Program Overview

Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) are professional mental health providers who serve a critical role in helping individuals, couples, and families heal from psychological and relationship wounds as well as solve psychological and relationship problems. In their clinical work, MFTs enter into individual and relational suffering of loss, grief, trauma, difficult transitions, and conflict as a presence that can catalyze healing.
The Lipscomb Marriage and Family Therapy masters program is the only COAMFTE accredited (the gold standard in the field) program in Middle Tennessee. Students in the Lipscomb MFT program go through rigorous and comprehensive training and become highly trained, caring, and compassionate therapists who can effectively treat the challenges faced by individuals, couples, and families. Our cohort model provides students the unique opportunity to learn systems theory while forming a social system within their cohort.
Your rigorous training will prepare you to serve individuals overcoming their mental health challenges, help couples restore a thriving relationship, and lead families to create healthy and effective family processes. And once you finish here, you’ll be able to continue your clinical work while pursuing the Marriage and Family Therapy license.
Whether you are straight out of undergraduate work, are looking for a meaningful career change, or would like to expand your existing skill set in helping others, a Masters degree in Marriage and Family Therapy can situate you to help and heal in powerful ways.
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Admissions Requirements
Please submit:
- Lipscomb University's online application
- A 500-700 word essay that explains more about you, why you're doing this, and why Lipscomb
- Three letters of recommendation
- Official transcripts from all schools attended
- GRE scores (waived if you already hold a master's degree, optional if you have a 3.0 or above undergraduate GPA)
- Interview
The deadline to apply for Fall 2021 will be March 31, 2021. Interview day will be April 23, 2021.
Courses
Courses in Sequence:
Fall I
- PSFT 5903: Introduction to Marriage and Family Therapy Skills
- PSFT 5103: Introduction to Systems and Family Theory
- PSFT 6733: Non-traditional Families
Spring I
- PSFT 5203: Family Therapy 1
- PSFT 5403: Ethics and Clinical Practice
- PSFT 6833: Practicum
Summer I
- PSFT 6A23: Introduction to Play Therapy
- PSFT 5603: Research Methods and Statistics
- PSFT 6603: Diagnosis and Assessment
- PSFT 6843: Supervised Clinical Practice I
Fall II
- PSFT 6713: Family Therapy II
- PSFT 6763: Intimacy: Sexuality, Couple and Sex Therapy
- PSFT 6853: Supervised Clinical Practice II
Spring II
- PSFT 6823: Professional Marriage and Family Therapy: Evidence Based Mental Health Care
- PSFT 6053: Cultural Diversity in MFT
- PSFT 6863: Supervised Clinical Practice III
Summer II
- PSFT 6613: Family Life Cycle: Theory and practice
- PSFT 6353: Treating Trauma and Addiction in Families
- PSFT 6873: Supervised Clinical Practice IV
Specialization
There is one area of specializations in the MMFT program.
Play Therapy: This concentration is a 9 credit hour concentration where two Play Therapy courses and one Play Therapy Supervised Clinical Practice (SCP) replace two regular MFT courses and integrate Play Therapy into one SCP. The MMFT with a Play Therapy Concentration is 63 credit hours.
Special Courses
- PSFT 6800: Clinical Practice Extension
- PSFT 688V: Independent Study in MFT
- PSFT 6XN3: Special Topics in MFT
Tuition & Aid
- $962 per credit hour
- Books and iPad included in tuition