Marriage and Family Therapist : Training, Salary & Career Information
Career Information
Marriage and Family Therapists: Career, Salary and Education Information
Living in a state of mental and emotional well-being can be tricky even when living alone. Once you add a spouse and children, living together in peace can be an extra challenge. Even though they are often viewed primarily as a whole, families contain separate individuals with separate personalities. Challenges become especially evident when one or more members of a family face serious internal struggles.
Marriage and family therapists are counselors who specialize in treating mental and emotional disorders of one or more members of families. Whereas other counselors focus primarily on an individual in treatment, marriage and family therapists consider how behaviors, disorders and attitudes affect entire families. Families or individual members of families turn to marriage and family therapists for a number of reasons, including:
- mental health disorders
- addictions
- adultery
- trauma
- unemployment
- childhood/school issues
A Day in the Life of a Marriage and Family Therapist
Those who pursue marriage and family therapist careers enjoy helping others work out their difficulties and are good listeners. They meet with individual clients, couples, and entire families. Although counseling others is the heart of what they do, marriage and family therapists also must maintain patient records, bill patients and insurance companies, and stay current in new therapies.
Marriage and family therapists generally have their own offices, either in their private practices or at community health organizations, day treatment programs, or hospitals. Therapists with their own practices must create and maintain their own client base, whereas for those working for organizations, this is less of a concern.
Marriage and Family Therapist Training & Education
Marriage and family therapists generally need a master's degree to practice. Graduate programs that can lead to licensure can be found in departments of social work, human services, education, and psychology. In addition to coursework, most marriage and family therapist schools require students to complete a supervised clinical experience in counseling.
In addition to earning a marriage and family therapist degree, counselors will need to gain licensure. Licensing requirements vary by state, but they generally involve completing an approved master's degree program, acquiring two years or 3,000 hours of supervised clinical experience beyond graduate school, and passing a state exam. To maintain licensure, marriage and family therapists must regularly complete continuing education credits.
Some marriage and family therapists pursue certification through the National Board for Certified Counselors, which results in a general practice credential of National Certified Counselor. Although this is voluntary, certification can improve credentials and potential job opportunities and/or client base.
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Marriage and Family Therapists Careers & Job Outlook
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) May 2009 report, there were over 600,000 counselors in the U.S. of these, nearly 27,000 were marriage and family therapists. The BLS projects excellent job opportunities for all counselors, since job openings are expected to outnumber graduates of counseling programs in coming years. From 2008 through 2018, marriage and family therapist jobs are expected to increase by 14 percent.
Marriage and family therapist jobs are proving to be more than recession-proof: "Recession Depression," as it has been pegged by counselors, has increased client bases across the board, including those for marriage and family therapists.
Marriage And Family Therapists Salary Information
According to the BLS, as of May 2009 the median annual salary for marriage and family therapists was $46,920. On the low end of the pay scale, 25 percent of salaries were less than $36,480, whereas the top 10 percent of salaries were in excess of $73,610. States with the highest concentration of marriage and family therapist jobs were New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, California, and South Dakota.
