Develop professional skills, learn about yourself and your faith, and build a foundation for the practice of therapy.

The Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy is accredited by The Commission on Accreditation for Marriage & Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE). Your learning in the program will prepare you for service as an effective clinician within diverse communities.

The program fosters a distinctive cohort model and provides a safe and supportive environment in which you’ll develop close relationships with your fellow students and with faculty. The program will emphasize not only learning how to become a marriage and family therapist but will also focus on your personal emotional development by placing special emphasis on the “self-of-the-therapist.” Upon graduation, you will be prepared to pursue licensure^ to work as a beginning professional marriage and family therapist. Additional details are provided below.

Program Overview

The Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy program encompasses academic, clinical, and personal achievement and development.  Part-time completion takes approximately four years. Accelerated part-time students may complete the program in two and a half to three years.

Licensure and Credentialing

Professional marriage and family therapists are held to high standards of care and professionalism. Requirements for licensure are set forth by statutory laws and regulations and vary from state to state.  Subsequent requirements include, but are not limited to, application to a state licensing regulatory board, post-graduate clinical hours, supervision, and successful passage of a national licensing examination.  

Program Purpose

This program is designed to prepare you to minister in a variety of contexts as an entry-level marriage and family therapist. The curriculum focuses on self-of-the-therapist development while also bringing cultural and theological sensitivity into the practice of marriage and family therapy. Based upon relational/systemic theoretical orientation of family systems thinking, it integrates biblical truth and Christian faith with these understandings.

Cohort Model

As a student in the Marriage and Family Therapy program, you will journey together with your peers in a cohort-based community of learning. You’ll begin your journey by focusing on the fundamentals of relational therapy and then learn to first apply the basic skills and theories of family therapy to conceptualizing, assessing, and treating issues in mental health counseling through role plays, group activities, and presentations and then later to address specific issues like gender, ethnicity, addiction, abuse, and sexuality. The cohort model also encourages you to be in dialog about these issues – challenging new ideas to form in the process. Finally, you will put into practice your knowledge and skills during practicum by working with individuals, couples, and families in clinics and agencies. You’ll also be placed in supervision groups to present cases, learn from supervisors, and offer feedback to your peers.

Self-of-the-Therapist

Most people train to be therapists because they want to help other people. They want to focus on the history, values, struggles, and needs of the client. But this is not all that is happening in a therapy room. Self-of-the-therapist refers to an understanding that the therapist also brings to the session their own concerns, history, personality, values, struggles, and spirituality (to name a few). Part of the work in learning the art of helping others is to examine and understand yourself as the therapist. Only when you are able to identify the influence of “self” can you use it to be fully present with the client in sessions.

Student achievement data is available in our COAMFTE SAC Disclosure Table, and program statistics can be found here.

Core Areas

In addition to meeting standards set forth by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education, all coursework is designed to help you:

• Develop competent professional skills as a beginning marriage and family therapist;
• Deepen your self-awareness, understanding, and growth personally, relationally, and spiritually;
• Engage with issues of diversity and multi-culturalism;
• Engage in Christian faith, biblical principles, and spiritual formation.