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The efficacy of Solution-Focused Family Therapy (SFFT) for helping three families with aggressive and oppositional-acting children (aged 8-9) was examined. The N=1 multiple-baseline design with three replications used validated measures, a treatment manual, and a treatment integrity measure. The interventions lasted from four to five sessions. SFFT appeared to be effective with the families at post-treatment and 3-month follow up.
THERAPISTS NEED EFFICIENT, effective interventions for aggressive-acting children because of our high number of referrals and the pressure for quick results. More importantly, we need to prevent the tragic trajectory that carries aggressive children into the more tragic problems of criminal behavior in later life (Loeber, 1990; Patterson, Crosby, & Vuchinich, 1992) and substance abuse (Moffitt, 1993).
Solution-Focused Family Therapy (SFFT) offers the advantages of being a brief, strength-based therapy (DeJong & Berg, 1998; de Shazer, 1985). The approach focuses, not on the problematic behaviors or their causes, but on further developing the solutions the individuals already perform. The solutions/strengths are identified by focusing on the interactions or contexts when the problematic behaviors are not occurring. The brevity of therapy is accomplished by avoiding resistance through focusing on the positive goals (what should be increased) rather than the deficiencies. Brevity is also achieved by capitalizing on what the family does well already, thereby avoiding the need to teach entirely new skills. Meeting for approximately six sessions (Lee, 1997; Zimmerman, Jacobsen, Macintyre, & Watson, 1996; Zimmerman, Prest, & Wetzel, 1997) has been found to substantially decrease dropout rates (Beyebach & Carranza, 1997).
There is a great deal of support and enthusiasm for SFFT in the literature (Eakes, Walsh, Markowski, et al., 1997; Lee, 1997; Zimmerman et al, 1996, 1997). A concern with the existent research is that the studies almost universally rely on unvalidated measures to judge outcome and do not have treatment integrity/ adherence measures or clear descriptions of the presenting problems or functioning level. The initial studies, however, point toward the merit of further investigation into the efficacy of SFFT.
This study is a carefully controlled study of the efficacy of SFFT using two validated outcome measures, a treatment manual, and a treatment adherence measure. We hypothesized that Solution-Focused Family Therapy would reduce the aggressive, noncompliant behaviors of oppositional-acting elementary-aged children. Aggressive, noncompliant...