Patricia Papernow, an expert in working with stepfamilies, helps us understand the fundamental issues and unique hurdles most stepfamilies must navigate.

By Rob Waters - Record numbers of young people have been sentenced to juvenile detention facilities that have become warehouses for mentally disturbed youth. But outcome studies have found that kids who complete Multisystemic Therapy programs go on to commit fewer crimes than kids in control groups who went to correctional facilities.

By Gregory Samuels - My daughter has a broken heart. She’s 6,000 miles away, across an ocean, on a semester abroad, and she’s stricken. I was about the same age as Erin is now when I first had my heart broken, and I can’t help but wonder if, along with bad love-karma, I’ve somehow passed along some terrible predisposition. Was there a way to raise her so that she’d be impervious to love turned sour?

By Ryan Howes - In the following interview, New York Times columnist and author Lisa Damour gives us a glimpse at the map she’s developed for both therapists and parents trying to help teenage girls make their way through the treacherous, often bewildering landscape of adolescence in today’s world.

By Chris Lyford - Back-to-school season can be one of the most stressful periods of the year for a child, no matter what age. From making new friends to handling a new workload, the challenges that come with the new school year are plentiful. Here, three veteran therapists, all of whom know quite a bit about back-to-school anxieties, share the clinical lessons they learned—and a few stories.

By Martha Straus - For me, working with girls is what I do with the greatest interest and passion. I have wells of empathy to draw on, and can stay attuned with them more easily than with males. Our bond is implicit, and by being as fully authentic, connected, and present as I know how, I help them make it explicit. Here are four of the biggest lessons I've learned in my therapeutic work with adolescent girls.

By Lawrence Cohen - Parents of young, anxious children are often unsure of how to prepare them for a potentially upsetting event. Using play, however, can heal past upsets and prepare them for upcoming transitions. Here's how a powerful session with a mother and daughter clarified the principles that would come to guide my approach.

By Alice Shannon - Our society has become increasingly intolerant of children's behavior that strays beyond familiar norms, and too inclined to diagnose, pathologize, and medicate what are simply temperamental differences. Having an awareness of temperament has helped me as a therapist to be curious, rather than judgmental or prematurely diagnostic.

In his Symposium address, Dan Siegel challenged some common myths about adolescence and suggested that the aspects of adolescence that can drive us crazy—novelty seeking, social engagement, emotional intensity, and creative exploration—are exactly what we need to cultivate to maintain vitality in our own adult lives.

By Ken Hardy - While working as a family therapist at a boys' school in the Philadelphia suburbs, I learned to use basketball to capture their attention and imagination, and ultimately bring all of us closer together.