Articles on Parent/Child Relationships

  • Firestone, R.W. (1989). Parenting groups based on voice therapy. Psychotherapy, 26(4),524-529.

Voice Therapy is an effective form of preventive psychotherapy. The format consists of parents (1) opening up and working on ambivalent feelings and attitudes toward themselves and their children, (2) recalling painful events from their own childhoods, (3) releasing the repressed affect associated with these negative experiences, (4) understanding the connection between their present-day limitations and the defensive patterns set up to cope with early trauma, (5) exposing the dysfunctional dynamics in their families, thereby breaking the idealization of their parents, and (6) developing more compassionate child-rearing practices based on constructive attitude change. Reprint