Help individuals, couples and families from diverse backgrounds overcome life challenges and improve their mental wellbeing. Lipscomb University’s Master of Marriage and Family Therapy (MMFT) program in Nashville, TN (accredited) provide the knowledge and skills you need to succeed in this career path.
Whether you just finished undergraduate studies, are looking for a meaningful career change or would like to expand your existing skill set, a Marriage and Family Therapy master’s degree can position you to serve and heal in impactful ways.
Through rigorous coursework and a minimum of 300 hours of clinical training, you will be well prepared for the MFT licensing exams. Our programs can be completed in two years through a cohort format, following a specific course sequence (see course tab).
Lipscomb’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program in Nashville is COAMFTE accredited. The academic curriculum and clinical experience components in the program align with state regulations.
The Lipscomb MMFT programs are supported by an advisory board composed of strategic stakeholders inside and outside of Lipscomb University.
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The Master of Marriage and Family Therapy program offers unique opportunities for your training, growth and career development as a marriage and family therapist. Our Nashville program is COAMFTE accredited, which allows you to gain specialized experiences and outcomes. Through the program, you will gain the expertise necessary to pursue your license with confidence and get hired quickly after graduation.
Lipscomb produces practitioners who:
Many MFTs enter the field to help people in general. This MFT option is for the student who wants to get the broadest training the program has to offer. While it does not include a Specialization or Focused Electives, students will still receive introductory training in Play Therapy and Integrated Behavioral Healthcare on top of all core academic courses.
Play therapy is an empirically grounded therapeutic approach where clients use the natural medium of play and toys as tools to express themselves. As children's experiences and knowledge are often communicated through play, it becomes an important vehicle for them to know and accept themselves and others.
While pursuing an M.MFT degree at Lipscomb, you may choose a specialization in play therapy, a six-hour training track structured to equip you with knowledge, personal experience and practical application of play therapy and expressive arts techniques. You will learn how to leverage play therapy to foster the mental health and development of children, adults and families. The play therapy courses are held as weekend intensives in Nashville, TN. Optional, additional training opportunities to earn training hours toward becoming a Registered Play Therapist are also available throughout a student’s time in the program .
This option of my focused electives is perfect for students who are interested in working in a healthcare setting and as a member of an interdisciplinary treatment team. The focused electives include a course in Integrated Behavioral Healthcare as well as three, one-credit Interprofessional Education (IPE) courses in collaboration with Vanderbilt University Medical School, UT Knoxville Social Work (Nashville campus), Lipscomb University Social Work and other collaborators. The MFT Program can currently support 12 students in the Integrated Behavioral Healthcare focused electives each year.
This option of focused electives is for the student whose career path includes doctoral work after completion of the master’s degree and consists of a 63-hour degree plan. Thesis focused electives include two additional courses in statistics (i.e., Statistics I & Statistics II) as well as two thesis courses (i.e., Thesis I and II). The student will graduate with a completed research thesis and have basic research skills in literature review, psychometrics, data collection, research methods writing, data analysis, data interpretation, and research writing. The MFT Program can support approximately 4 students in the Thesis focused electives each year.
As a capstone project, students write a Theory of Change (TOC) paper. The TOC is an integrative culmination of all learning in the program into a coherent articulation of how students conceptualize and perform their practice of marriage and family therapy.
Students in our MFT programs are required to accomplish a minimum of 300 direct client contact hours with 100 of those hours being relational client contact hours (e.g. couple therapy, family therapy). In Tennessee, 300 direct client contact hours is all that is required in order to pursue licensure as a marriage and family therapist after graduation. However, in other states (at least 10 at last count), 500 or more hours of direct client contact are required. Therefore, we strongly recommend doing whatever it takes to graduate with over 500 hours of direct client contact. The national exam website has information on state practicum requirements in their “Licensure Resources” section. For the most up-to-date information, we recommend looking directly at state board information on practicum requirements for MFT licensure.
In order to graduate, students must receive at least 100 hours of supervision from an AAMFT Approved Supervisor or AAMFT Approved Supervisor Candidate, including at least one hour of supervision from an AAMFT Approved Supervisor/Candidate each week they are seeing clients (i.e., exceptions can be made for holidays and extenuating circumstances). A minimum of 50 hours of supervision must utilize observable data (e.g., live observation, session video). Supervision can be individual (i.e., one supervisor with 1-2 supervisees) or group (i.e., one supervisor and 8 or fewer supervisees). Over the course of their time in the program, students should maintain a 5:1 client contact to supervision hour ratio. The program provides all of the required approved supervision hours.
Marriage and family therapists engage with everyone with respect, compassion, humility and fairness, and with an appreciation for cultural diversity and difference. As a program, we operate our own sliding fee scale clinic, the Lipscomb Family Therapy Center, with the goal of making mental health and relationship care affordable for all individuals, couples and families in the Nashville community. In order to offer a diverse set of clinical experiences for our students, we have also partnered with other organizations for outside clinical placements. Some of our clinical partners have included:
In Lipscomb’s MMFT program, we strive to engage graciously with human systems in ways that result in healing, growth and increased resilience. We understand that individuals and human systems are unique and also an expression of the image of God. Therefore, it is our goal to treat everyone well, abiding by the Golden Rule. When people “do unto others as you would have them to do to you,” a shared cultural humility emerges allowing room for self-expression without fear of academic or social penalties. We are sensitive to the diverse nature of humanity and treat people and social systems with respect and appreciation in areas where differences and disagreements may be present.
Diversity spans the widest variety of individual and social system differences. These differences may be observed in:
We seek to foster a safe learning environment where honest expression and respect for differences may result in the desired outcome of academic communion. Since agreement is not a prerequisite for academic communion, diversity and disagreement are not only welcomed but invited. In our MMFT programs, we believe the presence of healthy, respectful disagreement promotes a more productive academic environment for everyone.
The mission of our Master of Marriage and Family Therapy programs is to prepare you with academic and clinical training that is founded in science for work with individuals, couples, families and social systems from diverse ideological, spiritual, demographic and socioeconomic backgrounds. This marriage and family therapy training is informed by Christian values, such as love, empathy, forgiveness, grace and tolerance. This encourages students to provide greater service in the home, congregation, community, nation and world.
Through our robust MMFT programs, you can provide effective marriage and family therapy services in a variety of settings, such as mental health centers, private practices and churches as a highly trained, caring and compassionate therapist. You will be equipped with the key therapy techniques and skills to serve individuals overcoming their mental health challenges, help couples restore a thriving relationship and lead families to create healthy and effective family processes.
Explore program outcome information specific to the Nashville program:
Ready to apply to Lipscomb University’s Master of Marriage and Family Therapy degree program? The following items are required to apply for the Marriage and Family Therapy Program:
The deadline for Fall 2025 will be March 1.
An applicant who is not a United States citizen or permanent resident must follow the same admissions procedures as applicants who are U.S. citizens in addition to other specific requirements. Click the button below to visit our Graduate Admissions site for more information.
With a robust 60-credit-hour curriculum, the Master of Marriage and Family Therapy program offers comprehensive courses to cultivate your therapy techniques, diagnostic skills and systemic therapeutic approaches, as well as a holistic understanding of theoretical frameworks of marriage and family therapy. In addition to the courses, you’ll participate in a minimum of 300 hours of clinical work through our clinical practice courses while pursuing the Marriage and Family Therapy license during your program of study.
