The Focal Play Therapy: A Clinical Approach to Promote Child Health and Family Well-being

Chirico, Ilaria; Andrei, Federica; Salvatori, Paola; Malaguti, Irene; Trombini, Elena

doi:10.3389/fpubh.2019.00077

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(47 reference statements)

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“…Mothers' didactic approach could have facilitated greater entrainment in mother-child dyads that emerged as enhanced inter-brain synchrony in the frontal left PFC which oversees complex social cognition and behavioural planning. Moreover, the trajectory of parenting stress development and response to play-based intervention differ between mothers and fathers as well, with focal play therapy found to alleviate stress in mothers but not in fathers [78]. These previous findings point to the differential effects of play in mothers and fathers, which was likewise revealed in this present study.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Parent-Child Dyads with Greater Parenting Stress Exhibit Enhanced Inter-Brain Synchrony During Shared Play

Azhari

Bizzego

Esposito

2022

Preprint

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Parent-child dyads who are mutually attuned to each other during social interactions display interpersonal synchrony that can be observed overtly, in the form of joint behaviours, and biologically, such as through the temporal coordination of brain signals called inter-brain synchrony. Joint play provides ample opportunities for parent-child dyads to engage in matching interactions which not just facilitate the formation of bonds but also alleviate parenting stress in caregivers. Despite the beneficial effects of play on parents and the parent-child relationship, no study has investigated the dyadic neural mechanism by which this occurs. The present functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) study aimed to examine the association between parenting stress and inter-brain synchrony in the prefrontal cortex of 31 mother-child and 29 father-child dyads while they engaged in shared play for 10 minutes. Shared play was miro-analytically coded into joint (i.e., in-phase matching of dyadic behaviours) and non-joint (i.e., no matching of dyadic behaviours) segments. Inter-brain synchrony was computed using cross-correlations over 15 s, 20 s, 25 s, 30 s and 35 s fixed-length windows of joint and non-joint play segments. Analyses of Covariance revealed that dyads with more parenting stress exhibited greater inter-brain synchrony in the frontal left cluster of the prefrontal cortex, but only for the 35 s fixed-length window. This finding suggests that continuous and positive instances of joint play may disproportionately benefit dyads who reported greater parenting stress, entraining underlying brain activation patterns involved in social cognition. Mother-child dyads also showed greater inter-brain synchrony than father-child dyads, alluding to possible gender differences in the effect of play on dyads. Findings present evidence of a potential dyadic neural pathway by which play benefits the parent-child relationship.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Parent-Child Dyads with Greater Parenting Stress Exhibit Enhanced Inter-Brain Synchrony During Shared Play

Azhari

Bizzego

Esposito

2022

Preprint

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“…In the only study of eating disorders in younger children, Chirico et al ( 2019 ) investigated the efficacy of focal play therapy (FPT) for 17 children aged 2–5 experiencing “eating and evacuation” disorders. The treatment involved weekly alternate play sessions with the child and parents together, and sessions with parents only.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evidence-Base for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy With Children and Adolescents: A Narrative Synthesis

et al. 2021

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Despite a rich theoretical and clinical history, psychodynamic child and adolescent psychotherapy has been slow to engage in the empirical assessment of its effectiveness. This systematic review aims to provide a narrative synthesis of the evidence base for psychodynamic therapy with children and adolescents. Building on two earlier systematic reviews, which covered the period up to 2017, the current study involved two stages: an updated literature search, covering the period between January 2017 and May 2020, and a narrative synthesis of these new studies with those identified in the earlier reviews. The updated search identified 37 papers (28 distinct studies). When combined with papers identified in the earlier systematic reviews, this resulted in a combined total of 123 papers (82 distinct studies). The narrative synthesis of findings indicates that there is evidence of effectiveness for psychodynamic therapy in treating a wide range of mental health difficulties in children and adolescents. The evidence suggests this approach may be especially effective for internalizing disorders such as depression and anxiety, as well as in the treatment of emerging personality disorders and in the treatment of children who have experience of adversity. Both the quality and quantity of empirical papers in this field has increased over time. However, much of the research demonstrates a range of methodological limitations (small sample sizes, lack of control groups etc.), and only 22 studies were Randomized Controlled Trials. Further high-quality research is needed in order to better understand the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy for children and young people.

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“…In the only study of eating disorders in younger children, Chirico et al (2019) investigated the efficacy of focal play therapy (FPT) for 17 children aged 2-5 experiencing "eating and evacuation" disorders. The treatment involved weekly alternate play sessions with the child and parents together, and sessions with parents only.…”

Section: Eating Disordersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individualized Psychotherapy Treatment of Young People With Mental Disorders

2022

Frontiers Research Topics

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Frontiers is more than just an open-access publisher of scholarly articles: it is a pioneering approach to the world of academia, radically improving the way scholarly research is managed. The grand vision of Frontiers is a world where all people have an equal opportunity to seek, share and generate knowledge. Frontiers provides immediate and permanent online open access to all its publications, but this alone is not enough to realize our grand goals. Frontiers Journal SeriesThe Frontiers Journal Series is a multi-tier and interdisciplinary set of open-access, online journals, promising a paradigm shift from the current review, selection and dissemination processes in academic publishing. All Frontiers journals are driven by researchers for researchers; therefore, they constitute a service to the scholarly community. At the same time, the Frontiers Journal Series operates on a revolutionary invention, the tiered publishing system, initially addressing specific communities of scholars, and gradually climbing up to broader public understanding, thus serving the interests of the lay society, too. Dedication to QualityEach Frontiers article is a landmark of the highest quality, thanks to genuinely collaborative interactions between authors and review editors, who include some of the world's best academicians. Research must be certified by peers before entering a stream of knowledge that may eventually reach the public -and shape society; therefore, Frontiers only applies the most rigorous and unbiased reviews. Frontiers revolutionizes research publishing by freely delivering the most outstanding research, evaluated with no bias from both the academic and social point of view. By applying the most advanced information technologies, Frontiers is catapulting scholarly publishing into a new generation.

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The Focal Play Therapy: A Clinical Approach to Promote Child Health and Family Well-being

Cited by 7 publications

References 43 publications

Parent-Child Dyads with Greater Parenting Stress Exhibit Enhanced Inter-Brain Synchrony During Shared Play

Parent-Child Dyads with Greater Parenting Stress Exhibit Enhanced Inter-Brain Synchrony During Shared Play

The Evidence-Base for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy With Children and Adolescents: A Narrative Synthesis

Individualized Psychotherapy Treatment of Young People With Mental Disorders

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