Short-term behavioral intervention with delinquent families: Impact on family process and recidivism.

Throughout the history of psychotherapy, evaluation of the effects of intervention have been notoriously absent. When evaluation has been attempted, most studies have failed to utilize control groups that really controlled for such major alternative hypotheses as attention placebo, maturation, and other intervening experiences. The intervention program involved a set of clearly defined therapist interventions with delinquent families designed to: assess the family behaviors that maintain delinquent behavior; modify the family communication patterns in the direction of greater clarity and precision, increased reciprocity, and presentation of alternative solutions; all in order to institute a pattern of contingency contracting in the family designed to modify the maladaptive patterns and institute more adaptive behaviors. Reflecting the adaptive changes in family process, it was hypothesized that families receiving the program would demonstrate significantly lower recidivism rates than comparison groups on follow-up.