Therapy Goals and Progress Measurement The outcome goals of FT are to: • Provide parents with an understanding of their children’s feelings, motivations, needs, and behavior and how to respond appropriately with empathy and limit setting


• Improve the parent-child relationship • Reduce problem behaviors in children through improved self- regulation


• Increase children’s self-acceptance, positive emotions, self-esteem, 


• Enhance parenting skills involving empathy, attentiveness, encouragement, and effective implementation of parental authority via the recommended approach to limit setting


Because FT was such a departure from practices of the day, B. Guerney and colleagues conducted extensive research at Rutgers University  of mothers conducting therapeutic play sessions with their children. In a preliminary study, Stover and B. Guerney (1967) demonstrated that parents could be trained to conduct CCPT to the requisite standards of effectiveness. Further extensive measurement of mother and child  mothers and children met therapeutic goals (Guerney & Stover, 1971).  problems and an increase in self-regulation, while parents experienced 


empathy and to manage their children’s behavior more effectively. The       the expanded use of FT, leading it to become widely used in the US and abroad with a wide variety of populations and therapeutic issues and in a variety of cultures internationally.


The Filial Problem Checklist (Stover, Guerney, & O’Connell, 1971) was the principle measurement instrument used for measuring pre-/post- changes in the NIMH study and in subsequent research on FT in clinical practice. It has uniformly demonstrated that parents perceive their children’s behavior much more positively from pre-treatment to post-treatment and at three month intervals during treatment (e.g., Sywulak, 1979), and at three-year follow-up (e.g., Sensue, 1981). The Filial Problem Checklist remains a useful measurement instrument.


Child-Centered Play Therapy and Filial Family Therapy Workshops


Child-Centered


Play Therapy Workshops William Nordling, Ph.D., RPT-S March 29-30, 2019 September 13-14, 2019


Filial Family Therapy William Nordling, Ph.D., RPT-S November 8-9, 2019


Advanced Child-Centered Play Therapy


Robert F. Scuka, Ph.D. May 18, 2019


RE Couples Therapy October 25-27, 2019


Supervision and • A structured, guided


process to skill mastery


• Supervision counts toward APT registration as an RPT


On-Site Trainings Available Visit www.nire.org or call 301-680-8977 for more information.


National Institute of Relationship Enhancement® 3914 Kincaid Terrace, Kensington, MD 20895 • 301.680.8977 • niremd@nire.org


the American Psychological Association, NBCC, and the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners. www.a4pt.org | September 2019 | PLAYTHERAPY | 21


CLINICAL EDITOR’S COMMENTS:  approach to play therapy. Derived from child-centered play therapy, it was


intentionally placed after CCPT in this issue.


Schedule for 2019


New


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