Abstract
This chapter discusses the treatment, development history of an outpatient family-based intervention for adolescent drug use, and behavior problems and Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT). MDFT is an ecological, developmentally based psychotherapy that focuses on changing individual behavior, within-family interactions as well as interactions between the family members and relevant social systems. Interventions target the interconnected contexts of the adolescent development. Within these contexts, interventions target on: the circumstances, and processes known to create and/or continue dysfunction. MDFT incorporates multiple social systems into the therapeutic work (individual family members, various family subgroups, and influential extra familial persons and systems) and operates within multiple domains of adolescent and family functioning (affective, behavioral, cognitive, and interpersonal). The approach strives for a consistent and obvious connection among its organizational levels—theory, principles of intervention, intervention strategies, and methods, and clinical assessment of family progress. MDFT is recognized as one of a new generation of comprehensive, multicomponent, theoretically derived, and empirically supported treatments for adolescent drug abuse. This chapter focuses on the articulation, testing and refinement of MDFT, in accordance with the science standards of intervention and in pursuit of empirical support as an efficacious treatment for adolescent substance abuse and related behavior problems.