Dr. Kristen Benson, an MFT educator, advocate, and researcher, met with Dr. Sofia Georgiadou in the “Learning and Teaching Systemic Therapy” podcast on October 24, 2024, and discussed how she has been integrating social justice advocacy into the core of her marriage and family therapy education, clinical practice, and research. Her experiences provide a roadmap for MFTs to move beyond simply acknowledging systemic injustices to actively challenging them, both within and outside the therapy room. In this article, we synthesized key points from our podcast discussion. Our goal is to highlight Dr. Benson’s conversation and offer practical strategies for MFT readers to engage in meaningful advocacy.
From personal testimony to empowering students: A journey of action
Dr. Benson’s advocacy journey exemplifies the transformative power of aligning one’s research, teaching, and clinical expertise with a commitment to social justice. When asked about particularly meaningful legislative advocacy experiences, Dr. Benson shared that during the time she worked in North Dakota, she testified on two significant bills. Her first testimony countered attempts by state psychology lobbyists to restrict the diagnostic privileges of MFTs despite state laws affirming their competence in this area. This experience helped her not only better understand the legislative process, but also realize her own systemic power in advocating for the MFT profession.
She also provided in-person testimony before the Committee on Health and Human Services on an anti-discrimination bill, which allowed Dr. Benson to directly connect her research with policy advocacy. In her testimony, Dr. Benson incorporated quotes from her research participants, specifically parents of transgender youth, thereby providing lawmakers with powerful firsthand accounts of the detrimental effects of discriminatory policies. By centering the voices of those directly impacted, she demonstrated the real-world consequences of legislative decisions and shed light on the urgency of enacting protective measures for this vulnerable equity-deserving group.
Inspired by her personal experiences as a queer MFT educator, Dr. Benson developed innovative teaching strategies to instill a sense of social responsibility and advocacy in her students. Recognizing that students often feel overwhelmed by the complexities of policy engagement, she scaffolded the process into manageable steps, starting with a foundational understanding of relevant social issues. Students are called to identify populations they hope to serve, locate research about corresponding legislative bills, and then investigate their elected officials’ voting records on bills addressing these concerns.
To deepen her students’ understanding of legislative nuances, Dr. Benson encourages them to go beyond simple “yes” or “no” votes and examine the specific language of bills and amendments. Through this detailed analysis, the students began to discern a legislator’s voting record; they then wrote letters and made calls about relevant bills that were grounded in MFT research. Through this more in-depth activity, students engaged in experiential legislative advocacy.
A culture of advocacy: Normalizing action and building confidence
In our podcast discussion, Dr. Benson emphasized the need to normalize advocacy as an integral part of MFT practice, rather than viewing it as an optional or separate endeavor. To achieve this, she has created structured classroom activities, such as letter-writing campaigns and phone calls to representatives. To encourage students in taking those initial steps, she provides clear guidelines and works hard to create a supportive learning environment using no-stakes or low-stakes assignments. Throughout our conversation, Dr. Benson recognized that the prospect of contacting legislators can be daunting, especially for those new to advocacy. By breaking down the process, providing resources, and offering encouragement, she works to empower students to overcome their hesitation. By engaging in the process of identifying legislative bills and contacting legislators, students increase their understanding, gain experience, and realize the potential impact of their advocacy efforts.
Further solidifying the connection between advocacy and professional identity, Dr. Benson incorporates video reflections into her assignments. This component allows students not only to summarize their experiences contacting legislators but also to connect their actions to their developing professional identity as MFTs. By sharing their reflections with peers, they normalize advocacy as an expected aspect of their professional role, build a sense of collective efficacy, and mitigate their feelings of isolation. This shared experience bolstered their sense of belonging to a larger movement for social change and has motivated her students to continue advocating for their clients and communities beyond the classroom.
Dr. Benson also recognized that supervisors play a critical role in building a culture of advocacy within MFT training programs. They can model advocacy behavior by participating in legislative events and sharing their experiences with supervisees. This helps students and trainees demystify the process and inspires them to view it as attainable. Supervisors can also integrate discussions of advocacy into supervision sessions and encourage supervisees to reflect on how policy issues intersect with their clinical work. Ultimately, we want future MFTs to consider advocacy as an integral part of their ethical responsibilities.
Building relationships and navigating power dynamics
Successful advocacy involves communicating effectively with legislators, often those with differing values and viewpoints. Dr. Benson guides students to approach these interactions strategically and recognize the inherent power imbalances, particularly for those from equity-seeking backgrounds. For instance, a student of color might feel very apprehensive about challenging a white legislator’s stance on racial justice. MFT trainers and supervisors can offer support by role-playing these scenarios, practicing assertive communication techniques, and exploring alternative advocacy avenues, such as having the students connect with and collaborate with larger community organizations.
While acknowledging that phone calls generally hold more weight than email in influencing legislators, Dr. Benson encourages students to personalize any form of communication. This could involve sharing a personal anecdote to illustrate a policy’s impact or to highlight how an issue directly affects the legislator’s constituents or district. By demonstrating genuine interest in the legislator’s perspective and connecting the issue to their priorities, students can increase the likelihood of their message resonating and prompting action.
This approach, grounded in our relational expertise as MFTs, can lay the groundwork for ongoing engagement and build a foundation for future collaboration.
Dr. Benson also emphasizes the importance of understanding the political context and framing advocacy messages appropriately. While honesty and directness are key, she advises students to avoid antagonizing legislators, even when disagreeing with their stance. Instead, she advocates for a relational approach that acknowledges the legislator’s service, respectfully presents counter-arguments, and invites further dialogue. This approach, grounded in our relational expertise as MFTs, can lay the groundwork for ongoing engagement and build a foundation for future collaboration.
Legal complexities and ethical imperatives: The role of licensing boards and professional organizations
Dr. Benson stresses the importance of MFTs engaging with their state licensing boards to understand the legal implications of advocacy work, particularly in the context of increasingly restrictive legislation targeting equity-deserving communities. For example, in states banning gender-affirming care, MFTs need more clear support and guidance from their boards on how to ethically and legally serve their clients, as many of these laws criminalize gender-affirming care, but are not considered an ethical violation as they reflect evidence-based best practices.
Dr. Benson also highlights the imperative role of professional organizations like AAMFT in providing advocacy support for MFTs facing political pressure. Professional organizations can monitor legislative developments, provide policy updates to members, and engage in lobbying efforts to protect the interests of the profession and the communities they serve. Active participation in our professional organizations amplifies our individual efforts and collective voice advocating for ethical practice to best meet the needs of the diverse clients we serve.
Ethical conflicts and advocating for systemic change
Dr. Benson calls attention to the current AAMFT Code of Ethics, particularly regarding referring clients due to the therapist’s discomfort with the client’s identity. She referred to the new AAMFT Systemic Ethics Textbook (2024) chapter that argues referring clients based on a therapist’s discomfort with their sexual orientation or gender identity constitutes discrimination and does not fall within the legitimate practice of referring a client due clinical scope of practice. Furthermore, despite evidence demonstrating the harm of conversion therapy and the lack of support for its efficacy, our current Code of Ethics does not explicitly forbid this practice.
Dr. Benson advocates for the AAMFT Code of Ethics to address these critical issues and align it with the profession’s core value of “doing no harm.” Addressing these concerns would clarify ethical obligations for practicing MFTs and inform ethically inclusive training standards. In relation to this gap in our ethical mandates, Dr. Benson highlighted that the lack of decisive action to ban sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts from mental health fields has led to legislators introducing legislation to regulate practices in response to constituents being harmed.
Affirming LGBTQIA+ identities: Beyond basic competency to cultural humility
Dr. Benson challenges MFTs to move beyond basic competency when working with LGBTQIA2S+ clients, emphasizing the importance of developing cultural humility and engaging in ongoing self-reflection. She recognized that identity language is constantly evolving and encouraged therapists to approach these conversations with curiosity and a willingness to learn from their clients. More specifically, Dr. Benson recommends attending trainings facilitated by trans and nonbinary MFT scholars and teachers who are versed in best practices and have lived experience. While acknowledging that some might perceive these questions as overly political, Dr. Benson asserts that we are culturally seeing people’s lives become politicized because of identity stigma.
Inclusive spaces for gender expansive educators and students
During our podcast discussion, Dr. Benson, a self-identified queer educator, shared her experiences navigating the environment of academia. She acknowledges her privilege as a white, cisgender woman, recognizing that her experiences differ significantly from those of colleagues with intersectional and marginalized identities. She emphasizes the importance of using your position to create opportunities for other diverse voices and amplifying the scholarship of those with lived experiences of gender and sexual marginalization.
Dr. Benson encourages colleagues to move beyond performative allyship and engage in concrete actions that support LGBTQIA+ students and faculty. This involves listening to people with lived experiences and asking how to best support communities that you do not identity with, speaking up against microaggressions and problematic language in faculty meetings, taking on the risk and emotional labor that marginalized colleagues often bear. It also entails creating mentorship opportunities, advocating for inclusive policies, and challenging discriminatory practices within academic institutions.
Responding to the current political climate: Collective action and ethical imperatives
Dr. Benson expressed concerns about how the surge in anti-LGBTQIA+ and anti-DEI legislation has implications for the well-being of families and the practice of family therapy. These legislative efforts not only directly harm clients seeking care but politicize and limit research and scholarship that otherwise advances evidence-based, ethical therapy practices. In our discussion, Dr. Benson highlighted the importance of knowing current laws and consulting with legal experts to navigate the complexities of practicing within increasingly restrictive legal frameworks.
Dr. Benson underlined the critical role of professional organizations in advocating for ethical principles best practices. For example, we recognized the important impact of AAMFT’s position statement on gender-affirming care (AAMFT, 2024) on October 25, one day after we recorded this conversation. The statement is grounded in research and best practices endorsed by national and international mental health and medical organizations.
We hope Dr. Benson’s insights shared in our podcast conversation compel FTM’s marriage and family therapist readers to action. By weaving advocacy into the fabric of our education, training, and practice, we (MFTs) can become powerful agents of change, challenge systemic injustices, and promote the well-being of all individuals and families.
An invitation
Dr. Georgiadou is actively seeking doctoral-level students and early-career instructors who are interested in submitting questions and being a guest on the podcast. Please share your interest here.
If you are apprehensive about being on the podcast but have a question you would like to submit for an experienced MFT educator, submit it here.
The podcast is hosted on podbean, Youtube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Photo Credits: istock/wildpixel, istock/PrettyVectors, istock/nadia_bormotova, istock/Iconic Prototype

Kristen E. Benson, PhD, LMFT, is an AAMFT Professional Member holding the Approved Supervisor and Clinical Fellow designations and is an Associate Professor and Marriage and Family Therapy Program Director in the Department of Human Development and Family Science at Virginia Tech. Her scholarship and clinical focus centers on LGBTQ+ inclusion in families and liberatory family therapy practices. krbenson@vt.edu

Sofia Georgiadou, PhD, LMFT-S, LPC-S, is an AAMFT Professional Member holding the Approved Supervisor and Clinical Fellow designations and is an affiliate Supervision Faculty member at the Family Institute at Northwestern University (online branch), and the owner of Dr. Sofia Consulting PLLC, where she offers clinical supervision, curriculum development, grant writing and mentorship services. She serves on the editorial review board for the International Journal of Systemic Therapy. She is also the founder of the Society for the Teaching of Marriage and Family Therapy and the host of the “Learning and Teaching Systemic Therapy” podcast. LinkedIn Profile sgeorgiadou@family-institute.org
American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. (2024, October 25). Position statement on gender-affirming care. AAMFT. https://aamft.informz.net/AAMFT/data/images/eNews/GAC.pdf
Additional Resources
Goodman, J. M., Morgan, A. A., Hodgson, J. L., Caldwell, B. E. (2018). From private practice to academia: Integrating social and political advocacy into every MFT identity. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 44, 32–45. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12298
Hartwell, E.E., Belous, C.K., Benson, K.E., Cox, L., Iantaffi, A., McGeorge, C.R., Shipman, D., & Twist, M.L.C. (2022). Clinical Guidelines for LGBTQIA Affirming Marriage and Family Therapy. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Heiden-Rootes, K., Benson, K., Capshaw, E., & Carmichael, A. P. (2024). Understanding transgender and non-binary youth mental health through the family resilience framework: A literature review. Contemporary Family Therapy, 46(3), 327–338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-023-09688-3
Heiden‐Rootes, K., McGeorge, C. R., Salas, J., & Levine, S. (2022). The effects of gender identity change efforts on Black, Latinx, and White transgender and gender nonbinary adults: Implications for ethical clinical practice. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 48(3), 927–944. https://doi.org/10.1111/jmft.12575
Hodgson, J., & Lamson, A. L. (2020). The importance of policy and advocacy in systemic family therapy. In K. S. Wampler, R. B. Miller, & R. B. Seedall (Eds.), The Handbook of Systemic Family Therapy: The Profession of Systemic Family Therapy (pp. 729–751). Wiley Blackwell.
Jordan, L. S. & Seponski, D. M. (2018). “Being a therapist doesn’t exclude you from real life”: Family therapists’ beliefs and barriers to political action. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 44, 19–31. doi: 10.1111/jmft.12244
McGeorge, C.; Coburn, K.; Benson, K.; Nguyen, H.; & Walsdorf, A. (2024). Ethics in working with LGBTQ clients. In Brown, K. (Ed.) Systemic Ethics Textbook. American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
Tilsen, J.B., Benson, K.E., & Nyland, D. (in press). Queering Therapeutic Conversations: More than “Affirmative” and Not Just for Queers. In Smoliak, O, Tseliou, E., Strong, T., Bava, S., & Muntigl, P. The Routledge International Handbook of Postmodern Therapies.
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