Filial Therapy
ABN 78 403 567 409
Filial Play Therapy is a relatively short-term child and family counselling intervention with long-term results. It has been extensively developed and researched for over 45 years. Filial therapy is a psychoeducational family intervention in which the therapist trains and supervises parents as they hold special child-centered play sessions with their own children, thereby engaging parents as partners in the therapeutic process and empowering them to be the primary change agents for their own children.
Filial therapy improves parent–child relationships, and strengthen the family system as a whole. It has wide applicability with very consistent research results indicating significant improvements in child problems, parents' skills, parents' acceptance of their children, parent satisfaction, and gains maintained up to 5 years, as well as significant decreases in parents' stress levels, therapy drop-out rates, and excessive utilization of services.
The therapist draws from behavioral and social learning theory to prepare parents to hold their own special play time sessions in their own home with their child/ren. Using mock play sessions (behavioral rehearsals), the therapist pretends to be a child while the parents practice the four play session skills (structuring, empathic listening, child-centered imaginary play, and limit-setting). The therapist ensures parent success in mastering the skills using an empowering, positive approach.
Next, the parents hold short play sessions with their children under the direct supervision of the therapist. Each play session is followed by a debriefing period in which the parents and therapist discuss their skill development as well as play themes and other dynamic issues that arise.When the parents are competent and confident in conducting the play sessions, they hold them weekly with each child at home, meeting with the therapist to discuss the sessions, family changes, and how to incorporate the use of the skills to everyday life.
Filial therapy has been used successfully as a preventive program to strengthen families as well as a therapeutic intervention for many child and family problems: anxiety, depression, child maltreatment, single parenting, adoption/foster-care/kinship-care, attachment problems, divorce, family substance abuse, traumatic events, oppositional defiant disorder, anger and aggression problems, chronic medical illness, step-parenting, relationship problems, multiproblem families, and so on.
