Abstract
This chapter describes Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT), a comprehensive, developmentally oriented treatment for youth substance abuse and delinquent behaviors. Clinicians and trainers report that using MDFT offers repertoire-expanding opportunities for creativity. MDFT could be described as a family-based subsystem therapy, a treatment that works not only with and inside the various “constituent parts” of individuals and broader systems but also at their intersections in shaping interactions and creating growth oriented individual experiences directly in sessions. MDFT develops and uses what individuals consider larger life themes, braiding these with behaviorally oriented detailed work in skills training and problem solving. Contextual and developmental in philosophy and clinical methodology, the family’s central role in understanding and treating youth problems is well established. Treatment with adolescents can attend to individual youth, parent and family, and others’ demands and needs. Therapists stimulate family interaction on important topics, noting to themselves how individuals contribute differentially to the adolescent’s life and circumstances.