title: Ethnic background, therapeutic alliance, and treatment retention in functional family therapy with adolescents who abuse substances.
abstract: In this study, the authors examined the role of balance between adolescent-therapist and parent-therapist alliances in the retention of functional family therapy clients. Therapeutic alliances of mothers, fathers, and adolescents were assessed from videotapes of the 1st treatment session for 43 Hispanic and 43 Anglo families. Hispanic families who dropped out before completing the requisite number of sessions were found to have greater imbalance in alliance (parent-adolescent) than those who did complete therapy. However, this finding was not replicated with Anglo families. Results are interpreted in terms of previous research on family-level balanced alliance effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, Oregon, USA. smflicker@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Sharon M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Flicker
authors.forename: Charles W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.forename: Holly B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Waldron
authors.forename: Janet L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Brody
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Ozechowski
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005196:Family Therapy; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010352:Patient Dropouts / Q000523:psychology*; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000208:ethnology / Q000628:therapy*; D014743:Videotape Recording; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology*