History:

PATH was developed in 1989 as an alternative to the limited treatment options for perpetrators of domestic violence. In particular, it was PATH's intention to provide couples and family treatment to clients who would benefit from those modalities.

In the past decade, PATH has evolved as a program. In addition to helping clients distressed by family violence, PATH now provides expertise in helping couples and families achieve a variety of goals. These include adjustments to separation, divorce, and blended families, enhanced intimacy and effective conflict resolution, improved parenting skills and communication, and competence with or recovery from chemical dependency.

PATH has been featured on the CBS News program "48 Hours" successfully treating a family distressed by violence and substance abuse.

Philosophy:

PATH provides a solution-focused approach for every client that begins treatment with us. Perhaps the most controversial way of describing this is to propose that clients' solutions are completely unpredictable and may have nothing to do with therapists' constructions about the problem. We find this to be especially true when working with clients whose goal is safety.

PATH has established positive relationships with Managed Care as a result of this philosophy—rather than accepting the traditional assumptions about treatment length based on problem severity, we find length of treatment correlates more directly to clients' motivation. Solution-focused treatment leverages and enhances clients' interest in change.