Multiple impact therapy - Misplaced Pages

(Redirected from Impact Therapy) Psychotherapy technique

The topic of this article may not meet Misplaced Pages's general notability guideline. Please help to demonstrate the notability of the topic by citing reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic and provide significant coverage of it beyond a mere trivial mention. If notability cannot be shown, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted.
Find sources: "Multiple impact therapy" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Psychology
Part of a series on

Outline History Subfields
Basic psychology Abnormal Affective neuroscience Affective science Behavioral genetics Behavioral neuroscience Behaviorism Cognitive/Cognitivism Cognitive neuroscience Social Comparative Cross-cultural Cultural Developmental Differential Ecological Evolutionary Experimental Gestalt Intelligence Mathematical Moral Neuropsychology Perception Personality Psycholinguistics Psychophysiology Quantitative Social Theoretical
Applied psychology Anomalistic Applied behavior analysis Assessment Clinical Coaching Community Consumer Counseling Critical Educational Ergonomics Feminist Forensic Health Humanistic Industrial and organizational Legal Media Medical Military Music Occupational health Pastoral Political Positive Psychometrics Psychotherapy Religion School Sport and exercise Suicidology Systems Traffic
Concepts Behavior Behavioral engineering Behavioral genetics Behavioral neuroscience Cognition Competence Consciousness Consumer behavior Emotions Feelings Human factors and ergonomics Intelligence Mind Psychology of religion Psychometrics Terror management theory
Lists Counseling topics Disciplines Organizations Outline Psychologists Psychotherapies Research methods Schools of thought Timeline Topics
Psychology portal
v t e

Multiple impact therapy (MIT) is a group psychotherapy technique most often used with families in extreme crisis. It was one of the first group therapy programs developed in the United States. In multiple impact therapy (MIT), families are seen concurrently by a number of multi-disciplinary medical professionals. The duration of the therapy is short, typically ranging from one to two full treatment days. The focus of treatment is to find and evaluate structural patterns within the family, evaluate those patterns to see if they are the source of the problem, then modify the structure to alleviate the problem. It can also be used as a screening technique to discover whether individuals should be admitted for further treatment.

Origins

MIT as a therapy technique was developed at the University of Texas Medical Branch in the 1950s. At the time, Texas had very few psychoanalysts and those that were available were unaffordable to most families. Because treatment was scarce, there were few specialized programs for adolescents, many were admitted as patients to psychiatric hospitals. Beginning in 1957, parents began bringing their troubled kids to the University of Texas Medical Branch for treatment.

Dr. Robert MacGregor, the lead researcher of group psychotherapy at the University of Texas Medical Branch, began developing MIT by interviewing entire families together in a single session. MacGregor and his team established their main goal as highlighting and emphasizing the parent's concern to the disturbed child. Between 1957 and 1958, the team saw 12 families as the procedures were being developed. The initial sessions showed that therapy with individual members, together with group sessions, produced the most effective results. The individual sessions gave members the opportunity to voice their personal resentments while the group sessions gave therapists the opportunity to repair poor communication between family members. The therapy's short, intensive time frame was originally due to life constraints involving time and travel; however, researchers kept the structure because the momentum created in the two day meetings reduced the overall number of sessions needed for the family to improve.

Outcomes

Multiple Impact therapy aims to identify and modify patterns of behavior within a family structure, alter inappropriate roles of family members and improve communication between family members.

The use of an interdisciplinary team allows the parents, the child and the group as a whole to be seen from multiple viewpoints and through the lens of professionals with different experience and expertise. A typical interdisciplinary team as used in Macgregor's studies at the University of Texas consisted of a psychologist, an associate therapist, a social worker, a nurse, and a member of the family's community or inpatient clinic, however, other researchers have used up to 9 therapists in a single session. By including the community or inpatient staff member in MIT, trust and respect with the child's parents increases.

Fifty-five additional families were seen between 1958 and 1962 when MacGregor first published his findings on MIT. Within the fifty-five families, only seven were considered unsuccessful cases. Despite the apparent success of MIT, two major drawbacks, the relative efficiency of the program and conflict between the interdisciplinary team, were noted.

Procedure

MIT may be prescribed to families as a treatment option for a number of reasons: when conventional therapy fails to show results, as an alternative to hospitalization, as a final course of action before hospitalization, or for families who were already in group therapy but were seeing few results.

Treatment occurs in approximately seven steps over a two-day period. It begins with a planning and briefing session to inform participants and gain an understanding of the family situation. Parents and children are separated, with therapists meeting parents to investigate the source of the child's delinquency and an interview with the child to match family patterns with a child's behavior. A multiple therapist session is then held, with therapists meeting with any member or any number of members together as they see fit. Family members then reconvene to share their progress and improved attitudes towards one another.

On the second day, families forge ahead with the positive attitude fostered during the first day. Day one often illuminates many of the breakdowns the family has experienced while day two focuses on retention of improved attitudes and application to the family's unique situation. On day two, logistical considerations are often discussed such as: should the child remain hospitalized, continue schooling, or consider a different method of treatment. A two-month and six month follow up appointment is typically scheduled.

References

Sauber, S. Richard (1993-08-09). The Dictionary of Family Psychology and Family Therapy. SAGE. ISBN 9780803953338.
^ Shaw, Dale; Fore, Karan; Ritchie, Agnes; McAnulty, Margaret; Nixon, George (1977). "Multiple Impact Therapy". The American Journal of Nursing. 77 (2): 246–248. doi:10.2307/3424111. JSTOR 3424111. PMID 584137.
^ RITCHIE, AGNES (1960). "Multiple Impact Therapy: An Experiment". Social Work. 5 (3): 16–21. ISSN 0037-8046. JSTOR 23707493.
TOVEY, ROBERT; MORTON, JO (1985). "Adapting Multiple Impact Therapy for Day Treatment Intake". Child Welfare. 64 (4): 421–426. ISSN 0009-4021. JSTOR 45389683. PMID 4017712.
^ "j.1545-5300.1962.00015.x | Psychotherapy | Psychiatry". Scribd. Retrieved 2018-03-31.
Hayward, M. C.; Peleus, J. J., and Taylor, J. E.: Some values of the use of multiple therapists in the treatment of psychoses.Psychiat. Quart., 26: 244–249, 1952.
^ Piaget, Gerald W.; Serber, Michael (1970-12-01). "Multiple impact therapy". The Psychiatric Quarterly. 44 (1–4): 114–124. doi:10.1007/BF01562962. ISSN 0033-2720. PMID 5522528. S2CID 22826624.

v t e Cognitive behavioral therapy (list)
Acceptance and commitment therapy Behavior therapy Behavioral activation Cognitive analytic therapy Cognitive behavioral analysis system of psychotherapy Cognitive therapy Community reinforcement approach and family training Compassion-focused therapy Contingency management Desensitization / Exposure therapy Direct therapeutic exposure Exposure and response prevention Flooding Prolonged exposure therapy Systematic desensitization Dialectical behavior therapy Functional analytic psychotherapy Habit reversal training Inference-based therapy Metacognitive therapy Method of levels Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy Multimodal therapy Rational emotive behavior therapy Reality therapy Relapse prevention Schema therapy Self-control therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy (list)

Psychotherapy

Schools

Psychodynamic	Adlerian therapy Analytical therapy Mentalization-based treatment Psychoanalysis Transference focused psychotherapy
Cognitive and behavioral	Clinical behavior analysis Acceptance and commitment therapy Functional analytic psychotherapy Cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive therapy Dialectical behavior therapy Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy Rational emotive behavior therapy
Humanistic	Emotionally focused therapy Existential therapy Focusing Gestalt therapy Logotherapy Person-centered therapy
Other	Art therapy Dance therapy Feminist therapy Music therapy Narrative therapy Play therapy Reality therapy Systemic therapy Transactional analysis List
Integrative	Eclectic psychotherapy Multimodal therapy Transtheoretical model

Approaches

Research

Techniques

Behaviour therapy	Aversion therapy Chaining Contingency management Shaping Stimulus control Token economy Counterconditioning Desensitization/Exposure therapy Systematic desensitization
Other individual therapy	Autogenic training Biofeedback Clean language Cognitive restructuring Emotion regulation Affect labeling Free association Homework Hypnotherapy Modeling
Group psychotherapy	Co-therapy Couples therapy Family therapy Psychodrama Sensitivity training

People

Associations

Categories: