Master of Family Therapy Program: Curriculum

The curriculum assists students in integrating theory and practice. Issues of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity are addressed throughout the program. Students are fully trained to assume clinical practice in couple and family therapy and are prepared for associate membership in the AAMFT. The educational and training experience has six major components:

• The historical development of systems theory and cybernetics and the use of the systems paradigm in treatment.
• A comprehensive survey of major models of change in marriage and family therapy, with an emphasis on assessment and treatment.
• Conceptual understanding of complex relational dynamics across the family life cycle, with a focus on such contexts as race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.
• Ethical, legal, and professional responsibilities of marriage and family therapists.
• Quantitative and qualitative research in marriage and family therapy.
• Supervised clinical practica, in which students receive a minimum of 100 hours of supervision and a minimum of 500 hours of face-to-face client contact.
  

The program teaches several major schools of thought, including:

* Bowenian
* Contextual
* Object relations
* Strategic
* Postmodernism
* Structural