A major concern many counselor trainees face when preparing to see their first couple-client is that of confidence because they have had little to no experience in interacting in a professional capacity with couples. Many beginning counselors experience anxiety, which can inhibit their effectiveness with clients (Scanlon & Baille, 1994). Introducing counselor trainees to a relatively non-threatening interaction with couples might reduce the initial anxiety that characterizes the neophyte counselor venturing into new clinical territory. The interaction may also enhance feelings of warmth and closeness of the couples. John Gottman's Oral History Interview (Gottman, 1999) was the protocol used in the interaction between trainee and couple. An instrument developed for this study to measure couple counseling confidence, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1983), and the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships (Schaefer & Olson, 1981) were used to assess levels of counselor confidence, counselor anxiety, and couple intimacy, respectively. The confidence instrument and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were administered to 37 students who were enrolled in four graduate level introductory couple counseling classes and who interviewed couples, as well as to 34 counselor-trainees who were enrolled in five graduate level counseling courses other than couple counseling and who did not …

The purpose of this study was to determine the core skills/methods and practicum experiences play therapy experts and professors believe to be essential in the education of the beginning play therapist in the specific areas of theory and history, terms, organizations, authors who have contributed to the field, methods, skills, training in special populations, practicum experience, and advanced skills. Two questionnaires were used to obtain opinions from play therapy experts and play therapy instructors. The first questionnaire was sent to twelve play therapy experts to obtain their opinions on the core curriculum and experiences necessary for training a play therapist in an introductory play therapy class, practicum experience, and advanced play therapy training. Frequencies and means were obtained and used to delete and add items for Questionnaire II. Questionnaire II was sent to 180 play therapy professors. Fifty play therapy professors returned the instrument. The ratings on Questionnaire II given by the professors were used to provide curriculum guidelines for developing a play therapy program. This program includes an introduction to play therapy course, play therapy practicum experiences, and advanced skills and advanced practicum experiences.

The purpose of this study was to determine if parents trained in the Landreth Filial Therapy Model could demonstrate child-centered play therapy skills as effectively as graduate play therapy students who completed an Introduction to Play Therapy course. The participants in both the parent group and the graduate student group were videotaped in play sessions with children pre- and post-training in order to measure change in adult empathic behavior as defined on the Measurement of Empathy in Adult-Child Interaction (MEACI). The specific skills measured in this study were (a) communicating acceptance to the child, (b) allowing the child to direct his or her own play during the play sessions, (c) demonstrating appropriate levels of involvement in the child's play, and (d) demonstrating empathic behavior toward the child. The Landreth Filial Therapy Model is a training system that utilizes both didactic and dynamic means to train parents and other paraprofessionals to be therapeutic agents of change with children. Parents are taught child-centered play therapy skills to use in weekly home play sessions with their children in order to strengthen the emotional bond between parent and child. The Introduction to Play Therapy course is a graduate-level counseling course at the University of …