Positive Systemic Practice for Families of Adolescents with Emotional and Behavioural Problems

Positive Systemic Practice (PSP) is an approach to family therapy for addressing adolescent emotional and behavioural problems. It was developed at Crosscare Teen Counselling, which operates from 6 centres in socially disadvantaged areas of Dublin. The practice of PSP is guided by 10 general principles and 47 specific therapeutic stances which are used to put the principles of PSP into practice. PSP involves adopting a positive, systemic, preventative and normal developmental perspective. Therapy is viewed as involving three distinct phases, in all of which the therapeutic alliance is central, and therapeutic problem-solving is research-informed. Counsellors actively work with resistance to change, operate in two-person teams and evaluate their work. An archival study showed that families of adolescents with significant behavioural and emotional problems, most of whom were self-referred, engaged with PSP for an average of 15 sessions over 4 months. For a subsample of cases where pre- and post-treatment data were available, there was evidence for statistically and clinically significant improvement.