Family & Marriage Therapy
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Family and marriage therapists work as trained counselors to help struggling marriages or family relationships function in a more healthy way. Marriage and family therapists are trained to listen and identify underlying problems in a family or marriage relationship, and they work to resolve the issues both within and outside of counseling sessions. They often work in private practices, providing support to individual clients by appointment. As with all counselors, they must be able to identify underlying problems to provide appropriate counseling and support.
Marriage and family therapists apply specific concepts of family dynamics to their counseling methods. They work to pinpoint, address, and treat mental and emotional disorders within a family or marriage dynamic to improve domestic situations. Generally, marriage and family therapists are trying to help clients modify their perception of a particular situation in order to enhance communications and cooperation among members of a family or between spouses in a marriage. Marriage and family therapists may work with groups of people, either as a single large family or as groups of couples and families together, or they may work more intimately with individual family members or couples. Individual methods of therapists may also very greatly, but certain standard practices are generally considered the typical treatment and result of marriage or family counseling.
Marriage and family therapists may also work with other types of counselors and psychiatrists to make appropriate referrals for patients who suffer from additional problems that may be causing problems but cannot be treated through marriage and family therapy alone. Some marriage and family therapists also perform research or teach courses in interpersonal relations, as their experience makes them experts in human interaction.
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Accredited Schools Offering Family & Marriage Therapy Degrees by Location
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Career Specializations
There are no specific career specializations for family and marriage therapists. In most cases, therapists will work with either couples in marriage counseling or family relationships in family counseling, but not with both. Some therapists choose to work with both types of clients, but many choose to specialize because of the different natures of the counseling.
Degree Levels
- Bachelor's Degree: 4 years
- Master's Degree: 2 years
Education & Certification Requirements
Certification and licensing requirements for counselors varies greatly by state, but in most cases therapists are required to have a master's degree in clinical psychology or an equivalent counseling degree in order to become a licensed counselor. This rule applies to all different kinds of therapists, including marriage and family therapists.
Master's degree programs typically require students to take classes in psychology and education in order to understand human interactions. Additionally, most programs require students to complete a clinical therapy component in which they shadow a licensed therapist for a period of time to get a closer appreciation for a therapist's day-to-day responsibilities before graduating. Often, therapists will also have to continue to complete continuing education or participate in group workshops in order to maintain their certification as a counselor.
All 50 states and the District of Columbia have some form of licensing requirement for family and marriage therapists. Although the licensing requirements vary by state, in order to become licensed, most state licensing boards typically require marriage and family therapists to have completed a master's degree, accumulated at least two years or 3,000 hours of supervised clinical counseling work beyond the master's degree, passed a state licensing exam, and agreed to adhere to ethical codes and standards of counseling practice. In addition, continuing education is typically required to maintain a license.
Licenses are provided by individual state licensing boards. There is no national organization for administering licensing exams, so specific requirements and testing dates and locations can be found by looking at individual states' websites.
Salary Information
The average salary for marriage and family therapists can vary quite a bit, based on the place of employment. The majority of marriage and family therapists work in private practices in which their annual wage is determined by the number of clients they are able to bring in. Also, many marriage and family therapists choose to work more limited or sporadic hours. That being said, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual salary of marriage and family therapists as of 2008 was $44,590. (BLS)
This average salary assumes that the marriage and family therapists has completed a master's degree program and become licensed. Those rare therapists who are able to find part-time assistant work with only a bachelor's degree can expect to earn a substantially smaller annual salary.
Job Outlook
With the divorce rate in the United States as dismally high as it is and domestic disputes causing significant problems, job prospects for marriage and family therapists is very favorable. The number of jobs for marriage and family therapists is expected to grow by 14 percent in the coming years, which exceeds the average job growth of many other occupations.
Job prospects are particularly favorable for marriage and family therapists, as the field has become more universally recognized and accepted, causing more people to seek marriage and family counseling to help resolve problems. Additionally, the number of job openings is expected to exceed the number of people graduating from accredited counseling programs. This means that job turnover is working in favor of upcoming marriage and family therapists. (BLS)
Related Careers
- Social Worker: Social work can take a variety of different forms, but in most cases, social workers provide essential services to traditionally under-served segments of the population. Social workers may work as counselors, administrators, researchers, or child care providers. They often assist children who don't have homes, separate children from abusive parents, or provide therapy or assistance to families with no social support.
- School Counseling and Psychology: School counselors and psychologists typically work in elementary, middle, and high school settings to provide therapy and counseling assistance to students who have social, psychological, or emotional problems in a school setting or as they develop out of childhood. School counselors often assist students who are struggling as well as regular students in choosing classes, deciding on careers and colleges, and supporting struggling students when classes are too difficult.
