Substance Use Disorders and Adolescents with Thomas G. Kimball, PhD & Sterling T. Shumway, PhD

        
Thomas G. Kimball, PhD           Sterling T. Shumway, PhD

Now considered an epidemic, the disease of addiction touches individuals, families and communities in profound and personal ways.  Adolescent substance use is tearing families apart and has huge implications for our clinical practice as marriage and family therapists.  MFTs are in a unique position to offer help to families who have struggled with addiction or have children currently suffering from addictive disorders.  
In this institute, family therapists will gain skills necessary to helping adolescents and their families with this all too common concern. Participants will begin by gaining a basic understanding of the neurobiology of addiction and recovery, as well as the general landscape of addiction and recovery, in order to develop valuable therapuetic insight into adolescents’ unique issues related to the process of addiction. Important considerations stemming from the impact of ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation on treatment and recovery will be explored.

Drs. Kimball and Shumway will prepare participants to work with adolescents and their families from assessment through long-term needs that begin after the initial intervention is complete. Attendees will learn how to support families of adolescents in recovery, from renegotiating parental roles, to tending to each element of sustaining a long lasting recovery. 

Participants will be able to:

• Identify and understand two models describing the addictive cycle
• Relate family systems principles to addiction and recovery
• Understand and be able to briefly assess substance use disorders
• Think about the assessment of addiction from a “stages” perspective and understand basic intervention using the techniques of motivational interviewing
• Articulate the process of multifamily groups and their potential for use with adolescents and families
• Learn how to help with renegotiation of parent/adolescent relationships and rebuilding positives within families
• Understand the Six Essentials to Achieve Lasting Recovery
• Apply these recovery Essentials in a therapeutic context with adolescents and their family members

Course Schedule

Thursday, March 7, 2013 – Sunday, March 10, 2013

8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. each day

This course provides 20 hours of continuing education.

Thomas G. Kimball, PhD, LMFT, is an associate professor at Texas Tech University and the associate managing director for the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery. In addition to his responsibilities at Texas Tech, Dr. Tom (as he is called by his students) maintains a private therapy practice and enjoys presenting on recovery in multiple venues. He has been married  for 21 years and has five children.

Sterling T. Shumway, PhD, LMFT, is an Evelyn M. Davies Regents Professor at Texas Tech University in the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery. In addition to his private therapy practice where he sees individuals, couples, and families, Sterling facilitates multifamily groups at The Ranch at Dove Tree, an inpatient drug and alcohol treatment facility located in Lubbock, Texas. He has been married for 30 years and has five children.