This paper provides a summary of efficacy and effectiveness research for family therapy. Section one review efficacy studies for a number of mental health problems and concerns including conduct disorder, substance abuse, depression and a number of other mental health problems. The second section discusses the effectiveness of family therapy in terms of the costs of providing such care. Data was available from four different sources: 1) a large western Health Maintenance Organization with 180,000 subscribers in the local Utah region; 2) the Medicaid system of the entire State of Kansas in the United States; 3) CIGNA Behavioral Health, the behavioral health division of CIGNA, a large US health insurance company with several million subscribers; and a Family Therapy training clinic. Results suggest that family therapy reduces the number of health care visits, especially for high utilizers. These results were also replicated in a graduate student training clinic. Also, studies of two different health care systems (and a cost projection study) suggest that including family therapy as a treatment option does not significantly increase health care costs.

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