Restoration Therapy

Program Overview

The Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy in Restoration Therapy teaches a model built around two questions a distressed person is usually answering without knowing it: am I loved, and am I safe. Terry Hargrave's approach, rooted in the contextual family therapy of Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy, holds that violations of love and trust in the family of origin leave people with identity and safety wounds, and that those wounds fire in adult relationships as a predictable pain cycle. Students learn to name the cycle precisely: the feeling each partner falls into when the wound is touched, the coping behaviour that follows, and the way each partner's coping becomes the other's trigger. From there the work moves to self-regulation — the model's characteristic discipline of saying the feeling and the truth about it, then doing the opposite of the coping behaviour — until couples can interrupt the cycle themselves rather than depending on the therapist to referee. The contextual foundations are studied seriously: loyalty, entitlement, the family ledger, destructive entitlement, and the four stations of forgiveness, which the model treats as work rather than sentiment. Intergenerational assessment, individual applications, and the use of mindfulness in regulating reactivity complete the curriculum. Restoration therapy fits a Christian practice that takes both truth and love as non-negotiable and refuses to trade one for the other. The doctoral project applies the model in the student's own context — a counseling ministry, a training program, a specific population — and evaluates what changed. Graduates direct care ministries, train lay counselors, teach the model, and write for couples and practitioners.

Core Courses

• RST 801 — Contextual Foundations: Loyalty, Ledger, and Entitlement (6 credits)
• RST 812 — Violations of Love and Trust (6 credits)
• RST 824 — Mapping the Pain Cycle (6 credits)
• RST 836 — Self-Regulation and the Peace Cycle (6 credits)
• RST 848 — Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Repair (5 credits)
• RST 860 — Applied Research Design in Family Therapy (4 credits)
• RST 899 — Doctoral Project in Restoration Practice (24 credits)

Admission Requirements

• Master's degree in marriage and family therapy, counseling, psychology, ministry, or a related field
• Experience in counseling, pastoral care, chaplaincy, or family ministry
• Statement of purpose describing the people you serve and the model you want to master
• Current resume or professional profile
• Official transcripts from prior institutions when available
• Case write-up, teaching sample, or research paper when requested