ABSTRACT
Brief strategic family therapy (BSFT) was developed in a 35-year program of research at the University of Miami’s Center for Family Studies (Szapocznik & Williams, 2000; Szapocznik, Hervis, & Schwartz, 2003). The BSFT model is a 12- to 16-week intervention for the prevention and treatment of adolescents with serious behavior problems and drug use. A series of randomized clinical trials have demonstrated that the BSFT model is efficacious in treating adolescent drug abuse, conduct problems, associations with antisocial peers, and impaired family functioning (Szapocznik et al., 1989; Santisteban et al., 2003; Robbins et al., 2009). Because the family is an important context for adolescent development, the BSFT model intervenes directly at the level of the family system, diagnosing and restructuring maladaptive interactions. These maladaptive interactions are considered to contribute to or maintain the presenting problem and are therefore the targets of change in therapy.
