Skills
Marriage and Family Therapist Skills & Tools
The technical skills, people skills and tools employers look for in marriage and family therapists, and how to build and show them.
Marriage and Family Therapists need technical skills such as family systems therapy, couples therapy, and assessment and diagnosis, plus people skills like empathy and neutrality. They also use tools such as Electronic health records and Telehealth platforms.
Technical (hard) skills
- Family systems therapy
- Couples therapy
- Assessment and diagnosis
- Treatment planning
- Crisis intervention
- Documentation
People (soft) skills
- Empathy
- Neutrality
- Listening
- Boundaries
Tools, equipment and technology
- Electronic health records
- Telehealth platforms
- Assessment tools
- Genograms
- Scheduling and billing software
- Therapy workbooks
Skills in action: common tasks
These step-by-step guides show how marriage and family therapists put their skills to work:
How to show these skills on a resume
- Lead your skills section with the technical skills from the job posting, for example, “Family systems therapy” and “Couples therapy.”
- Prove soft skills with results: instead of listing “empathy,” describe a situation where you used it.
- List credentials such as Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) near the top, with the issuing organization and date.
- Use the employer’s vocabulary. Our marriage and family therapist glossary covers the terms hiring managers expect.
How to build these skills
Formal training, supervised practice and certification are the most direct routes. Our Marriage and Family Therapist training introduces each of these skills with plain-language lessons, procedures and a final knowledge check: a strong foundation before hands-on training or your first day.