Understanding The Family: Trails Family Programming Director Discusses Outcomes of Research Findings

For the last couple of years, I have been supporting Dr. Salli Lewis, the Director of the Research Division of CReATE (Center for Research, Assessment, and Treatment Efficacy), with a comprehensive treatment outcomes study exploring family involvement within therapeutic treatment at Trails Carolina.

At Trails Carolina, working with families to promote healing is one of the most important aspects of treatment. Trails Carolina family programming includes regular family therapy sessions, mid-treatment parent workshops, and post-graduation family reunification programming.

Family involvement leads to success

A wide body of research has shown that family involvement throughout the therapeutic process is a huge predictor of whether or not a teen in treatment will achieve success. If the whole family is on board throughout the treatment process, teens are more likely to make effective changes to the behavioral and/or emotional challenges they experienced in the past.
Throughout her research Dr. Lewis has collected findings from a sample of 185 adolescents and their families.
 

Presentation at 2017 Annual NATSAP Conference

 
Dr. Lewis and I will be presenting this research at the 2017 Annual NATSAP Conference. Our presentation will focus primarily on the ways in which  ineffective, permissive, or authoritarian parenting styles negatively impact an adolescent’s progress in therapy.

The presentation will discuss Dr. Lewis’s findings, including a clinical facet known as psychological control. Family systems with children or teenagers struggling with behavioral or emotional challenges often experience an increased amount of psychological control. When parents and family systems fall into patterns of psychological control, they often use tactics such as guilt and manipulation.

We will be analyzing the ways in which  psychological control has shown up within the outcomes research Salli has conducted. We will also consider the ways in which Trails Carolina addresses forms of psychological control in students and how we’re helping families move out of psychological control patterns.

We will be presenting this research on Thursday, January 27th, from 10:30 – 12:00/PM at the 2017 NATSAP Annual Conference.

For more information about family programming at Trails Carolina, please visit: https://trailscarolina.com/