Socio Emotional Relationship Therapy

Program Overview

The Doctor of Marriage and Family Therapy in Socio Emotional Relationship Therapy addresses something most couple models leave implicit: partners do not meet as two equal individuals in a vacuum. They arrive carrying gender expectations, cultural scripts, immigration histories, economic pressure, and a distribution of power that shapes who accommodates whom. Carmen Knudson-Martin and Douglas Huenergardt's approach treats that societal context as clinical material rather than background noise. The model's goal is a relationship organized by mutual support, and it names four conditions that make such a relationship possible: mutual attunement, mutual vulnerability, mutual influence, and shared relational responsibility. Students learn to assess each condition, to notice the everyday inequities that block them — whose feelings set the emotional weather, whose career is assumed to come first, who apologizes to restore calm — and to intervene without taking sides or pretending neutrality where neutrality would simply ratify the stronger position. Attention is given to culture and to the danger of imposing one cultural template on another, to work with immigrant and bicultural couples, and to the difference between describing a power imbalance and blaming a partner for it. For Christian practitioners the model raises questions the church has argued about for a long time, and it asks them clinically: what mutual submission looks like in a kitchen at seven in the evening, how headship language functions in a distressed marriage, when a call to submit endangers someone. The doctoral project applies the model to a population or training need and evaluates the result. Graduates lead marriage ministries, train practitioners, teach the model, and consult with churches on marriage teaching.

Core Courses

• SER 801 — Societal Context in Couple Therapy (6 credits)
• SER 812 — The Four Conditions of Mutual Support (6 credits)
• SER 824 — Assessing and Naming Power (6 credits)
• SER 836 — Culture, Migration, and Bicultural Couples (6 credits)
• SER 848 — Faith, Roles, and Marriage Teaching (5 credits)
• SER 860 — Applied Research Design in Couple Therapy (4 credits)
• SER 899 — Doctoral Project in Socio-Emotional 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