Family-based approaches to reducing adolescent substance use: theories, techniques and findings

There has been much discussion over the last two decades concerning the theoretical and philosophical, as well as practical merits of the two perspectives discussed in this chapter. Both theories recently have developed knowledge that benefits all researchers and practitioners and are in the process of developing more. Adherents to both orientations agree that the family and greater social context play important roles in determining adolescent substance use. They also concur that successful interventions to change adolescent behaviors include: (a) targeting behaviors appropriate for the adolescents' developmental status, (b) recognizing that adolescents are seldom self-referred, and (c) utilizing the fact that parents still potentially control much in their lives. Theoretical differences lie in choices of salient family and adolescent variables, units of measurement, levels of scientific analysis, and notions about cause and effect. Both theories, however, currently are generating knowledge that reduces adolescent substance use, and this bodes well for the future.