Challenge and Urgency in Defining Doctoral Education in Marriage and Family Therapy: Valuing Complementary Models

Abstract

In this overview, I comment on the strong theme of the need to define and improve the quality of doctoral education in marriage and family therapy that pervades the three essays. Deficits in research training are the central concern, although the essayists take different perspectives on the nature of the research training needed. The different perspectives can be understood in terms of three different models of doctoral education. The institutional model focuses on professional training with little financial support for students and lower expectations for faculty research. The community of scholars model emphasizes a balance of research and practice with students required to attend full-time and financial support provided. Research is a mix of faculty- and student-driven and is often focused on professional issues. The star researcher model often held out as the ideal, although not yet represented in marital and family therapy (MFT), emphasizes faculty externally funded programmatic research with students working on and supported by faculty grant funding. The value and role of all three models in MFT doctoral education are described and discussed.

Stage-Based Challenges and Strategies for Support in Doctoral Education: A Practical Guide for Students, Faculty Members, and Program Administrators

“…Displaying disciplinarily norms and behaviors -as well as sharing stories with students during social events, seminars, or one-on-one interactions -are vitally important to student success during this stage. Additional strategies for supporting students in Stage 2 include regular updates to program curricula in light of emerging professional knowledge and trends, and clear curricular paths for students representing diverse career goals (Wampler, 2010). As students complete their coursework, including research methods courses, and continue to develop their researcher identities and skills through assistantships, apprenticeships, and the initial development of their thesis proposals, it is also important for faculty members to facilitate students' research skill development at this stage (Kayama et al, 2013;Rogers & Goktas, 2010).…”

Does Social Work Need a “Practice Doctorate”?

“…Proponents felt that existing Ph.D. programs were very research oriented with inadequate focus on practice, while opponents claimed that a new degree would weaken the science in psychology and would reduce the prestige of the profession (Murray 2000). One difference between social work and clinical psychology is that clinical psychology is licensed only at the Ph.D. level, and its master's degree lacks a clear purpose, while, as in the marriage and family therapy field (Wampler 2010), in social work the MSW has the clearer use.…”

“…Such programs might also be what Wampler (2010) terms ''communities of scholars.'' However, these programs have yet to compellingly demonstrate the outcomes they have achieved and explicate how they achieved them in the literature on social work education.…”

Re-visioning a Model of Clinical Judgment for Systemic Practitioners

“…As significant as the shift toward meta-theorizing might be in advancing clinical judgment within couple and family therapy, perhaps the most important opening for bridging the gap between clinical judgment research and systemic clinical practice is the consistent concern about the lack of research that advances couple and family therapy as a viable mental health treatment option (Crane, Wampler, Sprenkle, Sandberg, & Hovestadt, 2002;Sprenkle, 2010;Wampler, 2010). Research on the processes of couple and family therapy is needed (Heatherington, Friedlander, & Greenberg, 2005), and detailed descriptions of the processes of systems therapy have begun to emerge (e.g., Harvie, Strong, Taylor, Todd, & Young, 2008;Rober, Elliott, Buysse, Loots, & De Corte, 2008a, 2008bStrong, Zeman, & Foskett, 2006).…”