ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the clinical description of systemic approaches that are used in solution-focused and narrative therapy. A key component of effective chronic care management involving young people and their families or carers is establishing and maintaining the motivation that will enable them to manage the complex juggling act required for effective management of their condition. The components of the intervention include cognitive restructuring of irrational beliefs, structural family interventions that target problematic family characteristics, and family communication and problem-solving. Solution focused brief therapy approaches have the potential to offer diabetes teams a way of communicating with young people with diabetes who may be reluctant to engage with standard psychological approaches and encourage greater self-management. Solution-focused brief therapies and other systemic approaches, like motivational interviewing, are increasingly demonstrating positive outcomes both in research and, most importantly, in the experience of clinicians and the children, young people and families they are working with.
