Friday, August 16, 2013

The Job Of A Marriage And Family Therapist

By Essie Craft


There are so many families and spouses today who have problems understanding each other because of the lack of proper communication and openness between the affected parties. Because of this kind of problem, there has been a demand for certain therapists who specialize in this type of field. A person who focuses on this aspect of psychology and counselling is known as a marriage and family therapist.

Of course if one would want to go into this sort of field, then it is very important that he would have to undergo formal education first. First of all, he would be needing a degree in psychology or any similar course. After that, he would be needing a masters degree also in that field and then he may proceed to take the exam so that he may receive his license to become an official counsellor.

The mental preparation of therapists is extremely important because they will be handling problems all day and some problems may be so bad that it may even break the heart of the therapist. That is why it is very important for him to have a very strong mind and personality in order to be able to take these things. If he does not, he will become too attached to the clients and will be involved in their problems as well.

Now these specialists are actually very different from traditional counsellors with regard to their approach to the client. Traditional therapists would want to take each family member as an individual person and deal with the problems of each one. From the internal problems, the external ones will be able to be fixed from there.

However, these specialists would want to look at the family collectively. In other words, they will be looking at the family as an entire unit and all of them are considered to be an entire entity. What they would do is that they would look at the core problem of the entity and try to fix it from there instead of focusing on each of the members as individuals.

The first part of solving the main problem is to find out what it is first because without having any clue to start, no one will know what treatment to provide. Now the tricky part of this process is that not all patients will open up right away. That is why they make use of written assessment tools like surveys or questionnaires.

Once one has already assessed the main problem of the client, then the next step would be to go for the treatment. The main purpose here is to be able to get the parties to open up to each other and be willing to communicate. Now tools like journals, communication programs, or maybe even some short activities may be a very big help to the clients.

So for those who are interested in becoming a marriage and family therapist, these are some of the things to do. Now there is one very important quality to have. One must never be judgmental or pushy otherwise the client will never open up.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment