The graduate program in Marriage and Family Therapy at Oklahoma Baptist University is designed to meet the needs of college graduates who desire training in marriage and family therapy that will prepare them to apply for professional certification or licensure and clinical membership in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). The program approaches the practice of marriage and family therapy from the Christian vantage point and emphasizes Christian values. It focuses on both academic coursework and supervised clinical experience with individuals, couples and families under a variety of clinical conditions. It endeavors to establish a professional role identity for the family therapist as a clinician who can work both in private and public domains, and in institutional as well as outpatient settings. Students receive intensive specialized training which gives them a firm base for becoming competent therapists who understand and are able to treat individuals and families from a systems perspective and know how to deal with the societal and cultural forces that influence family relationships. They are exposed to a variety of theoretical paradigms used in family therapy and assisted in critically examining each of them with the purpose of developing a proficiency as marriage and family therapists based on the integration of their personal qualities with their knowledge of individual, marital and family dynamics.