Practice Patterns of Mft

Practice Patterns of MFT

Marriage and family therapy is a relatively new mental health serv

ice. In the fall of 1994 the very first survey was instigated by the Family Therapy Research and Education Foundation. The foundation contracted William Doherty of the Family Social Science Department of the University of Minnesota to conduct this survey. This was done to better describe exactly what MFT's do clinically; this was the first survey of MFT practices, fees, clientele, duration of therapy etc... This study surveyed 526 therapists from 15 different states. This is the first survey to really give the AAMFT valid results of the practice patterns of MFT's. The survey had some very interesting results, keeping in mind that this study was conducted 18 years ago.

The study showed that nationwide AAMFT members were typically 52 year old women who had been practicing in the field of MFT for 13 years. These therapists were mostly involved in a private practice setting and worked on average 20 hours a week and were seeing 24 client cases at one time. The majority of these MFT's identified themselves primarily as a MFT. Many therapists were dual licensed and some held the distinction of being triple licensed. The typical MFT works only one job and is employed for 35 hours a week.

These AAMFT members (MFT's) treated a variety of clients who brought to the table a multitude of issues by a demographically diverse client base. Over half of the clients were female and the total client base was split on education levels. The average client was 38 years old. Almost half of the clients were seen individually by their therapist, 1/5 were seen as a couple and the rest were families and a combination of treatment modes. It was interesting to me to see that almost half of the surveyed cases/clients were individual's. I really expected to see that number lowered and accompanied by married couples coming to therapy together.

Most MFT's reported being able to see their client within the week of the client first contacting the MFT's office. The initial visit was then followed by their first therapy visit two weeks after initially contacting the MFT's office.

The most anticipated information for me was the issue of what type of therapy services the MFT's provided. There seems to be such a wide array of counseling types in this business, I was really interested in seeing some numbers on this. As I list the different areas that the MFT's dealt with, I will also list the percentage of competency that the MFT's felt in dealing with these issues.

Problem/Disorder C% Problem/Disorder C%

1. Child Therapy 47% 4. Couple/Marital Therapy 99%

2. Adolescent Therapy 83% 5. Family Therapy 96%

3. Individual Adult 96.9% 6. Group therapy w/children 26.8

7. Group therapy w/teenagers 47.6% 10. Hypnosis 19.8%

8. Group therapy w/adults 74.6% 11. Psychological testing 18.3%

9. Sex therapy 29.5% 12. BioFeedback 4.0%

The survey showed that most therapist are more comfortable dealing with child therapy individually rather than with children in groups, they were at ease counseling teenagers individually, and with adult therapy, they were comfortable in just about any situation other than sex therapy, hypnosis, and psychological