Using Parent-Child Attachment to Create a Secure Base and Overcome Adolescent Depression and Suicide - Attachment Based Family Therapy, An Empirically Supported Treatment

In this interview, Guy Diamond discusses his personal journal in developing Attachment Based Family Therapy, a proven, effective treatment, that helps adolescents with depression, trauma, suicide, and anxiety, as well as LGBTQ adolescent young adults and their families. Dr. Diamond discusses how, through clinical practice and research, he and his collogues learned to make those profound, heartfelt moments in family therapy happen more often in a more purposeful, and predictable manner, event in a brief treatment model. These healing sessions activate the parents’ natural caregiving instinct, matched with the adolescents’ attachment need, to rebond the parent-child, creates a family safety net. This builds the foundation of trust and connection needed for adolescents to effectively solve problems and overcome life's adversity. Dr. Diamond discusses how this process oriented, emotionally focused, has been manualized and evaluated in several clinical trials. Additionally, Dr. Diamond talks about cutting edge treatment development and research with ABFT and adolescents diagnosed with eating disorders. Guy S. Diamond Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Associate Professor at Drexel University in the College of Nursing and Health Professions. At Drexel, he is the Director of the Center for Family Intervention Science (CFIS) and the Director of the Ph.D. program in the Department of Couple and Family Therapy. He has received several federal, state and foundation grants to develop and test this model. Dr. Diamond is the author, with his co-authors, Drs. Gary Diamond and Suzanne Levy, of the book, Attachment-Based Family Therapy for Depressed Adolescents, and continues to develop and implement the ABFT model.