The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach: Treatment for Explosive Noncompliant Children and Adolescents

Friday, October 27, 2006
With Ross Greene, Ph.D.

Location:

Harraseeket Inn 162 Main Street Freeport, Maine

Program Description: Explosive/noncompliant children and adolescents exhibit intense temper outbursts, oppositionality, and verbal and physical aggression. These behaviors have extremely adverse effects on family life and functioning at school. Research has shown that such children may also be diagnosed with various psychiatric disorders, such as ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, Tourette's disorder, nonverbal learning disability, Asperger's disorder, and language processing impairments. Conventional reward and punishment approaches to treatment have been shown to be useful in the treatment of many explosive/noncompliant children and adolescents. However, such approaches have also been found to be ineffective for a substantial percentage of such youth.

Dr. Greene provides an alternative conceptualization of the difficulties of these children and adolescents; namely, that their difficulties are a byproduct of lacking cognitive skills in the domains of flexibility/adaptability, frustration tolerance, and problem-solving. Based on this conceptualization, he provides an overview of a model of treatment called Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS), first articulated in his acclaimed book, The Explosive Child and now in his second book (co-authored by Dr. Stuart Ablon), Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach. The CPS model helps adults teach these lacking cognitive skills while reducing the frequency and intensity of explosive/noncompliant episodes in diverse settings, including families, schools, group homes, and inpatient and juvenile detention facilities.

About the Speaker: Ross W. Greene, Ph.D., is Director of the Collaborative Problem Solving Institute in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He specializes in the treatment of explosive, inflexible, easily frustrated children and adolescents and is the author of The Explosive Child: Understanding and Helping Easily Frustrated, "Chronically Inflexible" Children and co-author of Treating Explosive Kids: The Collaborative Problem Solving Approach. He is also Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Greene's research focuses on the classification, longitudinal study, and treatment of inflexible, easily frustrated, explosive children; long-term outcomes in socially impaired children with ADHD; and student-teacher compatibility. He has authored numerous articles, chapters, and scientific papers on school- and home-based interventions for children with disruptive behavior disorders. His research has been funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the U.S. Department of Education.

Dr. Greene received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech in 1989 after completing his predoctoral internship at Children's National Medical Center/George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, DC. Prior to joining Mass General, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor on the clinical psychology faculty at Virginia Tech and as Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Pediatrics at University of Massachusetts Medical Center.

Program Outline

First Segment

Children Do Well If they Can
Your Explanation Guides Your Intervention
Overview of Conventional Reward and Punishment Approaches
Pathways to Explosive/Noncompliant Behavior

Second Segment

Collaborative Problem Solving: Overview of General Model
Introduction to Plan B

Third Segment

Collaborative Problem Solving: Overview and Specifics of Plan B

Fourth Segment

Cognitive Skills Training Implementation of Collaborative Problem Solving in Systems
Questions

Program Objectives

At the conclusion of the seminar, participants will be able to
describe the following:

1. How different explanations for and interpretations of explosive/noncompliant behavior can lead to dramatically different approaches to intervention
2. The various cognitive skills that are central to complying and handling demands for flexibility and frustration tolerance
3. Why conventional reward and punishment procedures may not be effective for many explosive/noncompliant children and adolescents
4. The basic underpinnings of the Collaborative Problem Solving approach
5. How to effectively implement "Plan B" to reduce the frequency and intensity of explosive outbursts and train lacking cognitive skills while maintaining adults as authority figures