Therapeutic techniques for treatment of adolescents with rebellious behaviour

Abstract

This study focuses on the therapeutic interventions by mental health practitioners when faced with rebellious youths.

Rebelliousness refers to the act of defying lawful authority or a resistant way of relating to authority or convention. It is manifested in, amongst others, withdrawal, deviance, delinquency, antisocial behaviour, and suicide.

To date there are no interventions for rebellious youths per sé. Rebellious youths are often treated with traditional strategies which are often ineffective and show little promise for eliminating rebellious behaviour. Research has revealed that teen problem behaviours stem from "life-problems" such as psychosocial stressors. Therefore treating the adolescent for substance abuse, for example, is treating him/her for the wrong reasons. It is no surprise that many adolescents who have undergone intervention programmes for specific behaviour problems relapse soon after they are released from the programmes.

The study focuses on integrating different strategies in order to combat rebelliousness in adolescence and beyond. This holistic approach argues that all treatments share certain curative processes. Therefore each treatment works best when it is combined with other aspects of treatment. For this reason, individual, family and group therapy were combined together with school strategies.

The results of this study indicate that combining procedures that are designed to improve problematic behaviour in teenagers are viable forms of treatment.