Human Sexuality Education in Marriage and Family Therapy Graduate Programs.

Abstract

Given the likelihood that marriage and family therapists will encounter clients with sexual concerns, it is important to know how graduate training programs are preparing future clinicians to work with this domain of life. Sixty-nine marriage and family therapy (MFT) program directors completed an online survey to examine how sexual health education is integrated into graduate training programs. Findings indicate that while the majority of program directors value sexuality curriculum, and most programs require at least one course in this area, there are barriers to privileging sex topics in MFT graduate programs. Barriers include few MFT faculties with expertise in human sexuality and marginalized sexual health topics. Implications for training MFT graduate students and their work with future clients are discussed.