Combining attachment-based family therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy to improve outcomes for adolescents with anxiety.

Increases in adolescent anxiety over the past several years suggest a need for trauma-informed, culturally responsive interventions that help teens cope with environmental stressors like those associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Although abundant evidence supports the efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in treating adolescent anxiety, not all teens respond positively to CBT. CBT does not typically include strategies that address important family factors that may be impacting the teen's functioning, such as the attachment relationship.

Dr. Diamond Replies.

The Letter to the Editor by Verhees et al. raises interesting questions about how to potentiate the mechanism of change in attachment-focused therapies. The basic assumption of attachment theory is that that children who grow up with insensitive or inconsistent parenting or trauma internalize a view of the world as unsafe and view themselves as unworthy of love and protection.

Identifying Risk Factors for Disordered Eating among Female Youth in Primary Care.

Eating disorders are a serious, life-threating condition impacting adolescents and young adults. Providers in primary care settings have an important role in identifying disordered eating (DE) symptoms. Unfortunately, symptoms go undetected in 50% of patients in medical settings.

Exploring Acceptability and Feasibility of Evidence-Based Practice in Child Welfare Settings: A Pilot Study with Attachment-Based Family Therapy.

The Flemish Child Welfare System (CWS) is in great need of a shared empirically informed clinical strategy for working with depressed adolescents and their families. Many evidence-based practices (EBP) exist, but little is known as to whether they can be successfully imported in the CWS. Therefore, the current study explores the implementation of a particular EBP, Attachment-Based Family Therapy (ABFT), in home-based services of the Flemish CWS in Belgium.

Longitudinal relations between stress and depressive symptoms in youth: coping as a mediator.

The present prospective study examined the relations among stressful life events, coping, and depressive symptoms in children at varied risk for depression. Participants were 227 children between 7 and 17 years old (mean age = 12.13 years, SD = 2.

Maternal psychological stress after prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease.

Objective: To determine whether prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease (CHD) increases maternal stress.

Study Design: Self-report instruments were administered to mothers carrying a fetus with CHD. Domains included: (1) traumatic stress (Impact of Events Scale-Revised); (2) depression (Beck Depression Index II); and (3) anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Index).

Feasibility of Attachment Based Family Therapy for depressed clinic-referred Norwegian adolescents.

Several studies have earned Attachment Based Family Therapy (ABFT) the designation of a promising empirically supported treatment for adolescents with depression. This study evaluated the feasibility of importing ABFT into a hospital-based outpatient clinic in Norway. This article documents the challenges of initiating and conducting research in a real world clinical setting and training staff therapists.