ABSTRACT
Family therapy with adolescents most frequently focuses on issues of individuation, hierarchy, conflict, power, and control. The nurturance of adolescents by their parents has been relatively ignored in the literature (Mackey, 1996). This is despite considerable theoretical and research data supporting the importance of parental nurturance to adolescent identity formation and self-esteem (Mackey, in press). Parental nurturance is one avenue to address attachment/connection problems between parents and adolescents. Parental nurturance can be easily incorporated into most treat-ment approaches with adolescents and usually serves to enhance the therapist's effectiveness. This chapter will demonstrate how family photographs can be used to facilitate parental nurturance in the context of family therapy with adolescents.
