Treatment Services For Adolescent Substance Abusers

"Treating substance abuse in adolescents requires a creative integration of individual, group, and family therapy, along with an understanding of addiction and recovery, family dynamics, and adolescent development. This book incorporates all of these elements into its discussion. Its thoroughness makes it a valuable addition to the literature in this relatively new clinical specialty." --Joseph K. Nowinski, Private Practice "This is a hopeful book that promotes a comprehensive view of a complicated difficulty." --Virginia Child Protection Newsletter

Highlights and integrates what is known about adolescent substance abusers, their drug and drug-related problems, the programs that serve them, and the treatment methods and approaches that have proven to be most effective. It is intended to serve as a guide for those who are currently involved or who plan to become involved in the treatment of adolescent substance abusers. Covers: family factors; referral and diagnosis; individualized treatment; counseling; structural family therapy; group therapy; treatment in schools; supportive life skills; treatment in a therapeutic community, and much more.

This volume reviews a range of empirically supported approaches to prevention and treatment of adolescent substance use problems. The focus is on motivationally based brief interventions that can be delivered in a variety of contexts, that address key developmental considerations, and that draw on cutting-edge knowledge on addictive behavior change. From expert contributors, coverage encompasses alcohol skills training; integrative behavioral and family therapy; motivational interviewing; interventions for dually diagnosed youth; Internet-based education, prevention, and treatment; and applications to HIV prevention. The volume is extensively referenced and includes numerous clinical illustrations and vignettes.

The second edition of this book incorporates the latest theory, research, and best practices for understanding, treating, and preventing substance abuse among adolescents. It updates the progress made in treatments for and prevention of the misuse of substances and adds new specific chapters on prescriptions, opiates, and methamphetamine abuse. The book discusses the effects of commonly abused substances, from tobacco and alcohol to stimulants and opioids, on the human brain and the various psychosocial routes to their misuse by adolescents. Chapters provide evidence-based guidelines for assessing adolescent treatment needs and review psychological, pharmacological, family, and self-help interventions. The book offers new paths in diverse directions, analyzes the core components of substance use prevention, critiques emerging school-based interventions, and introduces a nuanced reconceptualization of recovery. Topics featured in the book include: The effect of family and caregiver situations on adolescent substance abuse. A biological/genetic perspective on adolescent substance abuse. School-based preventions and the evolution of evidence-based strategies. The role of adolescent self-help in substance abuse interventions. Community-based interventions to reduce alcohol use and misuse. Adolescent Substance Abuse, Second Edition, is a must-have reference for researchers, clinicians/practitioners, and graduate students in the fields of child and school psychology, social work, public health, developmental psychology, child and adolescent psychiatry, and various interrelated mental health and social policy arenas.

All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care systems are struggling to cope with substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders. Substance misuse and substance use disorders have devastating effects, disrupt the future plans of too many young people, and all too often, end lives prematurely and tragically. Substance misuse is a major public health challenge and a priority for our nation to address. The effects of substance use are cumulative and costly for our society, placing burdens on workplaces, the health care system, families, states, and communities. The Report discusses opportunities to bring substance use disorder treatment and mainstream health care systems into alignment so that they can address a person's overall health, rather than a substance misuse or a physical health condition alone or in isolation. It also provides suggestions and recommendations for action that everyone-individuals, families, community leaders, law enforcement, health care professionals, policymakers, and researchers-can take to prevent substance misuse and reduce its consequences.

Substance abuse is, and has always been, an indisputable fact of life. People – especially young people – abuse various legal and illegal substances for any number of reasons: to intensify feelings, to achieve deeper consciousness, to escape reality, to self-medicate. And as substance-abusing teenagers mature, they pose particular challenges to the professionals charged with keeping them clean and sober and helping them maintain recovery into adulthood. Adolescent Substance Abuse: Evidence-Based Approaches to Prevention and Treatment offers clear, interdisciplinary guidance that grounds readers in the many contexts – developmental, genetic, social, and familial among them – crucial to creating effective interventions and prevention methods. Its contributors examine current findings regarding popularly used therapies, including psychopharmacology, residential treatment, school- and community-based programs, group homes, and specific forms of individual, family, and group therapy. Accessible to a wide professional audience, this volume: (1) Presents evidence-based support for the treatment decision-making process by identifying interventions that work, might work, and don’t work. (2) Identifies individual traits associated with susceptibility to substance abuse and addiction in youth. (3) Provides a biogenetic model of the effects of drugs on the brain (and refines the concept of gateway drugs). (4) Evaluates the effectiveness of prevention programs in school and community settings. (5) Adds historical, spiritual, and legal perspectives on substance use and misuse. (6) Includes the bonus resource, the Community Prevention Handbook on Adolescent Substance Abuse and Treatment. This volume is an all-in-one reference for counseling professionals and clinicians working with youth and families as well as program developers in state and local agencies and graduate students in counseling and prevention.