Troubled Teens Resources

As parents struggle to determine the best route to go when considering whether to send their teen to troubled teen boarding school or boot camp or to continue handling their behavioral issues alone, they become even more confused when reading the many conflicting studies on addictions. Unless you are a professional in the field of mental health, it is best to take any studies or information that seem to pertain to your teen and review it with your teen’s therapist or counselors.

This study quoted below seems to suggest that out patient therapies are not enough to defeat marijuana addiction, but that a combination of therapies might be needed.

“Dr. Marc Auriacombe of the Addiction Research Group at the Université Victor Segalen in Bordeaux, France, and colleagues analyzed results from studies of 1,267 people who received no or delayed intervention, motivational enhancement therapy (MET), family therapy, CBT or combinations of these for marijuana abuse or dependence.

The researchers measured outcomes such as abstinence from marijuana (cannabis) use, improvements in family and social problems, other drug abuse and continuing treatment to assess the various approaches.

“The six studies included in this review show that cannabis dependence is not easily treated by psychotherapies in outpatient settings,” the authors write. “Cognitive-behavioral therapy both in individual or group sessions and motivational enhancement in individual sessions has been demonstrated to be effective to reduce cannabis use.”
(Source)