Student Handbooks		Time Schedule		Course Descriptions
	Downloadable Forms		MFT Newsletter		Course Sequence
	Cost & Financial Aid		Assistantships		Professional Links

	•	Apply family systems theoretical models and clinical interventions to therapeutic work with individuals, couples, groups, and families;
	•	Examine personal and professional values and integrate them into an ethical practice of family therapy; and
	•	Demonstrate awareness of socio-cultural and professional trends in the practice of psychotherapy.

A primary focus of the MFT program is to emphasize students’ understanding of and sensitivity to the moral-values-spiritual dimensions of their lives and how these dimensions interact with their clients’ lives. This emphasis is somewhat unique inasmuch as secular preparation programs are limited in what they can offer in these areas. Included in SPU’s focus is the invitation to integrate spiritual, personal, and professional growth. While our faculty and staff are all Christians, students are not required to share the same religious perspectives. The MFT program holds a non-discrimination stance toward the admission of its students and toward the treatment of clients served by our students.

Another emphasis of the program is on family development and interventions with couples and families. Family issues have become highly important to counselors and therapists, as evidenced by the upsurge of these services in community agencies. Hence, the faculty emphasizes systemic understandings of client issues and therapeutic interventions. Human behavior is seen as fundamentally organized by its interpersonal and social-ecological contexts.

The program seeks to achieve these goals and foci by:

	•	challenging students to regard themselves and their clients in holistic ways;
	•	admitting students as a cohort of learners;
	•	integrating conceptual learning with clinical practice;
	•	emphasizing formal and informal learning;
	•	utilizing a developmentally sequenced curriculum;
	•	using technology creatively;
	•	preparing students for a changing health-care environment;
	•	fostering awareness of how spiritual, socioeconomic, multicultural, and political contexts influence mental health services; and

Taken from the 2004-5 MFT Student Handbook