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Engaging “Resistant” Families in Treatment
Author(s) -
Duncan Stanton M.,
Todd Thomas C.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1981.00261.x
Subject(s) - dual (grammatical number) , psychology , control (management) , family therapy , family medicine , social psychology , medicine , computer science , psychiatry , art , literature , artificial intelligence
Many families, when presented with the option of family therapy, are less than eager to participate. This paper comprises the second and third parts of a series on engaging “resistant” families. 1 Part II presents 21 principles and a number of techniques and strategies that have been developed for successfuly recruiting such families. These techniques should be applicable for engaging resistant families with all types of presenting problems. Part III provides an analysis of the important variables involved, along with data on cost efficiency and administrative costs. It was found that when therapists had administrative control of their cases, serving in dual roles as both therapists and drug counselors, the recruitment effort was (a) more effective (i.e., complete families, including both parents or parent surrogates, were recruited in 77 per cent of the cases), and (b) twice as cost efficient. Two‐thirds of the non‐engaged families were not recruited because the index patient would not allow family members to be contacted. Black families were more difficult to recruit than whites. Data on cost efficiency and on the actual administrative costs of recruiting families are also provided. We conclude that the engagement process requires a revision in therapeutic philosophy, since such families are often desperately in need of help but are unavailable unless therapists make a special effort to reach them.