Dynamic Concurrent Parent-Child Work

Catalog description

This course focuses on how to include parents in clinical work with a child or young adolescent in order to accomplish constructive change. Concurrent Parent-Child Work is different from family therapy since it involves working separately with the child and parents, and the focus of the work is on the child or young adolescent. Students will learn techniques for forming and maintaining multiple therapeutic alliances. They will also learn to assess resistances to working with parents and to develop the empathic and interpersonal skills necessary for dealing with challenges such as guilt, shame, anxiety, and feelings of failure. This course also aims to strengthen students' confidence for work with parents at each stage of a child’s treatment. Students will learn about parenthood as a developmental phase, and that at each stage of a child’s development there are corresponding parental tasks for progressive development to take place with both. Detailed clinical material will be used to illustrate clinical techniques and the concepts behind them.