Assessment, Counseling and Consulting Associates; Filial/Play Therapy

Filial therapy was developed in the 1960's by Drs. Louise and Dr. Bernard Guerney and is recognized as an effective approach to strengthening parent, child and family relationships.

Filial therapy uses two important strategies:
Play therapy for children and parent education through direct involvement.

Play is very important in a child's development. Through play, children express their feelings, learn new skills, develop social skills and judgments and they learn and practice problem-solving abilities. In filial therapy, parents are trained to conduct child-centered play sessions with their children with the goal being to develop positive interactions between parents and their children and to increase communication, coping and problem-solving skills. In this way, families are better able to successfully manage future problems independently.

Therapeutic goals for children include the following:

To be able to recognize and express feelings
To develop effective problem-solving and coping skills
To increase self-confidence and self-esteem
To increase trust and confidence in their parents

Therapeutic goals for parents in filial therapy include the following:

To increase understanding of child development
To increase understanding of their own children
To recognize the importance of play and emotion in children's lives
To decrease feelings of frustration with their children
To increase confidence in their ability to parent
To help open the doors of communication with their children
To enable parents to work together better as a team
To provide a non-threatening atmosphere in which parents may deal with their own issues as they relate to their children and parenting

Research on filial therapy has shown it to be effective in reducing child problems and in increasing parental acceptance.

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