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SMU Home Academics Home MAC Home Current Student Home Prospective Home MAC Class Notebook (Table of Contents) (On-line Forms) |
Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology ("MAC") MAC 661:
"Marriage & Family
Therapy Techniques" Faculty Member: Godfrey J. Ellis, PhD, Professor of Psychology Brief Overview: This course builds on MAC 512 by providing more in-depth coverage of systems theory and standard intervention techniques with an emphasis on experiential learning. The format will include use of role-plays; out-of-class projects; guest speakers; and possible live, in-class marriage and family therapy cases - either from clients or students in their relationships. Students are assumed to be interested in systems theory and to be planning MFT-oriented careers. The major objectives of this class, therefore, are: Objective #1: Increase self-confidence by gaining personal experience in viewing, analyzing, and/or providing marriage and family therapy Objective #2: Apply systems principles and techniques to a broad spectrum of family types. Objective #3: Develop a more in-depth grasp of the major schools of family therapy and to apply a systemic perspective to a variety of psychological and relationship issues. Required Texts:
Grading: Course Activities: MAC 661 is primarily an experiential class. This means that the real meat of the course will take place during class time - that is, the guest lecturers, role-plays, and in-class, live therapy. The more you get involved in class activities, the more you will learn. Since the bulk of the learning comes from doing, you will need to be prepared to do things - both in the class and outside the class. Because there are no exams in this course, there will be several activities. Many of the projects will take you considerably outside of your normal "comfort zone" and challenge you to take risks and thereby grow significantly. I: In-class Role-plays: We will use role-play to simulate clinical situations and various client types and to experiment with several interventions and clinical techniques. We will need students to be willing to come forward for brief or extended role-plays as clients or as therapists. Although it is always safer to "go for laughs" in front of peers, we will hope to create realistic scenarios with real emotion and real tears. The role-plays will be worth a total of 10 percent of the final grade for all activity combined. Percentage points will be based on frequency of role-plays, number of times in a major part (as therapist or client), readiness to volunteer, and realism of the portrayals. II: "Live" Activities: A more exciting and effective way to learn than role-playing is through live counseling sessions. Nothing beats a real session with real, non-simulated issues. You can be involved in such sessions in several ways:
Involvement in any of these three projects will be worth 20 percent of the final grade. Percentage points will be based on degree of willingness to put oneself out on a limb as client or counselor, degree of growth in personal issues or therapy skills, ability to work well with your co-client or co-therapist, and presence of second-mile "extras" that improve the quality of the experience. Semester Theme Paper: You will be asked to prepare a theme essay (approximately ten double-spaced pages). Please make your paper as professional as possible. The essay should contain: 1) your best thinking regarding the topic using your own personal experiences and counseling philosophy, 2) a thoughtful synthesis of class and outside readings, and 3) at least three, external sources (provide a bibliography in APA format). The topics from which you may select your paper are:
The paper is due on July 16th and will be worth 35 percent of the final grade. Percentage points will be based on synthesis of readings, creativity of the ideas, quality of the external source(s), and polish of the paper (neatness and absence of such things as typos, grammar problems, spelling errors, awkward phrasing, and non-professional tone). As with all projects, the paper should reflect the quality expected of a master's candidate. You will be given a page of common writing errors to avoid. Papers containing any of these errors or that are single spaced will lose points and will be returned for corrections before grading will be completed. You may work with a partner and hand in one paper per team if you so choose. Compare/Contrast Two Research Articles: You are asked to choose and review two of the many research articles published annually on the various topics of family therapy. Then compare and contrast them. Do not use abstracts alone. The articles must be empirically based (i.e., a major part should be the testing of ideas that extend what is known about family therapy). However, you are not expected to understand all of the statistics and research methodology involved. The articles should come from two different journals (or different issues of the same journal) and should address the same theme. In other words, two articles about treating anorexia would be okay - but not one article on treating anorexia and a second on treating domestic violence. The SMU library subscribes to several journals that are likely to contain systems-oriented articles including: "Journal of Counseling & Clinical Psychology," "Counseling Psychologist," "Journal of Marital and Family Therapy," and the like. Articles from lay/popular publications (such as "Psychology Today," "Family Circle," "Ladies Home Journal" etc.) are not empirically based. The SMU library staff are available to provide assistance with finding articles. The research articles are due on July 23rd and will be worth a total of 35 percent of the final grade. Percentage points will be based on the degree to which the articles you reviewed were empirically based, the quality and/or value of the articles selected, the quality of your answers to the questions, and the overall polish of your answers. You will work alone on this assignment. |
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