Abstracts

Therapeutic treatment facilities that support adolescents in the criminal justice system in reforming delinquent behaviors are being used across the country as an intervention alternative to more punitive correctional facilities. Cognitive behavioral therapeutic techniques are the current primary treatment method used in such facilities, which has left them void of any depth psychological or psychodynamic modalities. Although cognitive behavioral therapy provides useful tools in supporting a patients emotional awareness and affect regulation, it falls short in tending to the whole of an individuals psychic needs and drives. Using hermeneutic and heuristic methodologies, this thesis focuses on how a combination of depth psychological tools and psychodynamic conceptualizations of the adolescent psyche could increase treatment efficacy and client engagement. Using depth psychological and psychodynamic literature as well as this authors own professional experience in the field, this thesis examines the benefits of depth psychological methods in adolescent court-mandated treatment facilities.