| Abstract: | Discusses filial therapy (FT) which might seem new to many child and family therapists. Yet training parents to play therapeutically using this child-centered approach with their children has a long track record that demonstrates it is an effective way to work with children and their parents together. It is noted that while the method was waiting to gain broader recognition and acceptance by practicing play and family therapists, advocates in academic settings were testing its efficacy. As FT is becoming more known and widely used by practitioners, it has attained the status of an "empirically supported" or "evidence based" or "empirically validated" treatment. All of these terms mean the same thing: a treatment that rests on good research, with results that show its efficacy, one that can be replicated by practitioners who can achieve comparable positive effects using it. Such terms concern anyone familiar with issues related to health care insurance. The slow start of FT, then, has become an advantage for the therapy and its users. Only rarely does a treatment arrive already backed by empirical support of efficacy. The remainder of this article will explain how this desirable state has come about. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
