POINT
A Collaborative Approach with Divorced Families MADELYNN MARLOW, LPC-ASSOCIATE, LMFT-ASSOCIATE, NCC
As play therapists who wholeheartedly believe in the therapeutic power of play, we know how invaluable play therapy is for families especially true for children who are navigating the reality of their parents’ divorce. Divorce, even when handled well by both parents, causes a disruption to the child’s sense of normalcy within their consequences on the well-being of children that it was included as the child’s felt sense of relational security and attachment to their parents, which often presents in children through post-traumatic The literature on divorce suggests that therapeutic support serves as an important buffer against the myriad negative consequences
Despite knowing the effectiveness of play therapy for families navigating divorce, many play therapists take pause at the various legal and ethical nuances that arise when working with divorced families. One ethical gray area that play therapists particularly struggle with is whether or not to acquire consent from both parents when consent is only required from one parent. As play therapists who ascribe to the value of working alongside the client’s whole family system, how do we proceed when only one parent requests therapy for their child and only their consent is required?
legally allowed, but rather how can we best understand and meet the needs of the child. Going beyond what is required by contacting and acquiring consent from both parents grants us a fuller picture of the child’s family system and the needs of the child from a systemic perspective. Establishing contact with both parents also allows us to build rapport with the salient adults in the child’s life. Our profession offers us the privilege of serving as a helpful bridge between the child and their parents while also advocating for the child’s needs from our unique therapeutic vantage point. When we invite both parents to collaborate in their child’s involvement in play therapy, we are well-being and enhancing their opportunities to positively impact their child. Furthermore, involving parents in their child’s therapeutic process often supports therapeutic goals and outcomes so that the
Of course, there are exceptions to the above recommendation to contact both parents, such as when one parent has lost parental rights or is only granted limited, supervised visitation due to a history of abuse or neglect. The safety of have been deemed safe by the court should be privy to their outweigh the risks and challenges when we decide to collaborate with both parents of our child clients.
THE MIDDLE GROUND
The Whole Picture S. LYNN ETHERIDGE, PhD, MS, LPC-S, RPT-S
The state of a child’s relationship with both parents is necessary information for therapy, and the attachment between a child and their parents is complex. As play therapists much of our modality’s philosophy rests on the recognition that for children, words are relationships, words rarely fully communicate the family dynamic. Involving both parents, however, can be complicated.
If the uninvolved parent is a threat to the child, of course they should not be involved in therapy. But what if the involved parent is deliberately misleading the therapist, or has a particularly skewed understanding of the other parent’s relationship with the child?
Any assessment of the impact of the family dynamic on the child is incomplete without the involvement of both parents. Children are negatively impacted when they do not have some type of relationship with both parents, and children of divorced parents have the same right to have a relationship with both parents as children whose
or continual interference by one parent on the child’s relationship with involved, including practitioners, which makes taking the path of least
20 | PLAYTHERAPY | December 2022 |
www.a4pt.org
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