Why Choose a Marriage and Family Therapist?

If you are thinking about seeing a marriage counselor or advising someone you know to go to one, you would probably like to know these interesting facts. A national survey reports that 80 percent of all private practice therapists in the United States say they do marital therapy.  But only 12% of them have had any professional training that requires even one course or any supervised experience in marital therapy. The only professional field that requires course work and supervised clinical experience in marital and couples therapy is Marriage and Family Therapy.

So most people who say that they are doing marital work, somehow picked it up or trained themselves or did nothing at all. Most people, who do marital work, unless they were trained as a marriage and family therapist, were trained to work with individuals, not with couples. Their training as counselors prepared them to help individuals who deal with depression, anxiety, or challenging life issues, but they were not trained to do marital therapy.

The field of marriage counseling is relatively young. It began in the 1950's when people began to look at marital problems in a more systemic way. Until then, all mental health training was preparing psychotherapists to think only about the individual and his problems. The marriage and family therapy field is based on significant research and theory that marriage and family problems are best treated in the context of those relationships. Trained marriage and family therapists focus on finding solutions to their client's problems by viewing them from this interactional relationship perspective. It just makes sense that marriage counseling is best done by a therapist who has experience and training to provide relationship-perspective help. Marriage and family therapists receive this specific education and training to prepare them to be the most effective providers of marriage-health care.

5.8 Million people see a marriage and family therapist each year (2% of population).

Almost 900,000 are couples receiving marital therapy.

Almost 550,000 are families seeking therapy.

In a national survey of clients of marriage and family therapists:¹

• 97% reported that they received the kind of help that they desired.

• 91% said that they were satisfied with the amount of help they received.

• 93% said that they received help from their therapist in how to deal more effectively with problems.

• 97% said that they would recommend their therapist to a friend.

• 63% reported improved physical health.

• 73.7% reported improvement in children's behavior.

• 58.7% reported improvement in children's school performance.

¹ Doherty, W. J. & Simmons, D.S. (1995). Clinical Practice Patterns of Marriage and Family Therapists: A National Survey of Therapists and Clients. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 21, 9-25. Retrieved from www.aamft.org July, 2005.