What is a Marriage & Family Therapist (MFT)?
Marriage & Family Therapy is a distinct mental health discipline in psychotherapy. Our training is unique in that, regardless of who we are treating (individuals, couples or families), our emphasis is on relationship networks rather than individual pathology.
The discipline of Marriage & Family Therapy was born from systems theory which was first coined by biologists Ludwig Bertalanffy and Humberto Masturana. Systems theory views an individual or group as its own ecosystem possessing many moving parts; one part cannot be understood alone as the parts make up the whole (e.g. the ocean or the circulatory system). In the early 1960s, systems theory and cybernetics (cyclical patterns of machinery) were applied to psychology and treating the family unit. Concepts such as interpersonal connections, patterns and feedback loops all play a major role in assessment and interventions within systemic psychotherapy.
Systems theory is truly the soul mate to the holistic health foundation from which I work.
