In order to find the best family therapy courses, you will need to examine several factors, including the type of therapy taught by the course, the length of the course and the cost of the course. The level of education attained by the course facilitator will often be a key in finding the best family therapy courses. While instructors are often required to have a master's degree, some of the best courses can often be led by a facilitator with only a four-year degree or perhaps no college degree at all. You may wish to focus on only those courses that are taught by individuals who have worked as family therapists.
Some of the better family therapy courses use both individual as well as group counseling dynamics. This allows students to learn methods of assisting the family members to share what is troubling them in the privacy of a one-on-one situation as well as in a whole-family setting. The best courses will teach the student to promote self-healing by asking the family members to confront the problem character and share feelings with them. The best courses will offer both insight and cognitive training in matters of internal conflict and conflict resolution among family members.
By asking local counseling centers about the different family therapy courses offered in your area, you can compare the opinions of several different referral agencies to find the course that is most qualified and recommended. You might want to ask an instructor for an outline of the projected course of study prior to signing up for the instructor's family therapy courses. If this is not possible, you may wish to make a list of the family therapy courses that appeal to you, and you may be able to drop and add classes once you have received a copy of the class syllabus.
If possible, you might wish to seek the opinion of a student who has undergone a family therapy course similar to the one you are interested in taking. By speaking with students who have completed a prospective course, you will typically be able to get a feeling of what the instructor is like, the focus of the study and the expectations that the instructor has of his or her students. Some family therapy courses may use actual families to participate in mock and actual therapy sessions. These sessions are intended to give the student a real-world feel of how a therapy session operates.