Parent-child Art Psychotherapy in the Education System

Parent-child psychotherapy is a therapeutic approach to the treatment of childhood relationship disorders that integrates the parent and the child in the treatment room. In the education system, a holistic educational/therapeutic approach has been crystallizing in recent years as to the need to involve the parent in promoting the child’s well-being in the kindergarten or school framework through a therapeutic process that takes place within that framework. Although there are no studies to date that can demonstrate the effectiveness of this therapeutic approach in the education system, experience in the field of therapy in educational frameworks shows that parent-child art psychotherapy strengthens children’s relationship with the authoritative figure and the peer group, their ability to adapt to the framework, the self-regulation and sense of ability and readiness to experience processes of learning and playing. This chapter discusses the advantages of implementing parent-child art psychotherapy in the educational system (with appropriately trained art therapists) and presents an initial protocol.