and reduce their maladaptive behaviors. Finally, their trust in their and be heard.
Goals for the parents include increasing their understanding of child development and the importance of play, emotions, and imagination. As their understanding of their own child increases, it leads to elevated feelings of warmth and trust toward their child. Parents can learn new skills that reduce parenting frustration, provide positive child-rearing results, and increase their self- they can strengthen parent-child relationships and thereby prevent problems from occurring.
Goals for the family include highlighting their ability to have fun together and reduce (or eliminate) the presenting problems. Families can see improvement in their communication skills, coping skills, and overall psychosocial adjustment. Families strengthen the parent-child relationships, attachment, and together master tools they can all use in the future. Generalizing the FT skills to daily life is a goal that enables families to fully master the skills and continue to utilize them in the future. This daily use of skills can deeply strengthen family attachments and parent-child relationships.
When a therapist discusses FT as a treatment modality, parents are easily able to identify goal areas that apply to their children, themselves and their family. This personal connection strengthens their commitment to the full FT process.
Treatment Phases Filial Therapy is a time-limited intervention with long-term results. There are three phases of treatment, which typically involve a combined total of 15-20 one-hour sessions. It is important to note that some family situations will need fewer than 15 sessions and some complex family situations will need more than 20 sessions. Filial Therapy provided in a group format can also change the total number of sessions required.
In the early phase the therapist conducts the intake session, observes the family playing together, and explains the rationale and process of FT to the parents.
In the middle phase of treatment, the therapist trains the parents in the four FT skills and practices those skills with the parents. Then the parents begin holding play sessions using their skills with their own children under the direct supervision of the therapist. When ready, the therapist and parents together plan for play sessions to be held at home (without direct supervision of the therapist).
In the closing phase the parents discuss their home play sessions regularly with the therapist.
They learn much more about
recognizing and understanding play themes and how they relate 18 | PLAYTHERAPY | September 2026 |
www.a4pt.org
to children’s perceptions and daily life.
Generalizing the four FT
skills to be used in daily life is also a focus of the closing phase. Discharge planning is a mutual process between the therapist and the parents.
Skills Taught to Parents avoided. Structuring includes what the parent says and how they handle starting and ending the Special Playtime session.
Empathic Listening is the skill by which parents demonstrate their attunement to and acceptance of the child’s feelings and needs. The feelings and themes. This is the skill that really lets the child know their parent understands them and is present with them.
The Imaginary Play skill enhances connection and conveys acceptance. When the child assigns a role to the parent, the parent plays out that role with voices and facial expressions while following the child’s lead in how the role should be played. Even parents who lot of fun with this skill!
Limit Setting provides safety and helps the child learn self-control. A three-step sequence is followed: state the limit when a child needs then enforce the consequence if the child breaks the limit a third time.
This process not only provides consistency in how parents
handle poor behavior choices, it also empowers children to regulate themselves. Self-regulation is a powerful skill for children to develop, rather than relying on someone else to regulate them.
Special Features There are several noteworthy aspects of Filial Therapy. modality to incorporate the parent as the primary change agent for their own children (Guerney & Ryan, 2013; VanFleet, 2014).
• Filial Therapy can be used alone or in conjunction with other play therapy methods.
•
While Filial Therapy does involve aspects of many theoretical perspectives, its commitment to Child-Centered Play Therapy (CCPT) throughout the full process sets it apart. The CCPT approach is easier for parents to learn than many directive approaches (R. VanFleet, personal communication, July 15, 2021) and helps create better attuned relationships between parents and their children.
• Mock play sessions are utilized during the training phase to assist FT skills (VanFleet, 2014). Mock sessions involve the therapist playing as a child and simultaneously providing feedback to parents as they practice the four skills. This immediate feedback is extremely helpful to parents!! Because conducting mock sessions has some challenging elements for therapists to learn,
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