MFCC/572
Intimate Relations and Couples Therapy

This course prepares students to understand and treat issues involving individual intimate relations and to use the current developmental and systemic methods to treat couples in distress. Topics include the physiology, psychology, and social variables associated with intimate behavior, self-identity, and assessment and treatment of relational dysfunction. Students will develop familiarity with the language and terms of interpersonal studies and demonstrate an ability to apply this knowledge to clinical situations. Students will gain intensive skill-building in systemic couples treatment for premarital relations, marriage, committed partnerships, multi-partner dynamics, parenting, blended families, and separation/divorce/widowhood. Students will demonstrate competency in working with diverse populations using a recovery-oriented mental health care model.