Welcome

For the consumer: Are you searching for a couples or family therapist? Members of the Florida Association for Marriage and Family Therapy represent practitioners with the highest credentials who are interested in your family. Our members are ethical, affordable, and in most cases they utilize the principles of brief therapy to assist you and your family. AAMFT-FL has been helping Florida families for more than 35 years. We are proud of the work that our members facilitate in Florida.

President Monica Burton welcomes you to the FAMFT site below. Please click on the video.

Look below for the link Therapist Locator to find a list of those FAMFT members near you. Finding a therapist is an important and personal matter. We encourage consumers to examine the credentials and listings on this link to explore locating the marriage and family therapist who is right for your family.  Therapist Locator 

 

 

The Profession of Marriage and Family Therapy

Marriage and family therapists are mental health professionals trained and licensed to independently diagnose and treat mental health and substance abuse problems.  Diagnosis and treatment occur with an awareness and understanding of the larger context within which an individual lives and works.  This may include, but is not limited to, couples, families, and work and social groups.  Hence, our focus tends to be on relationships among people in addition to distress within an individual.  This approach is based on the research and theories that individuals are social creatures and do not exist in a vacuum.  Therefore, their problems are best treated within a systemic context.  As such, our orientation is unique among mental health professionals.  The federal government has recognized marriage and family therapy as a core mental health profession along with psychiatry, psychology, social work and psychiatric nursing.

Marriage and family therapists focus on understanding client symptoms and interaction patterns within their existing environment.  MFTs diagnose and treat mental and emotional disorders within the context of marriage, couples and family systems.  MFTs treat predominantly individuals, but also provide couples, family and group therapy; all in the context of relationships that incorporate family systems.

MFTs offer treatment for a variety of serious clinical problems include, but are not limited to: anxiety, depression, individual psychological problems, marital problems and child-parent relations.  Other disorders and problems regularly encountered by MFTs include conduct disorder and delinquency, childhood behavioral and emotional disorders, substance abuse and alcoholism, marital problems, relationship enhancement and domestic violence.

Depending on one's diagnosis and needs, approaches will vary.  Marriage and family therapy's prominence has increased due to its demonstrated effectiveness and its recognition of the contexts in which people live and work.  Marriage and family therapy involves a broader emphasis on the person to examine the nature and role of all factors in primary relationship and networks.