Review: Group Filial Therapy - The Complete Guide to Teaching Parents to Play Therapeutically with their Children

Written by two professionally respected authors - in particular, Louise Guerney who pioneered the development model of filial therapy (FT) in the US - this book is the most comprehensive guide to the US model of "filial" yet and provides a good alternative to Child Parent Relationship Therapy by Gary Landreth and Sue Bratton.

It is clearly written with many practical examples of non-directive play techniques that can be adapted for use within the UK model. It is, however, quite prescriptive, with the specific content of each of 20 meetings detailed. Because of the wide range of parent socio-economic conditions, motivations and skills a much more flexible approach is required. In Africa, the UK model has been adapted to enable parents to effectively reduce the level of malnutrition and infant mortality using eight sessions in a bush environment.