What is a functional family therapy?

Functional family therapy is a therapeutic program offered by many state or community agencies that can be endangered by the youth population. It is particularly designed to be used with juveniles who find themselves in the court system for the crimes committed. Developed at the end of the sixties, it is a technique of short -term therapy that emphasizes the participation of the whole family. The aim is to improve family communication and discourage youth from recurrence.

Due to its long -term use, functional family therapy has been studied quite extensively. Obviously, it shows a decline in recurrence for the program participants. This does not mean that this is the only hit or therapeutic program that could be used successfully. Yet it has been repeatedly identified as a good program that can have encouraging results.

The functional family therapy program is short -term, consisting of one hour session, once a week for 8 to 12 weeks, or slightly longer. There are three segments of the program, the beginningIt is involved in engagement or motivation, where the aim is to create a strong alliance in the family, motivate the desire to change and help families to communicate more clearly. Another part is a change in behavior. The aim is to create plans for what changes should be made and do things like identifying those risks that stand in the way of changing behavior.

The final phase is called generalization, and this works partially by helping family members to "generalize" other situations as they can continue to maintain changes. Indeed, this last phase is focused on attempting to prevent outages. It may also include providing family approach to multiple resources that can help them maintain the things they have learned.

Functional family therapy has been used in a number of countries and various agencies can offer it, involving the separation of justice, prison, prison for juveniles, youth groups or human service divisionsin the government. Usually it requires recommendations in places like the US, because it tends to be most offered by government agencies. The agency must have training to implement a functional family therapy program that can receive from a number of sources

This form of family therapy does not have to be administered by a therapist. Instead, many people could facilitate meetings, including release officers or those who have short mental health training. State laws requiring licensing for those who practice any form of counseling or therapy can be tailored to what it is permissible.