Parent Child Interaction Therapy Essay

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Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) is an evidence-based practice in the treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders for young children. This family centered treatment approach emphasizes on improving the quality of the parent-child relationship and changing parent-child interaction patterns. During PCIT, therapists coach parents via one-way mirror while they interact with their child. The therapist teaches the caregiver strategies that will promote positive behaviors in children who have disruptive or externalizing behavior problems (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 1). The use of live- coaching helps the parent gain strategies in the moment, and allows the therapist to see the different dynamics of the parent-child relationship. …show more content…

Both types of therapies had the specific elements that PCIT wanted to convey. One element was an emotional calm that play therapy produced in work with children. However, the calm play that the therapist and child do inside session, is far from the relationship that the parent and child may have outside therapy. By training the child’s parent to provide behavior therapy, enables treatment benefits to be longer-lasting. The use of play therapy in parent-child interaction strengthens the parent-child attachment and provides the child greater exposure to the calming therapy with their own parent. However, play therapy is not the only appropriate intervention when it comes to disciplining children. Parents get the skills need to deal with the behavioral issues by the live parent training, for setting limits and drawing back from tough discipline (Funderburk, …show more content…

Through my research I found that it was originally intended for preschool ages children, but it has become more widely used with many different populations and wider age ranges of children with behavior problems. Populations that have been treated with PCIT intervention include oppositional preschools and early school-aged children, foster children with family or non-family caregivers, maltreated parent-child relationships, children on the autism spectrum, children with mental/developmental disabilities, prematurely born children with behavior problems, and ethnically diverse populations (Cooley, 192). PCIT is also been adapted for families in which child abuse has occurs along with trauma victim and

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