Families today, in rapidly changing modern society, are experiencing difficulties due to a host of causes of conflict such as confusion of parental roles, change of couples' roles, and prevalence of individualism. Thus unharmonious relationships among...
Families today, in rapidly changing modern society, are experiencing difficulties due to a host of causes of conflict such as confusion of parental roles, change of couples' roles, and prevalence of individualism. Thus unharmonious relationships among family members and interaction problems occurred frequently so the number of children with various attachment problems have been increasing. The author viewed that it was necessary to use the family approach rather than the child-centered one to treat attachment problems. The purpose of this study was to develop "a Family Play Therapy Program" using the puppet to improve attachment for families of children with attachment problems and to examine its effectiveness. Participants were the experimental group of 16 individuals(8 children with attachment problems whose ages range from 4 to 5 and 8 mothers) and the control group of 16 individuals(8 children with attachment problems whose ages also range from 4 to 5 and 8 mothers). The experimental group was treated through the Family Play Therapy Program using the puppet and was held for twelve sessions twice a week. Changes in participants were measured by three aspects : child, mother, and child-mother, in order to examine the effects of the program. The researcher measured children's emotional, behavioral expressions(TBP: Muller, N., 1996) and perception of family(cohesion and family representation, FAST: Gehring, T., 1998) both before and after the FPT program and compared their differences. The author also measured the self of mother(Self Differentiation Scale: Jea, Suckbong., 1989), interpersonal relationships(ECR-R: Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998), and perception of family functions(ICPS-FFS: Noller, Seth-Smith, Bouma, & Schweutzer, 1992) both before and after the FPT program and compared their differences. MIM Rating Scale(O'Connor, 2001) and Marschak Behavior Rating Scale(Mckay, Pickens, & Stewart, 1996) were administered to examine interactions between mothers and children. All of the sessions of FTP program were videotaped and photocopied to note the processes of change in child-mother according to the stages of group development so that the responses of child-mother were classified and analyzed according to therapeutic factors. The collected data conducted basic statistical analysis(frequency, percentage, average, and standard deviation) and non-parametric analysis(Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon rank sum test) using SPSS WIN 17.0.
The major results from this study are as follows.
1. Family Play Therapy Program using the puppet for attachment improvement had positive effects on children's emotional, behavioral expressions and their perception of family. After the Family Play Therapy Program were over, negative emotional, and behavioral expressions in the experimental group of children decreased and family cohesion among family perception of children in experimental group were changed positively from 'low or middle range' to 'high range'. And the family representations were changed positively from 'avoidance, non-response, and negative' to 'open, and positive'.
2. Family Play Therapy Program using the puppet for attachment improvement had positive effects on perceptions of self, interpersonal relationships, families of mothers whose children had attachment problems. The decrease of family projection and family regression among self differentiation in the experimental group of mothers was observed after treatment of FPT program. It meant that the degrees of projection which mothers put their conflicts and tensions from their marital relationships on their children lessoned and family regression which mothers showed when dealing with crisis or conflicts decreased. One of its subscales of the Interpersonal Relationships Perception Scale showed statistically significant differences in attachment-avoidance of mothers in experimental group. Namely, the degrees of attachment-avoidance in interpersonal relationships decreased. There was not a statistically significant difference in Family Function Perception after the Family Play Therapy Program was over.
3. Family Play Therapy Program using the puppet for attachment improvement had positive effects on change of interaction behaviors of child-mother. There were statistically significant differences in child-mother's dimensional interaction behaviors(structure, challenge, intervention, nurturing) after the Family Play Therapy Program was completed. Thus an increase in positive interaction was observed. Statistically significant differences in child-mother's subject interaction behaviors(children, mothers, pairs of mothers and their children) were seen after Family Play Therapy Program was over and an increase of positive interaction was also observed. Even while conducting Family Pay Therapy Program, subject interaction behaviors(children, mothers, pairs of mothers and their children) increased with statistical significance. This could be called positive change, too .
4. Family Play Therapy Program using the puppet for attachment improvement had positive effects on responses from their group developmental stages, especially on the subscale of both mother emotion reinforcement program and puppet family play program. Results of the classification of therapeutic factors in the process of program, group cohesion, socialization skills, catalysis emerged as did the three therapeutic factors in the experimental group of children. Various factors such as group cohesion, universality, self-understanding, instillation of hope, and development of socialization skills were spread out evenly as did therapeutic factors in the experimental group of mothers regardless of the stage of program.
By this study which approached with integrity on the aspect of interaction of child, mother, and child-mother, it was confirmed that the Family Play Therapy Program using the puppet for attachment improvement improved the quality of relationship of child with attachment problem, mother, and child-mother and enhanced attachment.
This study had significances as followed.
1. From the perspective of the structure of program, it had the emotion reinforcement program for mothers whose children had attachment problems, the program using puppet for families with attachment problems and the support group for follow-up.
2. From the perspective of the development of program, considering the characteristics of families with attachment problems, the researcher developed and conducted the Puppet Play Therapy Program in which the expression of emotion of children are feasible.
3. It had a manuel for participants-tailored. There were massive compensations for its defects through a pilot study of FPT program.
4. It used various kinds of measurements for child, mother, child-mother to examine the effects of FPT program.