FILIAL THERAPY

Filial Therapy focuses on the relationship between parent and child and works to support this relationship.   It moves away from attaching significance to the individual and emphasises instead the importance of education and family dynamics.  Filial therapy helps families resolve difficulties through empowerment and learning new skills to help navigate parenting and relationship challenges.

Filial Therapy is a preventive programme that helps with anxiety, depression, abuse/neglect, single parenting, adoption/foster-care, attachment disruptions, divorce, family substance abuse, traumatic events, oppositional behaviour, anger/aggression problems, chronic medical illness, autism spectrum disorders, step parenting, relationship problems, multi problem families and so on.

The Filial Therapist teaches the parent/carer skills in active listening, empathic responding and limit setting, allowing for contained play-times where the child/ren can feel seen, heard and understood - and the parent can feel confident, connected and relaxed. The parent/carer is not being taught to deliver therapy to their children but to have some extra tools to support engagement, play and connection. Other areas of family life are inadvertently enhanced by this process and research findings support immediate impact on neural pathways and emotional wellbeing.