This laboratory course is designed to develop the basic counseling and therapy skills that enables students to understand the client/s, develop a trusting relationship with the client/s, and to facilitate the client/s' self-exploration. Case conceptualization, treatment planning, and progress notes will be covered. Personal safety concerns for the counselor/therapist is discussed and covered.

This course provides the student with an overview of systemic concepts and systemic functioning. It includes structure, development, health, and dysfunction from traditional systemic theoretical constructs and approaches. Particular emphasis is placed on acquiring a systems perspective and applying that perspective to families and other systems.

This course examines current ethical and legal issues for couple and family therapy practice and the most current AAMFT Code of Ethics. The course covers ethical, legal, and personal safety considerations for traditional in-person treatment, the use of technology in clinical practice, and systemic teletherapy.

This course examines the variety of ways that human sexuality is expressed in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in the context of the interplay between social, physiological, and psychological factors. Methods of studying sexual behavior, concepts of variation and difference, psychosexual development in life stages, and sexual dysfunctions and treatment are addressed.

This course is designed to provide an understanding of working with children, adolescents, and their families. It will focus on treating a variety of presenting issues, as well as provide several theoretical perspectives for working with families with children and/or adolescents. We will explore many clinical interventions for working with youth of varying ages, and the course will include play therapy. Students will have many experiential opportunities to learn about play therapy techniques and interventions. Careful attention will be paid to ethical issues, laws regarding mandated reporting, duty-to-warn, when treating children and adolescents, as well as cultural and diversity issues will be addressed.

This course covers the basic principles, techniques, applications, uses, and contra indicators of the major family therapy systems models. Specifically, the intersystems interface among intrapsychic, interpersonal, and family systems dynamics is addressed. Assessment techniques and intervention rationales are covered along with the role of the therapist and the therapist as person. The concepts of family-of-origin, family functioning, structure, strength, and narratives will be studied through an experiential and didactic approach. Application of theory and research to practice is discussed.

This course provides an exploration of the convictions, concepts, strategies, and techniques of contextual therapy, a resource-oriented, trust-based modality of healing interventions for individuals, couples, and families.

This course is designed to provide the student with an understanding of the issues typically addressed in couples' therapy and the ethical considerations when working with couples. Role playing is used to illustrate couples' treatment dynamics and intervention strategies from initial contacts through the treatment process. Special issues in couples therapy, such as the relationship history, communication patterns, sexual intimacy, and the "couple" relationship vs. the "parenting" relationship, are addressed.

This course examines human relationships with particular reference to their various forms, functions, and patterns of development. The processes of attachment, separation, individuation, and differentiation are highlighted and are used in a contextual (systemic) framework to examine each relationship. Special emphasis is placed on the clinical applications of this knowledge to couples and families. The student is required to complete a study of one of his/her primary dyadic relationships.

This course focuses on an understanding of how addictive processes interact with social and family contexts. This allows more effective treatment interventions to be designed. The current research on family dynamics and treatment of codependence, adolescent substance abuse, and children of addicts will also be reviewed.

This course examines the variety of ways that human sexuality is expressed in attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in the context of the interplay between social, physiological, and psychological factors. Methods of studying sexual behavior, concepts of variation and difference, psychosexual development in life stages, and sexual dysfunctions and treatment will be addressed. Models of sexual response, general theories of sex therapy, and modes of sex therapy will also be explored. Students will learn to take detailed sexual histories, sexual assessments, and applications of sexuality within a clinical framework with consideration of multicultural diversity.