It is a high honor for me to begin my term as President of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), the largest national association in the world looking out for the interests of Marriage and Family Therapists/Systemic Family Therapists. As I begin my two-year term, I am acutely aware that MFTs are in a stronger position than ever before for three reasons. First, we have strong evidence that systemic therapies are efficacious, at least equal to individual therapy approaches, and superior in many cases for certain presenting problems. Systemic therapies are not only helpful for presenting problems we would expect them to be effective for, such as relationship distress and child/adolescent behavior problems, but they are also efficacious for a long list of DSM-V diagnosable mental health conditions including ADHD, Depression, Anxiety, Bipolar, Anxiety (youth), Substance Use, Suicidal Ideation/Behavior, Traumatic Event Exposure, and Child Maltreatment (see this link for a summary of evidence based systemic interventions). There are many other promising systemic interventions emerging as evidence-based, and family therapy is a key resource during important life transitions such as gender affirming care. This research base is impressive, but much work remains to disseminate these findings into the hands of the therapy consumer, politicians, health care companies, and other state/federal policy makers. We need to use this evidence base to make stronger stands against, for example, children with ADHD who are treated with medications without first engaging in a course of family therapy. We also need to make sure that untrained therapists are not delivering complex systemic interventions such as couple therapy without adequate training and supervision; it is imperative that evidence-based interventions are delivered by competent and trained therapists in the ways in which they were developed.
Moving on to our second strength, over the next decade, career prospects for family therapists will continue to rise. Recent research highlights that in the near future, there will be high demand for master-level family therapists (Norcross et al., 2022), and AAMFT’s recent Jobs Of Tomorrow series highlights the promise of a MFT career. Our career development work needs to continue to increase the recognition of MFTs to make sure we are paid what we are worth, and that when help is needed for an issue, the general public will seek out a credentialed MFT to work with in the therapy space, rather than a random therapist in their community. In addition, our systemic work must continue to expand our field within diverse communities in the USA and globally. An increase in demand for family therapists means that we need to work harder to engage emerging professionals in our field, to maintain robust family therapy training programs, and to attract young people who desire to work as MFTs.
Finally, recent legislative victories have strengthened our status as mental health providers. Winning inclusion in Medicare was a very important achievement for our field. We are one of the major mental health professions in the USA. Our portability initiative has expanded access for MFTs to work across state lines (7 new states added in 2024; see AccessMFTs for more information). However, many legislative priorities remain, and we need to utilize the opportunities of our current time to expand the influence and recognition of MFTs and ensure that we are fully recognized at state and federal levels. For example, even though the VA and Medicare now recognize us, much work remains to be done to cement our status within these programs as equal mental health care providers.
I highlight our strengths as a field, as now, more than ever, we require a full court press from all MFTs to achieve our strategic goals. Being involved in the AAMFT is an excellent way to work toward these goals. Tecker and Associates, leaders in association management, define an association as “A group of people who voluntarily come together to solve common problems, meet common needs, and accomplish common goals.” I believe that MFTs in our field are all interested in improving our stature as a field, wanting policy makers, health insurance companies, and the general public to recognize our valuable work as providers, working to increase our reimbursement rates, and delivering the best interventions possible to our clients. While we have these common goals and interests, it is essential that we have volunteers who are willing to provide their time and resources to advance these common goals. AAMFT is lucky to have dedicated volunteers who work tirelessly to advance our field. These include members who are involved with Family TEAM, our Board of Directors, or those leading a Topical Interest or Geographic Interest Network, to name a few.
Our field needs to be unified as we push hard together to elevate the status of our work. I call on individuals in our field to:
1) be united as we continue to forge our MFT identity in the USA and abroad. For too long our field has been characterized by division, splinter groups, and redundancies. It is true that there is strength in numbers, and I ask MFTs everywhere to unite as one to push our field forward;
2) get involved in leadership either locally, nationally, or globally. Now, more than ever, leaders are needed to engage with stakeholders, both at the state, federal, and international levels. This engagement need is widespread and ranges from engaging students in high school who show an interest in our field to health insurance companies, to state and federal policy makers, to ministries of health across the world. We need many voices to spread the message that MFT is not only efficacious, but also a highly desirable career;
3) donate resources to help advance our priorities. We can achieve so much more with resources. Please consider donating to our advocacy funds so that we can continue to advance what we do. You can read more about donation opportunities here.
I look forward to serving as president. Please feel free to reach out to me if you have ideas for our field or questions.
Adrian Blow, PhD
Reference
Norcross, J. C., R. A. Pfund, & D. M. Cook. (2022). The predicted future of psychotherapy: A decennial e-Delphi poll. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 53(2), 109-115.