Integrative Family Therapy, DVD

With Jay Lebow, PhD, ABPP

Closed Captioned
Running Time: Over 100 minutes
Copyright: 2007

ORDER CODE: APA-4310792


In Integrative Family Therapy, Jay Lebow, PhD, ABPP, demonstrates his multimodal, evidence-based approach to working with families. This approach views family issues as complex combinations of biology, behavior, cognition, affect, and systemic factors. Anchored in a client-oriented philosophy, Dr. Lebow first delineates client goals and then uses the most appropriate generic evidence-based strategies that can help achieve the goals set by the clients.

In this session, Dr. Lebow works with a family whose 7-year-old son was recently diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder (ADD). Dr. Lebow focuses on helping the family better understand ADD, determining situations associated with stronger exhibition of ADD symptoms, supporting the family in continuing the behavioral treatment program in which they are already participating, and processing their experience with this problem.

Approach
Integrative family therapy as represented in this DVD draws from the generic base of practice in family therapy. It is Dr. Lebow's version of how to work with families in an integrative way. This method is not presented as a new model of treatment, but as the integration of the best available treatment models, strategies, and interventions for working with families.

Dr. Lebow's approach is based in the simple notion of utilizing the most appropriate, helpful, and effective treatment strategies that are applicable in each case, coupled with the concept of therapists selecting those strategies that they can most effectively deliver. The approach builds on a biopsychosocial and systemic theoretical underpinning and emphasizes clients as informed consumers and collaborators in treatment. The approach builds on and attempts to maximize the impact of common factors in treatment.

The approach features creating a clear therapy contract, thorough assessment, clear goal setting, the utilization of multiple therapy session formats, holding both a systemic and individual focused perspective, maintaining a solution-oriented focus, creating a multipartial alliance with all parties, tracking outcome on a session-by-session basis throughout treatment, and the utilization of a wide range of intervention strategies and interventions.

Among those strategies used are ones that focus on psychoeducation, behavior, cognition, emotion, internal process, and relevant social systems. The approach can be used in a time-limited way, but is intended to be "open-ended" in building an alliance with the family that can be drawn upon to help the family cope with various challenges over the life cycle that might arise.

This approach is intended to be applicable to the broad range of clients seeking couple and family therapy, either for relational difficulties such as family conflict, or as part of the treatment of an individual problem. Treatment strategies are adapted to the presenting problem, the family, and the context of the therapy, to maximize the acceptability and effectiveness of the treatment. It is intended to be suitable for all clients presenting for couple or family therapy. There have been several specific descriptions in the literature of the adaptation of this approach to high conflict divorcing families.


About the Therapist
Jay Lebow, PhD, ABPP, is a senior therapist and research consultant at The Family Institute, and clinical professor of psychology at Northwestern University. He is board certified in family psychology. He is a clinical member and approved supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, a fellow of Divisions 12 (Society of Clinical Psychology) and 43 (Family Psychology) of the American Psychological Association, a fellow of the Academy of Family Psychology, and a former member of the board of the Illinois Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.

Dr. Lebow has served as treasurer and a member of the board of directors of the American Family Therapy Academy, president of Division 43 of the American Psychological Association, and a member of the board of directors of the American Board of Family Psychology.

His publications include three edited volumes: Family Psychology: The Art of the Science (with William Pinsof), the Handbook of Clinical Family Therapy, and the Integrative and Eclectic Psychotherapies volume of the Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy. He has authored Research for the Psychotherapist: From Science to Practice.

He is also the author of 100 book chapters and articles including an end-of-decade review of couple therapy; the practice update concerned with couple therapy for the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy; a chapter reviewing the research literature in family therapy for the Annual Review of Psychology; chapters overviewing couple and family therapy in Comprehensive Clinical Psychology, the Psychologist's Desk Reference, and the Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry; as well as numerous articles and chapters dealing with integrative therapy, research in couple and family therapy, and assessment and treatment in divorce when there is conflict over child custody and visitation.

He is a contributing editor and writes a regular column on the relation of research to practice for the Psychotherapy Networker and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Family Process, and In Session.

Dr. Lebow lectures in the master of science in Marital and Family Therapy program and leads a practicum group from the doctoral clinical psychology program at Northwestern University. He also is involved in the ongoing treatment research at The Family Institute concerned with assessing progress in psychotherapy and the development of the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change. Dr. Lebow received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern University and is also a graduate of The Family Institute's postgraduate training program.