This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of the 10-week filial therapy model as an intervention for Native American parents and their children residing on the Flathead Reservation in Montana. Filial therapy is an approach used by play therapists to train parents to be therapeutic agents with their own children. Parents are taught basic child-centered play therapy skills and practice those skills during weekly play sessions with their children. The purpose of this study was to determine if filial therapy is effective in: 1) increasing parental acceptance of Native Americans residing on the Flathead Reservation of their children; 2) reducing the stress level of those parents; 3) improving empathic behaviors of those parents toward their children; 4) changing the play behaviors of children with their parents who participated in the training; and, 5) enhancing the self-concept of those children. The experimental group parents (N=11) received 10 weekly 2-hour filial therapy training sessions and participated in weekly 30-minute play sessions with one of their children. The control group (N=10) received no treatment during the 10 weeks. All adult participants completed the Porter Parental Acceptance Scale and the Parenting Stress Index. Child participants completed the Joseph Pre-school and Primary Self Concept …

This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of intensive sibling group play therapy in: (a) improving the self-concept of child witnesses of domestic violence; (b) reducing internalizing behavior problems, such as withdrawal, somatic complaints, anxiety and depression, of child witnesses of domestic violence; (c) reducing externalizing behavior problems, such as aggression and delinquency, of child witnesses of domestic violence; and (d) reducing overall behavior problems of child witnesses of domestic violence. A second objective of this study was to compare the effectiveness of intensive sibling group play therapy and intensive individual play therapy on the above identified dimensions.

This study was designed to determine the effectiveness of filial therapy training in: (a) increasing immigrant Chinese parents' empathic behavior with their children; (b) increasing immigrant Chinese parents' acceptance level toward their children; (c) reducing immigrant Chinese parents' stress related to parenting; (d) reducing immigrant Chinese parents' perceived number of problem behaviors in their children; and (e) enhancing the self concept of the Chinese children of immigrant Chinese parents.

This study was designed to assess the difference in litigation between two courts: one mandating For Kids' Sake, a psycho-educational seminar for divorcing parents, and the other not so mandating. The level of difficulty of children's adjustment to divorce has been positively correlated with parental hostility. More hostile parents would have more contested cases, interim motions, and relitigations. This research compared final dispositions, interim motions, and relitigation between parents in two courts in Collin County, Texas. The treatment group was from the 219th District Court which mandated all divorcing parents with minor children to attend the For Kids' Sake Seminar and the control group was from the 199th District Court which did not so mandate. Archival data was collected from a computer generated list for the Total group data to assess final dispositions and directly from District Clerk files for the In-Depth group data to assess interim motions and relitigation. The Total group was comprised of 679 research subjects with 330 cases in the treatment group and 349 cases in the control group. The In-Depth group consisted of 182 cases from both courts with 84 cases in the treatment group and 98 cases in the control group. Chi square analysis …

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of filial therapy in: (a) increasing Chinese parents' empathic behavior with their children; (b) increasing Chinese parents' attitude of acceptance toward their children; and (c) reducing Chinese parents' stress related to parenting. The experimental group, consisting of 18 Chinese parents, received 10 weekly 2-hour filial therapy training sessions and conducted a weekly 3 0-minute play session with one of their children. The control group, consisting of 16 Chinese parents, received no treatment during the ten weeks. All the parents were videotaped playing with their child before and after the training as a means of measuring change in empathic behavior. The two written self-report instruments completed for pretesting and posttesting purposes were the Porter Parental Acceptance Scale and the Parenting Stress Index. Analyses of Covariance revealed that the Chinese parents in the experimental group had significant changes in all 12 hypotheses, including (a) a significant increase in their level of empathic interactions with their children; (b) a significant increase in their attitude of acceptance toward their children; and (c) a significant reduction in their level of stress related to parenting. This study supports filial therapy as an effective intervention for Chinese …

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between parental empathy (PE) and parental acceptance (PA) and the effect of filial therapy training (FTT) on this relationship. Filial therapy training is a parent education program in which the goal is the development of PE and PA. The Measurement of Empathy in Adult-Child Interaction (MEACI) and the Porter Parental Acceptance Scale (PPAS) are two widely used instruments in filial therapy studies to measure PE and PA, respectively. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between parental empathy and parental acceptance, and the effect of filial therapy training on this relationship. Specifically, this study was designed to investigate the correlations between the MEACI and the PPAS.