What this program actually is
OrientationSystemic/relational family therapy inside a Seventh-day Adventist whole-person (biopsychosocial-spiritual) health-sciences frame
Loma Linda is the only California MFT school that offers a complete COAMFTE-accredited ladder in one department: the 90-quarter-unit M.S. in Marital and Family Therapy, a 77-unit D.M.F.T. that the catalog describes as "the only online D.M.F.T. program in the United States that is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education," and a 92-unit Ph.D. in Systems, Families, and Couples on a scientist-practitioner model. That matters practically: the master's faculty are also doctoral faculty, the assistantships and research work exist, and if you later want AAMFT Approved Supervisor status or a medical family therapy specialization there is an in-house path rather than a transfer. The M.S. itself is unusual in shape — the clinical spine is a six-quarter sequence of "Case Presentation" seminars (MFAM 535, 536, 537, 635, 636, 637) that runs in parallel with your placement, rather than a single practicum course repeated. It ends in a two-part exam: a written comprehensive before advancement to candidacy and an oral comprehensive at the end that requires four videotaped segments of one case across at least six sessions, a case write-up, an epistemology paper, and a vignette.
On the religion question, be precise, because the reality is narrower than the branding suggests. Loma Linda is owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its motto is "To make man whole," but the required religious *coursework* in the M.S. is a single three-unit course: RELR 540 Wholeness and Health, a portfolio course on "biblical concepts of wholeness" that also satisfies the university's service-learning requirement. Explicitly Christian clinical content — MFAM 549 Christian Counseling and Family Therapy, two units — sits in the elective "Contemporary issues" menu next to Gestalt, narrative, EFT, solution-focused and play therapy, and is not required. So roughly 3 of 90 required units are religion; the therapeutic curriculum itself is conventional systemic MFT with a biopsychosocial-spiritual whole-person frame, and there is no statement of faith in the published admission requirements.
What the affiliation does shape is the calendar and the campus rhythm, and this is the part prospective students underestimate. The university observes Sabbath from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, and the catalog states that during those hours "University offices, laboratories, libraries, study halls, and recreation facilities are closed to give time for physical and spiritual renewal and worship." That is roughly 24 hours a week with no campus study space, no library and no recreation center — a real constraint if you had planned to do your reading on Saturdays or bank weekend clinic hours on campus. Loma Linda students also have "special requirements, such as chapel attendance each Wednesday morning in the University Church," and all students agree to refrain from tobacco, alcohol and recreational drugs while enrolled; campus cafeterias are vegetarian. Class days are fixed and tight: first-year students most often attend Tuesday and Thursday, second-years Monday and Wednesday, with clinical training scheduled on the other days and full-time employment discouraged.
See it and hear it
The courses that define it
Every California program teaches law and ethics, assessment and a survey of theories. These are the courses that are not on every list — the ones that tell you what this particular faculty believes therapy is. The quoted text is the catalog’s own; the note underneath each one is mine.
Case Presentation and Global Practices
"Students receive case supervision and prepare for a final oral comprehensive examination that requires four videotaped segments of the case over a minimum of six sessions or six hours, depending upon the clinic site; a write-up of the case; an epistemology paper; and a vignette."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThis is the capstone of the six-quarter Case Presentation sequence and it is a genuinely demanding exit: not an exam you study for, but a videotaped longitudinal case you must be able to defend theoretically. The required "epistemology paper" — asking you to articulate how you believe change and knowledge work — is rare at the master's level in California.
Case Presentation and Documentation
"Through observation of live cases, trains student in applied psychotherapeutic techniques, assessment, diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of premarital, couple, family, aging population, the severely mentally ill, and child relationships. Examines dysfunctional and functional aspects, including recovery process, health promotion, evaluation from a systems perspective, documentation, and illness prevention."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingObservation of live cases as the teaching method — not case vignettes or role play — is the second quarter of six, meaning you are watching real therapy in structured seminar from early in the clinical phase. It also pairs the clinical training with documentation, which is what actually consumes an associate's week.
Wholeness and Health
"Aids student in formulation of a portfolio that incorporates a variety of activities related to biblical concepts of wholeness. Addresses 1) the integration of mind/body/spirit, 2) strengthening relationships, 3) care of the environment, and 4) the healing of the nations from personal and professional perspectives." Also fulfills the service-learning requirement.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThis is the entire required religion component of the 90-unit degree — one portfolio-based course, shared across LLU's health-sciences programs. If you want to know how much the Adventist affiliation will show up in your transcript, this course is the answer, and it is worth reading its four listed themes carefully rather than assuming a doctrine class.
Family Systems Theory
"Reviews Bowen theory of family systems. Introduction to family psychotherapy as an outgrowth of the theory. Students examine their own families of origin."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingA required three-unit course devoted to Bowen alone, with mandatory family-of-origin work on yourself, is a stronger orientation commitment than the survey-of-theories approach most programs use. It tells you where the department's center of gravity sits.
Mastering Each New Direction Theory and Practice
"Examines the Mastering Each New Direction (MEND) model, focusing on its key concepts, applications, and research. Applies the MEND model to clinical practice through discussion, role-playing, case conceptualization, psychoeducation, and small group work."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingAn elective built around a single named model developed and researched inside the department — the kind of course that exists only where a program has its own research line. Useful signal about what the doctoral faculty actually work on.
Social Context in Clinical Practice: Gender, Class, and Race
"Introduces social inequalities that result in unfairness, health disparities, assaults to personal dignity, and family stress. Focuses on how one's position within social hierarchies—such as gender, socioeconomic status, race, and sexual orientation—affects psychological and relational health," and how therapists address these as part of a recovery-based approach.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingWorth flagging precisely because Loma Linda is a conservative religious institution: this required course names sexual orientation and structural inequality directly, in the department's own catalog language, rather than routing multicultural content through a faith frame.
The whole degree, term by term
What you would actually take, in the order you would take it. Sequences change; check the current catalog before you count on any single term.
Loma Linda does not publish a quarter-by-quarter grid for the M.S.; the catalog organizes the 90 quarter units into COAMFTE content areas, which is how they are listed below. The program is cohort-based with fall-quarter entry only, and runs seven quarters (two years) full-time on campus or nine quarters (2.5 years) full-time online; part-time takes at least three years on campus and 3.5 online, with a five-year maximum. First-year students most often attend classes Tuesday and Thursday, second-years Monday and Wednesday, with clinical training on the other days. course sequence ↗
90 quarter units (plus 4 additional units for the optional on-campus LMFT + LPCC dual-licensure path)units in total
- MFAM 551 Family Therapy: Foundational Theories and Practice (3)
- MFAM 553 Family Systems Theory (3)
- MFAM 564 Family Therapy: Advanced Foundational Theories and Practice (3)
- MFAM 515 Crisis Intervention and Client Advocacy (3)
- MFAM 552 Couples Therapy: Theory and Practice (3)
- MFAM 638 Substance Use Disorders, Relationships, and Recovery (3)
- MFAM 644 Child Abuse and Family Violence (3)
- MFAM 674 Human Sexual Behavior (3)
- MFAM 528 Culture, Socioeconomic Status in Therapy (3)
- MFAM 567 Treating the Severely and Persistently Mentally Ill and the Recovery Process (3)
- MFAM 604 Social Context in Clinical Practice: Gender, Class, and Race (3)
- MFAM 501 Research Tools and Methodology: Quantitative (3)
- MFAM 502 Research Tools and Methodology: Qualitative (3)
- MFAM 614 Law and Ethics (3)
- MFAM 635 Case Presentation and Legal Issues (3)
- COUN 675 Dynamics of Aging (1)
- MFAM 547 Social Ecology of Individual and Family Development (3)
- MFAM 584 Advanced Child and Adolescent Development (3)
- MFAM 524 Psychopharmacology and Medical Issues (3)
- MFAM 556 Psychopathology and Diagnostic Procedures (3)
- MFAM 624 Individual and Systems Assessment (3)
- MFAM 516 Play Therapy
- MFAM 539 Solution-Focused Family Therapy
- MFAM 549 Christian Counseling and Family Therapy
- MFAM 555 Narrative Family Therapy
- MFAM 559 Cognitive-Behavioral Couples Therapy
- MFAM 576 Mastering Each New Direction Theory and Practice
- MFAM 605 Gestalt Family Therapy
- MFAM 606 Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy
- MFAM 645 Advanced Treatment Strategies – Substance Use Disorders
- MFAM 654 Practicum in Drug and Alcohol Counseling
- MFAM 665 Structural and Multidimensional Family Therapy
- CFSD 540 Introduction to Medical Family Therapy
- CFSD 544 Health and Illness in Families
- COUN 574/575/576/577/579/678/680 (counseling options)
- MFAM 694 Directed Study: Marriage and Family
- MFAM 535 Case Presentation and Professional Studies (3)
- MFAM 536 Case Presentation and Documentation (3)
- MFAM 537 Case Presentation (3)
- MFAM 636 Case Presentation and Client-Centered Advocacy (3)
- MFAM 637 Case Presentation and Global Practices (3)
- MFAM 731 Clinical Training (1–6, does not count toward didactic units)
- MFAM 735 Case Presentation Extension (0)
- RELR 540 Wholeness and Health (3)
- MFAM 568 Groups: Process and Practice (3)
How practicum actually works
Californian clinical training runs in two legally distinct stages, and the difference decides what a program can and cannot do for you.
A trainee is a student. You see clients while still enrolled, at a site your program approves, supervised by someone the site provides. This is practicum, and it is the stage a program controls. An associate — registered with the Board after you graduate — is no longer a student, is usually paid, and is working toward the 3,000 hours the license requires. The Board renamed this stage from “intern” to “associate” in 2018, so any page still saying “MFT intern” is quoting something out of date.
Hours you bank as a trainee count toward the 3,000, up to a limit, which is why the size and quality of a program’s placement matters long after graduation: a student who leaves with 1,000 hours starts the associate years a third of the way through them, and one who leaves with the 225-hour minimum starts at the beginning.
Practicum is also where a degree most often stops being on schedule. Coursework runs on a calendar the school controls; placement does not. The questions that matter are therefore all about who owns the problem of finding you a site — and the answer differs enormously between programs on this list.
What happens after the degree →
You apply, with the school’s help
There is an approved-site list and real support, and the seat is still yours to win. Most programs are here and most students manage it. Ask for last year’s numbers rather than the policy: how many students placed on the first round, and how many had to extend.
Students work collaboratively with their department to secure practicum placements that align with their academic and professional goals. the school’s own page →
The school runs its own training clinic. School of Behavioral Health Resiliency Clinic Owning a clinic and holding a seat in it are different things, so this sits beside the model above rather than replacing it.
Clinical training at Loma Linda begins early and runs long. After 18 quarter units — about two quarters — the teaching faculty formally evaluate whether you continue into what the catalog calls "the program's clinical phase," so unlike Chapman's final-year block, most of a Loma Linda student's degree is spent in placement. Placement is a mixed model rather than an assignment: the catalog says "[s]tudents have numerous choices of placement sites," listing community mental health centers, private and public agencies, school and hospital settings, and the School of Behavioral Health's own Resiliency Clinic, and the School describes students working "collaboratively with their department to secure practicum placements." The Resiliency Clinic is the in-house option — one clinic, not a network — staffed by master's and doctoral students under licensed LLU Behavioral Health supervisors, offering individual therapy for children age five and up and adults, autism/learning-disability/neuropsychological assessment, and support groups on co-parenting, grief, anger, anxiety and parenting. The numbers are COAMFTE-standard but the supervision rules are stricter than the minimum: 300 direct hours with at least 100 relational, at least 100 supervision hours of which 50 must involve observable data, a supervision-to-treatment ratio never below 1:5, and — this is the demanding part — "[f]or every week in which clients are seen, the student must have at least one hour of individual supervision." Running alongside the placement is the six-quarter Case Presentation seminar sequence (MFAM 535, 536, 537, 635, 636, 637), where MFAM 536 teaches "[t]hrough observation of live cases" and MFAM 637 builds toward the final oral comprehensive exam requiring four videotaped segments of one case over at least six sessions. Class days are stacked (Tuesday/Thursday in year one, Monday/Wednesday in year two) specifically so clinical work happens on the other days; the catalog discourages full-time employment, and Sabbath closes campus facilities from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, which constrains when on-campus clinical and study work can happen. Nothing in the published materials describes a formal traineeship-to-associate handoff, though the catalog notes that "[o]n a limited basis, students receive financial assistance during their clinical traineeships." source ↗
Will this degree travel
COAMFTE accredited
This is the accreditation that decides whether the degree travels. 12 of the 78 institutions on the Board’s list hold it, and this is one of them.
It matters most if there is any chance you will practice outside California. It matters less inside California, where a regionally-accredited, Board-listed degree is sufficient.
What the Board requires of any qualifying degree →
What it is, on paper
DMFT is post-master's — requires an existing licensure-qualifying MFT/CFT or clinical counseling master's. It is 'the only fully online DMFT program granted accreditation' by COAMFTE.
What it costs
This program does not publish a tuition figure anywhere I could find it. 43 of the 78 on the Board’s list are the same. That is a fair thing to ask admissions directly, and the speed and specificity of the answer tells you something on its own.
What a month costs to live on while you study →
Getting in
GREs are not required. source →
How its graduates did on the Board’s exam
Counting every attempt rather than only first attempts, the figure is 73% across 146 sittings here, against 66% statewide. First attempts are the fairer comparison — counting resits measures how many tries people needed rather than how many passed, and it penalises a school whose graduates keep going.
On the separate California Law and Ethics exam, 87% of this school’s 119 first-time candidates passed, against 80% statewide.
Recorded by the Board as Loma Linda University, Orinda. Its list is kept by institution and its names lag: a school that has since renamed appears under the name it had when the candidates sat.
What this number is, and what it is not
It describes candidates, not teaching. In 2022 the Council on Social Work Education removed licensing-exam pass rates from its accreditation standards, saying the data “may not be an equitable measure of program outcomes” — after the social-work exam board’s own analysis found first-time pass rates of 84% for white candidates and 45% for Black candidates. A program that enrolls more career-changers and more students of color will post a lower rate while teaching at least as well. The accrediting body with the most reason to want this metric examined it and stopped using it.
The denominator is not this year’s students. These are people who sat the exam during the window, often several years after graduating and sometimes after the program changed shape or owner.
It is published here because it is a real, official figure that is otherwise almost impossible to find — and it is published on this page only. There is no pass-rate column in the directory, nothing is sorted by it, and no school on this site is ranked against another.
July 2018 - December 2024, pooled (13 semiannual BBS reports) · the Board’s published exam results by school →
What the accreditor makes it publish
About this disclosure
Loma Linda publishes this disclosure only as JPG images. The figures below were read off those images; nothing on that page is selectable text, which means a screen reader cannot read a disclosure the accreditor requires to be public.
In the school’s own words, this counts: “Licensure rate: the percentage of graduates from the cohort year that have achieved any level of MFT licensure.” — which is worth reading before the numbers, because it is rarely what the column heading suggests.
MS On-Campus / FT
| Cohort | Graduated | Reached licensure | In the field |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20207 in the cohort | 86% | 86% | 86% |
| 2020-202125 in the cohort | 88% | 73% | 73% |
| 2021-202217 in the cohort | 82% | 94% | 85% |
| 2022-202315 in the cohort | 87% | 92% | 92% |
| 2023-202414 in the cohort | 100% | 79% | 79% |
MS On-Campus / PT
| Cohort | Graduated | Reached licensure | In the field |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-20181 in the cohort | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 2019-20202 in the cohort | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 2020-20213 in the cohort | 67% | 50% | 100% |
| 2021-20229 in the cohort | 78% | 100% | 80% |
| 2022-20233 in the cohort | 100% | 100% | 100% |
MS Online / FT
| Cohort | Graduated | Reached licensure | In the field |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-20229 in the cohort | 56% | 86% | 100% |
| 2022-202312 in the cohort | 58% | 80% | 100% |
| 2023-202411 in the cohort | 55% | 0% | 0% |
Graduation is measured against each school’s own advertised length, which across the twelve accredited programs runs from two years to four and a half — so a low figure often means students chose a longer track rather than that they did not finish. Licensure and placement are usually shares of the graduates who answered a survey, not of the cohort. Both are reasons these numbers describe one program over time and cannot be set against another school’s.
The school’s own disclosure → · most recent 5 cohorts shown
What people say about it
Quoted where the wording carries the meaning, linked in every case, opening in a new window. The tags are my reading of each source, not a measurement, and the unflattering ones are here too.
What to ask before you apply
None of these are answered on a program page, and all five change what the degree is actually worth to you.
The single question that separates programs. Ask for a list of current sites, and ask plainly whether the program places you or expects you to find your own. A rural or online student unable to find a site cannot graduate.
The Board publishes this by school, so the program cannot be the only source. Ask anyway, and see whether the answer matches.
Per-unit rates move. Multiply by the actual unit count and add campus fees before comparing anything.
The 500 couples-and-families hours are carved out of the 1,750 clinical ones, and they are the category associates most often finish short on. A program placing students in adult individual settings will not generate them.
Sometimes yes, sometimes with extra units, sometimes only in one delivery format. Get it in writing rather than from a brochure.
What I could not establish
Everything above is sourced. These are the things I looked for and could not establish - take them to admissions, and note how quickly and precisely they answer.
- Cohort size is not published for either the campus or online M.S. cohort.
- No quarter-by-quarter plan of study is published for the M.S.; the catalog groups courses by COAMFTE content area only, so the sequence above is a content map, not a term schedule. The program's Outcome-Based Education framework PDF also contains no sequence.
- The MFT Clinical Training Manual, which the catalog repeatedly points students to for the operative practicum rules, is not publicly posted; details such as how the Resiliency Clinic caseload is allocated versus outside sites, and whether live/one-way-mirror supervision is used there, could not be verified.
- Whether Resiliency Clinic placement is available to online students, and how online students' placements are supervised beyond the mention of an "Online Clinical Coordinator," is not described.
- No formal traineeship-to-associate transition or post-graduation employment pipeline is described in any published source.
- Only two student reviews touching this department could be found, one of them for the adjacent MS in Counseling rather than MFT; Reddit search was unavailable during this research.
Sources for this page (12)
- LLU Catalog 2025–26 — Marital and Family Therapy, M.S.
- LLU Catalog — MFAM course descriptions
- LLU Catalog — RELR course descriptions
- LLU Catalog — A Unique University (Sabbath, lifestyle commitments)
- LLU Catalog — Spiritual Life (chapel, religion classes)
- LLU Catalog — Doctor of Marital and Family Therapy (D.M.F.T.)
- LLU Catalog — Systems, Families, and Couples, Ph.D.
- LLU program page — Marital & Family Therapy, MS (tuition, deadlines, accreditation)
- School of Behavioral Health — MS MFT program page
- School of Behavioral Health — The Resiliency Clinic
- School of Behavioral Health — Practicum sites
- MS MFT Outcome-Based Education framework (PDF)