June 9, 2014

Since 2009, The Attachment Based Family Therapy (ABFT) Training Program has been conducting introductory workshops with therapists around the globe in Australia, Belgium, Israel, Norway, and Sweden. The ABFT Training Program has three international trainings planned for 2014: a three-day introductory workshop for therapists and students in Brisbane, Australia; an advanced three-day workshop in Gothenburg, Sweden; and a three-day introductory workshop in Ontario, Canada.

In addition to trainings, the ABFT Program currently runs ongoing supervision groups with therapists at community mental health agencies throughout Belgium and Sweden. The ABFT Program’s colleagues are also running research studies utilizing ABFT in Israel, Norway, and Sweden.

ABFT aims to repair ruptures in the attachment relationship, and establish or resuscitate the secure base so important for adolescent development. ABFT is the only manualized, empirically informed and supported, family therapy model specifically designed to target family and individual processes associated with adolescent suicide and depression. ABFT emerges from interpersonal theories that suggest adolescent depression and suicide can be precipitated, exacerbated, or buffered against by the quality of interpersonal relationships in families. It is a trust-based, emotion-focused psychotherapy model that aims to repair interpersonal ruptures and rebuild an emotionally protective, secure-based parent-child relationship.