Parents as Therapeutic Partners

After teaching English in secondary schools in New York, Dr. Arthur Kraft became Coordinator of Psychological Services for the Ridgewood, New Jersey public schools during the 1960s, while completing a Ph.D. at Columbia University and obtaining Diplomate status in school psychology. He then relocated to California, where he served 26 years as Senior Psychologist for the Long Beach schools. He conducted filial therapy groups with parents both in Ridgewood and Long Beach. Dr. Kraft's book on the subject, entitled Are You Listening to Your Child, published in 1973, is the foundation for Parents as Therapeutic Partners. His journal articles include "The Child as Parent," "Discipline as Curriculum," "A Democratic Approach to Problem-Solving in Junior High School," and "Down with (Most) Special Education Classes," which advocated mainstreaming of handicapped students where possible before the trend became popular. Dr. Kraft's book on communication and problem solving in schools is The Living Classroom, published in 1975.Garry L. Landreth, Ed. D., is a Regents Professor in the Department of Counselor Education at the University of North Texas, where he is founder and Director of the Center for Play Therapy, the largest play therapy training program in the nation. Dr. Landreth is a former Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association for Play Therapy and recipient of the prestigious Virginia Axline Distinguished Professional Award for his work in conceptualizing and promoting Child-Centered Play Therapy. His publications include Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship and Play Therapy Interventions with Children's Problems. Dr. Landreth has been a featured speaker at play therapy conferences throughout the United States and in Canada, China, Europe, and South Africa.

Two master therapists give us the privilege of looking in on parents' play sessions with their own children and on their training sessions via moment-by-moment accounts. Enhancing these accounts are the enormously human and sometimes humorous, but always insightful and respectful, thoughts of the training and supervising authors. Topping off the thoroughly enjoyable education in basic child-directed play therapy is the sharing by both authors of annotated protocols of play sessions they have conducted. To complete the education, the book lays out principles and procedures of filial therapy and research results that lend impressive empirical support to the method. The value of engaging parents in this unique interaction shines through as they express new insights into their own and their children's behavior. Readers can actually expect to feel good after reading this book.