Couple and Family Therapy: MA, Irvine, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco

Mission and Objectives

Provide the highest quality diversity sensitive professional education, training, community engagement, and scholarship in the profession of Marriage and Family Therapy.

• Professional Education: We train ethical, diverse professionals to deliver competent CFT services to foster the well-being of diverse individuals, children, couples, families, organizations, and communities.
• Diversity: We promote and advocate for understanding, honor, and respect for the diversity of human relationships with an emphasis on populations from diverse multicultural, socioeconomic, and international backgrounds.
• Community: We actively engage a diversity of communities through the knowledge and skills of couple and family therapy to make a positive difference.
• Scholarship: We contribute to the understanding, creation, and dissemination of couple and family therapy scholarship.

Student Learning Outcomes (SLO)

SLO 1 Practice Foundational Knowledge and Skills: Master’s and doctoral students comprehend and demonstrate CFT conceptual, perceptual, executive, evaluative, professional, and theoretical skills.

SLO 2 Diversity Knowledge and Skills: Master’s and doctoral students comprehend and demonstrate knowledge of human diversity with a multicultural and international emphasis.

SLO 3 Community Knowledge and Skills: Master’s and doctoral students comprehend and demonstrate knowledge of how to engage community behavioral health care resources.

SLO 4 Scholarship Foundation Knowledge and Skills: Master’s and doctoral students demonstrate a basic knowledge of CFT research methodologies and scholarship.

Training Model

The Couple and Family Therapy (CFT) master’s program is offered in Irvine, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco and leads to a Master of Arts in Marital and Family Therapy. The CFT program provides training for a career as a professional marriage and family therapist. Students are trained to treat relational mental health issues with individuals, couples, and families from a systemic perspective. Skills are developed in the mental health assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of individuals and relationship systems. The program provides an integrative approach to the major systemic theories and interventions. It fulfills all academic requirements for application to the State of California’s examination for a marriage and family therapist license (Section 4980.40 and 4980.41 of Business and Professions Code). Licensed marriage and family therapists work in a variety of settings including hospitals, clinics, social service agencies, churches, the military, educational institutions, and private practice. The CFT master’s program offers concentrations in chemical dependency, gerontology, and Latin American family therapy. Additionally, students may do a concentration in LGBT Human Services and Mental Health or Infant-Preschool Mental Health, both of which are done online. Concentrations require additional coursework.

All requirements for the master’s in CFT at Alliant are also a part of the PsyD in CFT program. Students who complete the master’s in CFT, apply in a timely manner, and are accepted into the doctoral program may apply all CFT master’s requirements toward the completion of the CFT doctoral program.

Specialized Admissions Requirements: Credit for Previous Graduate Work

Entering CFT masters students may be eligible to receive credit for previous graduate work up to 15 hours for MA students transferring from a masters program.

To be considered for credit in our program students’ graduate coursework:
(a) Must have been taken from a regionally accredited master’s or doctoral program.
(b) Must have been completed prior to the student’s entry to Alliant CFT program.
(c) Must have resulted in grades of B or better and have been completed within the last seven years.

Procedures for transfers/waivers:
The student provides a list of the Alliant courses for which s/he is interested in receiving credit, along with course descriptions and syllabi. It is submitted in writing to the CFT site director for review/approval. Once approved it will be submitted to the registrar office for posting.

Curriculum and Degree Requirements

The CFT practicum program includes 500 hours of direct client contact, 250 with couples or families; students receive at least 100 hours of individual and group supervision, at least 50 hours of which are based on direct observation or videotape. During the program, the student must supplement his or her academic and clinical work with 50 hours of professional development activities. These include approved workshops, colloquia, and seminars. Twenty-five of these hours may involve personal counseling or psychotherapy with a licensed person who is not core faculty at Alliant.

Students in the CFT Masters program must pass a comprehensive exam as a part of their degree program. Students who fail the exam will be offered student-specific remediation plans to ensure they have developed necessary knowledge and competencies. These remediation plans may include retaking the exam, writing papers on specific topics, retaking classes, and/or any other elements deemed necessary by faculty based on the student’s exam performance. A student who fails to successfully complete the remediation plan by the given deadline will be referred to the Student Evaluation Review Committee for further action, including possible dismissal from the program.
 

Curriculum Plan

Degree Requirement 60 units

All courses are 3 units unless indicated otherwise.

Couple and Family Therapy Faculty

Core faculty for the CFT programs are listed below:

Alyssa Banford, PhD, Assistant Professor, San Diego

Benjamin Caldwell, PsyD, Associate Professor, Los Angeles

Hao-Min Chen, PhD, Assistant Professor, Irvine

Liang-Ying Chou, PhD, Assistant Professor, Irvine

Sean Davis, PhD, Professor, Sacramento

Tatiana Glebova, PhD, Assiociate Professor and Site Director, Sacramento

Noah Hass-Cohen, PsyD, Associate Professor, Los Angeles

Alexander Hsieh, PhD, Assistant Professor, Sacramento

Angela Kim, PhD, Assistant Professor, San Diego

Marianne McInnes Miller, PhD, Associate Professor and Site Director, San Diego

Rajeswari Natrajan-Tyagi, PhD, Associate Professor and Site Director, Irvine

Sesan Negash, PhD, Assistant Professor, San Diego

Alba Nino, PhD, Assistant Professor, San Diego

Karen Quek, PhD, Associate Professor, Irvine

Hye-Sun Ro, PhD, Assistant Professor, Los Angeles

Norma Scarborough, DMFT, Associate Professor and Site Director, Los Angeles

Jenna Scott, PhD, Assistant Professor, San Francisco

Gita Seshadri, PhD, Assistant Professor, Sacramento

Linna Wang, PhD, Professor, San Diego and Systemwide Program Director

Scott R. Woolley, PhD, Distinguished Professor, San Diego

For a detailed description of program faculty background and research interests, please see the alphabetical listing of Faculty  for the California School of Professional Psychology.

Licensure

Graduates of CSPP’s Master of Arts in Couple and Family Therapy program are eligible for licensure as Marital and Family Therapists (MFT) in the state of California upon completion of post-degree intern hours and passing of the licensure exam. Candidates for licensure as an MFT in California are required to complete a total of 3,000 hours of supervised professional experience, at least 1,700 of which must be completed after the completion of the master’s degree. Candidates must then pass written examinations for licensure. Continuing education is required to maintain the license. Because each state has its own requirements for licensure as an MFT, it is imperative that students planning to pursue licensure in a state other than California contact the licensing board in the applicable state for information on that state’s requirements. For further information on licensure in California or other states contact:

California Board of Behavioral Sciences
1625 North Market Blvd., Suite S-200
Sacramento, CA 95834
(916) 574-7830
BBSWebmaster@bbs.ca.gov

or

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
112 South Alfred Street
Alexandria, VA 22314-3061
(703) 838-9808
coamfte@aamft.org