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Engaging with Parents in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services[Note 1. 1 Disclosure Statement: Jenny Brown declares that there are ...]
Author(s) -
Brown Jenny
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
australian and new zealand journal of family therapy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.297
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8438
pISSN - 0814-723X
DOI - 10.1002/anzf.1409
Subject(s) - blame , mental health , alliance , psychology , resource (disambiguation) , young person , perception , qualitative research , focus group , project commissioning , developmental psychology , publishing , psychotherapist , psychiatry , sociology , political science , computer network , social science , neuroscience , computer science , anthropology , law
This paper asks the question: How can child and adolescent mental health clinicians constructively engage parents as a resource in the young person's treatment? It draws from qualitative research data that explore parents' experience of their involvement in their adolescent's mental health treatment program. The paper especially focuses on challenges for clinicians in engaging with parents as part of the treatment program for young people. Clinicians' input about their perceptions of interacting with parents is utilised alongside parents' experiences of their involvement in clinical processes. The clinician data revealed key challenges were managing their reactions to parent defensiveness; broadening the focus from just alleviating symptoms in the young person; not taking sides with the young person; and resisting becoming an expert instructor. The paper discusses Murray Bowen's original family research about engaging parents in treatment with the symptom bearer and addresses how clinicians can build a positive alliance with parents that avoids blame while constructively opening exploration of the family relationship process as part of a collaborative approach.