Offering a fresh perspective on treatment, this book presents an overarching framework and numerous specific strategies for working with violent youth and their families. The authors draw on extensive experience to identify four critical factors that push some adolescents to commit harmful, even deadly acts: devaluation, erosion of community, dehumanized loss, and rage. Effective ways to address each of these factors in clinical and school settings are discussed and illustrated with evocative case material. The book also provides essential guidance on connecting with aggressive teens - many of whom have endured traumas of their own - and managing difficult situations that are likely to arise in therapy.
Kenneth V. Hardy, PhD, is a professor of family therapy at Syracuse University and is Director of the Eikenberg Institute for Relationships in New York. He is the former Director of the Center for Children, Families, and Trauma at the Ackerman Institute for the Family in New York. Dr. Hardy has provided training and consultation for working with troubled children and youth throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. His work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, 20/20, Dateline NBC, PBS, and the Discovery Health Channel. Dr. Hardy maintains a private practice in New York.
Tracey A. Laszloffy, PhD, is a relationship therapist who specializes in working with troubled adolescents and their families. Currently she maintains a private practice in Connecticut, and prior to this, she directed the Marriage and Family Therapy master's program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Dr. Laszloffy has published extensively, and she routinely provides training and consultation to organizations that work with at-risk youth.