A message from Tom and Astrid
Welcome to Functional Family Therapy
Successfully working with youth and families remains one of the most complex therapeutic tasks faced by clinicians. Families that come for help struggle with behaviors, emotions, and experiences that are no longer functional, that may be harmful, or don’t fit well within the context in which they live.
FFT developed out of a clinical need in communities, schools, and community-based treatment centers to serve a population of at-risk adolescents and families who were often perceived to be difficult to treat and difficult to engage. Over three decades of evolution and development, FFT has matured to include a comprehensive theoretical “lens,” a systemically relationally-based change process (“map”), and an appreciation and reliance on the clinical creativity of the therapist who translates the model from an idea into practice in the relational interactions with the client and family. FFT is unique in the field of couple and family psychology in that rather than a “tool box” of collected therapist techniques, it is a comprehensive family-based and relationally-focused clinical intervention model that is more an “architectural plan” than a series of isolated clinical techniques.
For us, being part of the development of Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is a personal experience. We are passionate about finding the best ways for families to get out of the problematic ways in which they are stuck. For us, FFT is far more than a therapeutic model, it is:
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Both scientific at its foundation while retaining an emotional heart and a fundamental creativity to working with families.
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Constantly evolving through the evolution of ideas, practices, and methods as we search to constantly improve the model, the theory, and the clinical interventions to be most helpful to those families in need.
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A creative activity with each therapist matching the model to the unique features of a family.
We have come a long way from the early days of FFT. Today, the model is far more than its simplistic beginnings. Using our innovative training methods, trainees get an evidence-based training experience demonstrating both knowledge and the ability to practice with fidelity. Using our online adult learner oriented training methods training now maximizes adult learning while minimizing time away from work productivity. Using the FFT-Clinical Measurement System, we are able to accurately track client progress both in terms of outcome and therapeutic process.
Using our Care 4 Clinical Feedback System, FFT therapists track the impact, progress, and symptom levels of youth and families and receive real time feedback each week allowing for individualization of treatment to the unique features of each family. Using our innovative evidence-based treatment planning system, FFT goes beyond a model based on past evidence to one with current evidence every day. Finally, much like the FFT treatment model, our goal is to work with you, being flexible to help the FFT model fit your organization and context to make a lasting and self sustaining FFT project that becomes part of how you and your organization work.
Thank you so much for your interest in our work, we hope to have the opportunity to work with you in the complex task of helping the families in your community in need.
Tom Sexton
Astrid van Dam
