adolescents with depression. This therapy is beneficial in the sense that it maintains good relationships between the adolescents with the family members thus helping in easing the pressures of depression. Family therapy sets up a framework and space for the family to express their fears and concerns regarding how the depression affects their loved one as well as family dynamic. This is a key aspect of family therapy which helps in seeking the input of other family members. The depressed adolescents are in this case able to get support from their family members. This helps in reducing frustrations and helps the adolescents to get out of the depression. In addition, this approach is effective in the sense that it helps the adolescents to learn new ways of leading the family life (Woolfenden et al, 2002). The general methodology adopted by systematic family therapy is very appropriate for offering care to the depressed adolescents. Systematic family therapy involves more than one individual in the treatment process. The emphasis of the treatment is the affected persons and the outcome domains after the intervention. Systematic family therapy is complex and ensures that all issues of the health conditions are addressed. The causes, interventions, and results of the processes are accounted thus helping in ensuring maximum benefit to the affected. In his study, Minuchin (1998) argued that it would be immature and inappropriate to conclude that family therapy is ineffective among adolescents. In his research, Larner (2003) indicated that many adolescents who were introduced to family therapy improved in less than 24 months. In the contrary, the process was shown to be ineffective in cases where the mother of the adolescent was absence in controlling and supporting the affected adolescent. Systematic family therapy is very useful in the event of a crisis in relation to long-term problems. Adolescents who are suffering from severe depression may effectively be attended to in family therapy with less cost. Family therapy has been shown to be effective in preventing problems related to behavioral difficulty, like the deterioration into mental health breakdown and delinquency. It is worth noting that socially and economically disadvantaged families will find this approach very efficient in addressing problems of adolescents with depression.
Conclusion
With reference to the research study, systematic family therapy has been identified as very effective among adolescents with depression. This is a distinctive psychotherapy approach which focuses on family and relationships of the affected individual. The evidence of efficacy and effectiveness of systematic family therapy is concrete. Systematic therapy is time efficient and can be used in addressing a couple of conditions. In order to increase its effectiveness, family therapy ought to be executed by qualified counselors and psychiatrists with specific training on family treatment. Some of the health professionals who can effectively be used in enhancing effectiveness of family therapy include people trained as social workers, family therapists, child and adolescent psychiatrist.
