Marriage and family therapists (MFTs) are licensed mental health professionals who diagnose and treat individuals’ mental health concerns from a systemic perspective. They view individuals in the context of their relationship dynamics with others. Because of the increasing demands for family life education and the emergence of professional associations for marriage counselors (e.g., American Association of Marriage Counselors) and family relations researchers (e.g., National Council on Family Relations) in the 1940s, marriage and family counseling has bourgeoned in the United States and Canada. To date, marriage and family therapy has been found to be an empirically effective therapy to address both individual and relational issues. Therapists adopting a systemic perspective not only have grown rapidly in [Page 2051]their theoretical frameworks and therapeutic approaches but also ...