Marriage and Family Therapy

Marriage and Family Therapy is an approach to treating relationship, individual, and mental health problems. Through this approach, therapists view problems and solutions in the context of a person's relationships. This is an approach that emphasizes individual, family, and couple strengths and resilience and that mobilizes these to enhance individual, couple, and family well-being.

Through coursework and practical experience in the MFT program, students are prepared for the realities of modern mental health care practice. Emphasized throughout the curriculum are the following:

• The development of culturally competent practices.
• An ability to develop assessment and treatment plans based on best practices.
• An ability to assess and treat a wide variety of individual and relational problems using a systematic approach.
• Skills for working collaboratively with other professionals.

Graduates of the program have been successful in a wide variety of employment settings including: primary care medical clinics, hospitals, mental health and community agencies, psychiatric clinics, and private practice.

Faculty

The following faculty have primary responsibility for the coursework required for the specialization in Marriage and Family Therapy.

Richard J. Bischoff, Ph.D., Associate Professor and MFT Program Director. Research Interests: Underserved populations, especially rural and Hispanic populations.

Allison J. Reisbig, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Research Interests: Minority, underserved, and hard to reach populations such as transgendered families; mental health of students with highly demanding programs.

Paul R. Springer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor. Research Interests: Collaborative healthcare.

Resources

The Family Resource Center (FRC), is a mental health treatment facility located on-campus through which MFT students receive clinical training and provide therapy. The FRC serves a clientele composed of university affiliated personnel and students as well as individuals, couples, and families from the larger community. Behavioral telehealth services are also offered through the FRC to clients in rural Nebraska counties. The FRC has four comfortable and private therapy rooms. All clinical services provided at the FRC are carefully supervised by Approved Supervisors of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Therapy rooms are equipped for supervision purposes with video taping equipment and one-way mirrors.