Recommendations for Counseling a Single Parent Research Paper

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Single parents are a heterogeneous cohort and there is no one “right” method or “best” counseling method. On the other hand, a lot of different therapeutic interventions may be appropriate depending on the parent’s needs, the presenting problems, the gender and ethnic background of the parent, the parent’s spiritual or religious worldview, and the parent’s sexual orientation. The age of the child will also have a bearing on which therapeutic interventions would work best in any given client’s case. Personal preferences may also make one counseling style or therapeutic practice work better than others, and some trial-and-error may be warranted. In spite of their tremendous intra-group differences, single parents may face some of the same challenges including financial strain, stress management, and child behavior problems. Therefore, group therapy is likely to be an effective solution for many single parents. Group therapy can also be combined with individual counseling and family therapy.

Research substantiates the use of multiple modes of therapy concurrently, particularly combining group therapy with filial therapies (Vafa & Khaidzir, 2009). Filial therapy includes play and other relationship-building activities that address the needs of both parent and child. The therapeutic interventions have been shown to “enhance and strengthen parent-child relationships through teaching parents necessary skills to become therapeutic agents in dealing with their own children’s social, emotional, and behavioral problems,” (Vafa & Khaidzir, 2019, p. 4). By focusing on the parent’s behaviors, the filial therapy methods also prevent children from being misdiagnosed with mental health problems and encourage single parents to develop resilience and healthy coping styles.

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However, group therapies might also be necessary to help single parents cope. Lipman & Boyle (2005) found that community-based group therapies were especially helpful with mood elevation and self-esteem improvement but ironically, not on social support building. Reasons for the results may be related to extraneous variables, but generally group therapies do offer single parents the opportunity to learn how other people cope with stress, build networks that can help alleviate childcare burdens, and build community-based solutions for single parents. Financial strain remains a major burden for many single parents, which is why community-based programs can help to inspire affordable childcare options and alleviate feelings of isolation (Lipman & Boyle, 2005). One thing that group therapy does not effectively address is how to adapt parenting styles, which is why combining group therapy with filial therapy may be effective. Filial therapy….....

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