Relationship Enhancement Therapy/Enrichment Programs

Child-centered play therapy/enrichment
In this program, professionals (therapists, teachers, child-care providers), parents and other non-professionals learn to conduct 30-minute weekly play sessions with children. The goal is for children to:

• Learn skills that will enhance their development
• Improve their academic performance
• Improve their self concept
• Have better relationships with others
• Live more satisfying, loving and secure lives.

Filial relationship enhancement therapy/enrichment: a child-centered family approach
This program trains parents to conduct child-centered play sessions with their own children at home. These home play sessions are the basis for a comprehensive and systematic program involving the whole family. The extensive research in the Filial Program demonstrates its power as intervention and prevention in that it increased the parent's acceptance, self-esteem, empathy and fostered positive changes in family environment. Concurrently the child's adjustment and self-esteem improved while parental stress and the child's behavioral problems decreased.
The Filial Program effectively:

• Resolves parental concerns
• Improves children's mastery, coping and competence
• Strengthens parent-child relationships
• Improves family functioning

The Parent-Adolescent Relationship (PARD) Program
This structured communication/relationship program helps adolescents and their parents learn skills that enhance their ability to resolve conflicts by:

• Strengthening the relationship between adolescents and their parents
• Fostering adolescents' independence and confidence
• Improving parents' understanding and respect for their children
• Enhancing a collaborative approach to expectations, rules and consequences

It also helps parents and adolescent children learn to respect and acknowledge each other in the face of conflicts that cannot be immediately resolved.

Couple Relationship Enhancement Therapy/Enrichment Program
This program helps couples to engage more intimately and learn the skills necessary to generalize and maintain this emotional engagement throughout their lives. Couples learn to avoid negativity, criticism, and defensiveness – the three qualities that have been identified as the most toxic to a relationship. Couples also learn to reduce the emotional arousal that often causes relationships to spiral out of control.

Family Relationship Enhancement Therapy/Enrichment
This program is designed to meet the needs of families with three or more persons. By working with the entire family, each member learns to:

• Relate to each other more constructively
• Be respectful of each other
• Take responsibility for his or her part in the relationship
• Understand each other better
• Remain emotionally engaged

This program can be used with extended families, families-of-origin, significant friends, and with co-workers in work environments as well.

Parenting: A Skills Training Approach
This skills training approach to parenting, based on the approach developed by Louise F. Guerney and colleagues, teaches parents the principles of constructive parenting and how to implement them. The training sessions, which encompass both relationship and management skills, cover:

• Developing realistic expectations
• Showing understanding
• Becoming aware of the messages we send
• Creating structure
• Learning to reinforce
• Establishing rules, limits and consequences
• Becoming more confident
• Putting it all together

Other Programs
Individually tailored RE-based programs are available upon request for:

• Couples and families who wish to be seen for:
  • Consultation
  • Therapy
  • Enrichment
• Organizations and other work-place settings.
• Community groups and agencies

Lectures, workshops, brown bag seminars, and consultation sessions are also available on a variety of topics.