Marriage and Family Therapist Degree

Psychologists, such as Kurt Lewin, learned in the late 20th Century that a person’s happiness is often tied to the family unit. Prior to that, Psychologists such as Freud concentrated on just the individual. Later the entire unit was determined to be closely knitted to the happiness of each member. If you believe you would want to work with individuals in order to reconstruct and heal family issues, then the Family Psychologist career may be the profession for you.

If you are intrigued with the idea, then contact the local school and set up an appointment for your questions and answers. Join such famous Family Psychologists as Don Jackson, Theodore Litz, and Jay Haley in helping to help the family unit to exist in a healthy and happy fashion.

Curriculum for a Degree in Family Psychology

If you look at the members that make up a family, you can see how there may be many dynamic and complex relationships. It is recommended that you get a Master’s degree, at the minimum, for your career. You cannot practice without at least a Master’s degree. In addition, you will need to complete two yeas of supervised clinical family work before you can get your license.

You will also need to take an exam in order to get your state license. There is also a required national exam. Your school can give you information on the Association of Marital and Family Therapy regulatory Boards, their exams, and the requirements. As you study and get closer to obtaining your degree, you will participate in lab studies, mock sessions, hotlines, research, and case studies in addition to your regular classes. The core subjects will have a heavy concentration in the social sciences, sciences, and humanities. Some required classes may include:

• Family Dynamics
• Understanding the Teenager
• Marriage 101
• General Psychology
• The Extended Family
• Merging Families
• Divorce and the Family Unit
• Biology
• Sociology
• Beyond Abuse
• Organic Chemistry
• The Masters of the Field
• Beyond Separation
• The Dynamics of Siblings and Birth Order
• Alternative Families and Making Them Work Successfully

These classes will help you to be ready to encounter whatever problems the job may present to you. Those problems could be the introduction of a newborn to the family, handling a sibling who bullies, or the basics for handling a merged family successfully. There will be many tools that you will use as you help families to heal. As a rule, Family Psychologists do not use medicine to heal or correct the unit. Therapy and counseling are the backbone of the field. As you get closer to being awarded your degree and to using these tools, you will want to focus on the field that most interests you. Take advantage of the campus career center as you begin to select your specialty.

Tools for Healing

Your job as a Family psychologist will be stacked and varied. You will need to talk to each family member and then move to the problem. The root of the problem and the determined cure or remedy will come next in the program. This process can take years to remedy and correct. Some tools and methods you will use are:

• Role playing
• Group discussions
• Individual sessions
• Meditation
• Therapy
• Hypnotherapy
• Research and lab work
• Surveys
• School Visits
• Removal of children from the unit
• Advocacy for an abused member
• Liaison with the legal system
• Court Appearances
• Home visits
• Intervention
• Hospital visits

You can work with a group, in private practice, with the legal or police system, or with another similar entity. You will touch bases with your local medical facilities, schools, nursing homes, the court system, and prisons. You will not always be in the office, but often on the road in order to speak to the proper people in order to do your job. There will be no set hours, as you will be on an on-call rotation that may impact your nights, holidays, or weekends. Your job is important, as the family and the condition of the family does greatly impact each member. These impacts go beyond the moment and can determine a person’s outlook and behavior in the future.

Contact the Local Campus

This job is special and requires a very special person. This job will require you to place yourself in the middle of a family, an awkward place to be, in order to start the healing process. If you think that you might be that person, call you local school today and begin the enrollment process for becoming a Family Psychologist.

Family Social Worker

When people think of becoming a social worker, there are a mix of emotions and stigmas that come along with the thought. It is no secret that social work is a very hard and trying line of work, but it is also something that is extremely needed and crucial in our society. Social work, if it is your calling, will be the most rewarding thing you will ever do in your life. Interested to learn more about what it takes? Check out the information below!

What Is A Family Social Worker?
Family social workers assist families who are at a time of crisis by coming in and providing a range of services to help them recover from their crisis and get back on their feet. These services will all depend on the case and family because no situation is ever the same. A family social worker will be the one who assesses the situation, makes a game plan that takes into mind all the specific issues in that family and executes that plan to the best of their ability.

Who Do Family Social Workers Help?
Usually, the type of families they assist are families where certain members (or sometimes the entire family) have issues that are too severe for them to overcome on their own. These issues will usually prove to be a hindrance to daily life, education, health and normal functionality. Some of the things these families tend to struggle with include: Medical problems, addictions, stress, mental illness, unhealthy relationships, financial problems, and more.

What Do Family Social Workers Do?
First, the social worker will interview the family and assess the situation at hand to try to understand what both surface and underlying problems there are. They will then use the family’s perceived strengths to uplift and help their weaknesses. Specifically, the family social worker will sit down with the family and help them to make a game plan to fix the most prominent issues. Often they will set goals and sometimes incentives to get the family motivated to work together on these issues and help each other along the way. Even if the family issues seem to stem from just one or two main people, the social worker will usually insist that the entire family be involved in the process and work together. It is proven that when a family works together, they have better chances of fixing their issues.Another important thing family social workers do is helping connect the family with the resources they need such as specific organizations and agencies that specialize in giving the help or aid that the family needs.

Why Are Family Social Workers Important?
Families are one of the most important parts of our society because it is the unit that raises children and keeps people happy and unified. The family system is an important thing to protect and keep healthy. Dysfunctional families take a toll on every member within it and often the issues in dysfunctional families will end up staying with these people for the rest of their lives. Many of the worst issues people have as adults stem from something that happened in their family.

So to answer the question “Why are family social workers important?”, they come into families’ lives and intervene on their behalf to help assist however they can. Their job is to help these families break out of their dysfunction and become functional, productive and strong again. Family social workers are the saving grace for many families because they are able to bring assistance and provide services that help people turn their lives and families around.

How To Become A Family Social Worker
Interested in being a family hero? AKA family social worker? Then you can start your journey towards becoming one by completing a bachelor’s degree in a four-year social work program or another related field (psychology, education, child development, sociology, etc.). Some people can use their associate degree towards their bachelor’s so if you already have one, make sure to see what credits are available to transfer so that you can save time and money.The next best step is to get an internship where you can get experience doing the job that you are interested in pursuing. This experience will help you greatly in attaining a job later on.

It is also highly recommended that you attain a Master’s degree in social work (MSW). This is the only way to become a licensed clinical social worker. A good thing to know here is that ANY undergraduate degree is acceptable to gain entry to an MSW program.Do time. Get your hours in and earn all of the certifications necessary for your specific field. Once you have done this, you are ready for a career in family social work!