Toward a Developmental Family Therapy: the Clinical Utility of Research on Adolescence

Tremendous advances have been made in our understanding of the intrapersonal, interpersonal, familial, and contextual characteristics and processes that contribute to adaptive as well as maladaptive developmental outcomes with high-risk and clinically referred adolescents. This empirical knowledge base offers clinically rich opportunities for systematic treatment development. An important step in this process is distinguishing which research findings in basic science areas such as developmental psychology and developmental psychopathology might have clinical relevance. Toward this goal, we review relevant but selective research in areas that are central to clinical work with adolescents (parent-adolescent relationship, biological aspects, and affect and cognition), and we offer examples of how basic research in these areas can inform treatment.