A developmental view on professional acculturation

begins with fundamental concerns such as: (3)

and emphasizes transitional issues such as: (3)

1. Identity

2. Affiliation

3. Training

1. Supervision

2. Licensure

3. Professional Development

An issue is a matter of choice among and commitment to viable, responsible options in a decision.

An issue is not an issue if it is a ________.

Mandatory Action

Our lives are influenced by a combination of external pressure for conformity and internal need for autonomy. The sources of power (Legitimate, Referent, Expert) converge with layers of value as couplets.

Legitimate Power often supports institutional values.

Referent Power can strongly influence personal values.

The convergence of these two couplets is unique for each person, particularly the manner in which these value-power combinations merge to affect our: (2)

1. Personal Acculturation

2. Worldview

Process which occurs after one has developed a worldview based on personal acculturation, involving the effect of professional values-expert power couplet on one's existing worldview.

"We speak then not of having a job, but being a member of a rofession. Professional people are strongly identified with what they do."

Professional Acculturation

An issue is NOT an issue if it is a mandatory action because it is not a matter of choice. Mandatory actions for desired privilege or status represent: (2)

For example,

• practicing MFT w/out a license is not a professional issue b/c it's grounded in a mandate of prohibition.
• completing a grad degree to be eligible for membership privileges in a professional assoc is not a professional issue b/c it is a mandate of obligation for membership.

1. forms of Institutional Values (e.g. assoc rules & legal statutes)

2. a  easure of Legitimate Power for Reinforcement

Discretionary Actions

Professional Identity

1. Criticality of professional identity as a matter of professional acculturation

2. Various options and opportunities for professional affiliation available

3. Significance of benchmarks & transitional steps in professional development

D. Friedman and Kaslow's (1986) 6-Stage developmental model for identity development as a competent family therapist includes: (6)

where the entire process takes approximately ________ and is generally ________ in nature.

1. Anticipation (learn they'll be working w/ clients/supervisors)

2. Dependency (on supervisors for answers)

3. Continued Dependence w/ some movement toward Independence

4. Taking Change of therapy sessions (major transition), leading to...

5. Sense of Independence & Identity

6. Sense of Calm & Congeniality

• 5 years
• Sequential

In the late 1960s and 1970s, MFT changed with a new way of defining and working through issues, where the "client" and the "problem" was not confined to the individual alone, but rather included the client's marital, familial, or social context.

To consider the dynamics of evolving systems, and not simply vicissitudes of individual rights, this more comprehensive concept called for: (2)

1. Redefinition of Fundamental Beliefs

2. Expanded Epistemology

Branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.

For MFT, the term has come to mean a formal professional worldview - a framework for perspectice, thinking, conceptualizing, and valuing

• grew from an awareness that families of clients were somehow involved in the problems of those clients.

Systemic Epistemology

1. Relationships represent the focus of study

2. Relationships can be isolated for study and defined, but only w/ the understanding that this isolation and definition are relative to the observer and his/her system

3. Causation is circular (nonlinear) w/in confines of specified significant relationships

4. Therapeutic change occurs through social relationships

1. Professional Affiliations

2. Educational & Supervisory Experiences

3. Credential Status

4. Development through Research, Continuing Edu, & Intraprofessional Relationships and Service

MFT continues to be viewed by some as a unique discipline among other professional disciplines, reflected in the professional assoc membership of practitioners espousing MFT who subscribe their allegiance to the AAMFT.

However, many others identify primarily with professional associations representing various other mental health professions which maintain that intervention w/ couples and families is a ________, a professional specialization w/in a larger field.

Therapeutic Modality

1. Scientific Body of Knowledge
2. Relevant Theory
3. Code of Ethics
4. Specific Techniques

Shields et al. (1994) observed that MFT had lost much of its influence as a separate profession b/c of its departure from a multidisciplinary paradigm.

In response, Hardy (1994) emphasized the elements of Wilensky's (1964) model of professionalization as relevant for viewing MFT as a separate prfession, sumarizing the framework by suggesting that for a profession to be recognized for its autonomy and authority, it must: (4)

a) find a technical base

b) assert an exclusive jurisdiction

c) link both skills and jurisdiction of training

d) convince the public that its services are uniquely trustworthy

Hardy (1994) disagreed w/ Shields et al (1994) by contending that "the multidisciplinary paradigm is a major deterrent to the field's developmental evolution toward becoming a distinct and autonomouts profession."

He further noted that the evidence of meeting the Wilensky criteria for professionalization were present to prove MFT as a separate and distinct profession in the developments such as: (4)

1. Accredited Graduate & Postgraduate Training Programs

2. Specialized Knowledge from both Quantitative and Qualitative Research

3. Regulatory Legislation for State Licensure

4. Distinctive Affiliation via membership in AAMFT

1. Professional Affiliations
2. Statutory Recognition in Licensure
3. Body of Research
4. Pragmatic Considerations in Practice

1. Received their education as psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, ministers, or nurses

2. Maintain membership in well-established professional associations having a distinct identity other than in MFT

3. Members of these associations clearly identify MFT as a professional specialization through division membership w/in their parent association

• (e.g. Division 43 of the Society for Family Psychology w/in the APA; International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors w/in the ACA)

Introducing additional ambiguity into this overall debate is the fact that AAMFT, although advocating MFT as a separate and distinct profession, has prided and continues to pride itself on its multidisciplinary membership (Bowers, 1992a). This fact is revealed through: (2)

• In this respect, the position advanced by Hardy (1994) concerning a multidisciplinary view as a detriment to professional autonomy could be validated.

1) 1988 survey of training directors and clinical members of AAMFT that found that only slightly more than half (51.8%) believed that MFT should be treated as a separate discipline.

2)  Most professional journals that focus on MFT are interdisciplinary in editorship, authorship, and subscribership.

Bowers (1992a) suggested that the ________ of MFT is an important element in its evolution as an identifiable profession.

As it has gained more acceptance, others, w/ relatively little history in defining or promulgating standards for the field, have begun to claim it in some way as their own - arguing, in effect, that no independent discipline of MFT exists.

Marketability

1.  Some states employ a composite framework for this licensure, collapsing MFT licensure w/ other licensure distinctions, such as licensed social worker, professional counselor, and other professions.

2.  An amalgam such as that portrayed in composite licensure could challenge the view of MFT as a separate profession.

3.  One might argue that such a development strengthens the argument advanced by Shields et al. (1994) that multidisciplinary affiliation is necessary to avoid the marginalization of MFT.

• Personal Values
• Professional Acculturation

One criterion that identifies a profession is that it is ________ in that established professions are identified as such because they have developed standards and policies that, to some degree,

• control entry into the profession
• prescribe members' appropriate relationships to each other and general public
• identify proper and improper practice

Self-Regulating

1.  Graduate & Postgraduate Education

2.  Accreditation

3.  Supervised Experience

4.  Membership Eligibility & Distinctions

5.  Credentials

• Affiliation
• Training

The procedures for self-regulation in professional affiliation differ from licensure, which is reflexive of statutory recognition w/in a state jurisdiction as a right to practice couples with external regulations to protect consumers. Thus,

professional affiliation concerns...

whereas licensure concerns...

• Ethical propriety, professional advocacy, & service
• Legal status & governmental oversight

Commission on Accreditation for Marriage & Family Therapy Education (COAMFTE)

The COAMFTE works cooperatively with the Association of MFT Regulatory Boards  (AMFTRB) as well as with individual state licensure and certification boards to assist in defining minimum national educational requirements for copetent practice as a MFT. 

Benefits of accreditation include: (4)

a)  consumer assurance of preparation and standards

b)  institutional endorsement of credibility and quality

c)  student mastery of essential knowledge and skills

d)  professional unity and improvement

From and to career benchmarks that emerge as one's career progresses from student to practitioner which, like therapy, are/involve

• a task and a process
• structure and initiative
• goal-setting and termination planning
• growth and development
• a measure of risk

Transitions

1. new membership status w/ professional organizations
2. associate or prelicensure status as practitioner
3. advanced graduate study
4. professional leadership positions
5. public credibility and professional liability
6. producer of research and inquiry

Temptations

1. Drop memberships
2. Delay credentials
3. Develop in isolation
4. Declare one's career complete
5. Drop liability insurance