Filial Therapy began in the 1960s and was a dramatic change for children’s therapy. Dr. Bernard G. Guerney, Jr. and his wife, Dr. Louise Fisher Guerney are the creators of Filial Therapy. They taught parents how to offer child-centered play therapy as a way to treat their children’s problems. They believed that an educational treatment model would be more effective than a medical model approach. Filial Therapy is evidence-based with a history of research that supports it to be an intervention program within the family unit. Filial Therapy instructs parents how to have child-centered play sessions with their children in their own home.

Therapists learn how to train the parents to have effective child-centered play therapy sessions with their children from infancy to twelve years of age in the privacy of their own home. Parents will have play sessions once a week for six months up to a year or more. This allows children to express themselves freely, improve their self concept, and take responsibility for their actions. Filial Therapy has been utilized successfully to help with a wide range of child and family challenges, including but not limited to:

This web conference is designed to help clinicians:

  1. Identify the importance of an educational skill-training approach that fosters attachment and stability in the family and its members;
  2. Recognize the principles and methods of child-centered play therapy;
  3. Tutor parents in conducting weekly child-centered play sessions at home;
  4. Explain the structured, systematic, and time-designated nature of Filial Therapy;
  5. Recognize the principles and methods of therapist leadership skills;
  6. Apply and integrate Filial Therapy and/or aspects of this model in their own work.

If you have any questions about this Web Conference or would like more information, please contact us here.

How the Web Conference Works

In short, participants will be able to listen to the event by calling in to our teleconference center. Prior to the event, all participants will be sent an email with instructions on how to login to the teleconference center. This event will include lecture and question and answer periods.

Continuing Education (CE) Information

1.5 CE credits will be provided by GoodTherapy.org for attending this web conference in its entirety.

GoodTherapy.org is also an Approved Education Provider by NAADAC, The Association for Addiction Professionals (provider #135463). Of the eight counselor skill groups ascribed to by NAADAC, this course is classified within counseling services.

GoodTherapy.org is an NBCC-Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEPTM) and may offer NBCC-approved clock hours for events that meet NBCC requirements.

GoodTherapy.org, provider #1352, is approved as a provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) www.aswb.org, through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. ASWB Approval Period: March 30, 2016 through March 30, 2019. Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval. Social workers participating in this course will receive two clinical continuing education clock hours.

GoodTherapy.org is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. GoodTherapy.org maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

GoodTherapy.org, SW CPE is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #0395.

Registration Information

This Web Conference is available for free to GoodTherapy.org Members.

Event Reviews from Members

Meet the Presenter

Barry G. Ginsberg, PhD

Barry Ginsberg, PhD, CFLE, ABPP, is the Director of the Center of Relationship Enhancement and of Ginsberg Associates (a clinical practice for children and families). Since 1969, Dr. Ginsberg has provided relationship enhancement therapy and enrichment programs to trained professionals and to families throughout the United States and Canada. He is the originator of the parent-adolescent relationship development (PARD) program.

Dr. Ginsberg authored 50 Wonderful Ways to be a Single-Parent Family (New Harbinger Publications, 2003) and Relationship Enhancement Family Therapy (John Wiley & Sons, 1997) as well as many articles about family therapy and relationship enhancement. In addition, he received the 2011 Research/Practitioners Award from The International Association of Marriage & Family Counselors and the 2011 Bernard and Louise F. Guerney Award for Outstanding Contribution to Education and Training in Filial Therapy from the Association for Filial and Relationship Enhancement Methods.

For more information about Dr. Ginsberg, please visit his website.