Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-2019

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Counselor Education

Major Professor

Jeffrey Cochran

Committee Members

Joel Diambra, Jennifer Morrow, Kathy Fitzgerald

Abstract

Filial therapy is an effective intervention for children and their families (Lin & Bratton, 2015). At the conclusion of filial therapy training, parents are encouraged to continue holding filial sessions with their children at home. Using descriptive phenomenology, this study sought to describe parents’ experiences with long-term filial therapy. This study focused on the experience of parents who continued holding sessions for at least one year after parent training sessions terminated. The author utilized Creswell’s (2007) simplified version of Moustakas’s (1994) Modification of the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen Method of Analysis of Phenomenological Data to analyze six participant interviews. The in-depth interviews yielded seven themes: reasons for coming to filial therapy; descriptions of filial sessions; filial therapy and the process of change; ending filial therapy; child benefits; parent benefits; and parent and child benefits. The author developed a textural description of the phenomenon of long-term filial therapy. The structural description of long-term therapy had four major components: realization, routine, rearrangement, and rewards. Further, the author integrated the textural and structural descriptions to create the essence of long-term filial therapy. The author discussed these findings as they relate to implications for filial therapists and provided suggestions for future research.

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