Treating Troubled Adolescents – The Don Jackson Way

Abstract

ABSTRACT The interaction focused theory and therapy pioneered by Don D. Jackson, MD in assessment and treatment of adolescents with severe emotional and behavioral difficulties is described. A transcript of the first interview of a successful five session treatment of a fourteen-year-old male and his family is analyzed using premises of systemic theory pioneered by Jackson and colleagues during 1950s-1960s first in Gregory Bateson’s Research Team then organized into family and brief therapy approaches at the Mental Research Institute (MRI). The relevance to present day practice of Jackson’s systemic conceptual logic and approach are described.