What this program actually is
OrientationHuman development and family systems read through culture, oppression and social context — the catalog calls it a "multidisciplinary, inclusive curriculum based on developmental and family systems theories and evidence-based theory and practice"
Pacific Oaks grew out of a Quaker-founded school in Pasadena in 1958 and its MFT program is the rare case where the social-justice branding is structurally visible in the course list. The organizing idea is human development read through social context: the required MFT 525 Interface of Society and Human Development "integrates a variety of theories of human development, with a variety of societal issues, forces and dynamics including politics, economics, race, culture, gender, class, sex, privilege and oppression," and it is prerequisite-gated behind the three intro courses, so nobody skips it. MFT 653 Cross-Cultural Mores and Values then adds a second required course on socio-political constraints on development. That is two required courses carrying the frame, plus a program that explicitly says its graduates should "consider issues of social justice, trauma within family and community systems."
The real differentiator, though, is the four identity-based specializations — African-American Family Studies, Latinx Family Studies, LGBTQIA+ Studies and Trauma Studies — and specifically the fact that the first three are built on an identical five-part architecture rather than being a grab-bag of electives: History and Culture (3 credits), Family Systems or Family and Child (3), Historical Trauma and Recovery (2), Psychology (3), and Community Resources and Advocacy (1). The advocacy course is the tell. MFT 614 puts "particular emphasis... on social justice, advocacy theory and developing practice skills needed to become change agents," and MFT 618 African American Psychology teaches the field's own intellectual lineage by name — Kenneth Clark, William Cross, Na'im Akbar, Joseph White, Frantz Fanon, Frances Cress Welsing, Wade Nobles, Linda James Myers. Very few California MFT programs teach a named Black-psychology canon as a required course in a track.
One caveat about what 'anti-bias' means here. Pacific Oaks is nationally associated with anti-bias curriculum work, but the courses actually titled that way — HD 390 Developing Anti-Bias Curriculum, HD 562 Advanced Studies in Diversity and Anti-Bias Issues, HD 592 Advanced Studies in Implementing Anti-Bias Curriculum — live in the Human Development and Education programs, not in the MFT curriculum. There is no course called 'anti-bias' or 'cultural humility' in the MFT degree. The heritage reaches MFT through the developmental-in-social-context frame and the identity tracks, which is a real commitment, just not the same thing as a named anti-bias sequence. Practically: no in-house training clinic, all placements are LA-area community agencies, 36 hours of your own therapy are required, and the college's own student reviews are consistently warm about faculty and consistently sharp about financial aid and registration administration.
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.
Interface of Society and Human Development
"This course integrates a variety of theories of human development, with a variety of societal issues, forces and dynamics including politics, economics, race, culture, gender, class, sex, privilege and oppression," exploring how society shapes development, identity and life choices and becomes a factor in mental health symptoms.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThis is the course that carries the entire Pacific Oaks thesis, and it is required in every track and gated behind three prerequisites. If you want to know whether the social-justice framing is real curriculum or marketing, this is the single course to read — and it is graded coursework, not an orientation session.
Cross-Cultural Mores and Values
Presents a conceptual framework for incorporating sociocultural factors into clinical and communication practice — family history, structures, dynamics, values, adaptive strengths and coping styles — plus "socio-political constraints on human development (with emphasis on racism and normative value psychology)." Racial/ethnic identity is treated as the core of self-identity.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingThe second required diversity course in the traditional track, taken concurrently with Practicum I so it lands while students are seeing clients. The phrase "normative value psychology" signals a critique of the discipline's own assumptions, which is more than the standard single multicultural-counseling survey.
Latinx Community Resources and Advocacy
Addresses the institutions that shape mental-health services and wellbeing in the Latinx community and the ecological context of marginalization. "Particular emphasis is on social justice, advocacy theory and developing practice skills needed to become change agents for families in the LatinX communities."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingEach identity specialization ends with a 1-credit advocacy course of exactly this shape (MFT 619 for African American Family Studies, MFT 662 for LGBTQIA+). Small, but it means the tracks close on systems change rather than on clinical technique — a design choice you can see in the credit table, not just the brochure.
African American Psychology
Examines models of Black mental health and ethnic and self-identity development, and the impact of society, culture, family, racism and poverty on personality. "The history of Black Psychology and the pioneer theorists of this movement, such as Kenneth Clark, William Cross, Na'im Akbar, Joseph White, Franz Fanon, Frances Cress Welsing, Wade Noble, Linda James Myers, and others will be discussed."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingA catalog description that names a specific intellectual canon is rare and is a strong signal the course has real content behind it. This is required in the African-American Family Studies specialization, alongside a separate history course and a historical-trauma course — a genuine three-course sequence, not a single survey.
LGBTQIA+ History and Historical Trauma
"In this course, we will examine the historical emergence and construction of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender identities and beyond, beginning with indigenous identities in the pre-colonized world, moving into the 19th and 20th century in the United States and abroad," together with historical trauma and its definitions.catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingStarting from pre-colonial indigenous identities rather than Stonewall is a specific historiographic choice, and it opens a four-course LGBTQIA+ sequence (history, family systems, psychology, advocacy). Programs that offer 'LGBTQ competence' as a single elective are doing something categorically smaller than this.
Pre-Practicum and Professionalism in the Field
A 16-week hybrid course preparing students to work as an MFT Trainee: the paperwork required to contract with a training site, how to obtain personal liability insurance, and what resources trainees can use. "Topics such as attire, vacations, boundaries and agency culture will also be covered."catalog ↗
Why it is worth noticingZero credits, but it is a required, graded-credit/no-credit course — and its content is the unglamorous mechanics that trip up first-year trainees. Paired with MFT 600 Clinical Training Orientation and the First Year Review, it shows a program that has formalized the transition into fieldwork rather than leaving it to an advising email.
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.
No term-by-term sequence is published; the catalog organizes the degree by credit block and enforces order through course prerequisites instead. Roughly 2.5 years full-time or about 4 years part-time. All entering students take the same three courses first regardless of track — MFT 507, MFT 522 and MFT 555 — and can switch specialization after that first semester. Course codes and credits below are from the current 2026-2027 catalog; the specialization blocks replace, rather than add to, part of the traditional core, which is why a 62-credit specialization is only two credits more than the 60-credit base. course sequence ↗
60 credits (traditional track); 60–62 with a single specialization, 67–68 with a dual specialization, plus 5 credits for the optional LPCC specializationunits in total
- MFT 507 Communication and Counseling Skills (3)
- MFT 508 Personality Theories and Psychological Testing (3)
- MFT 522 Theories of Marriage and Family Therapy (3)
- MFT 525 Interface of Society and Human Development (3)
- MFT 533 Clinical Theories of Child Development (3)
- MFT 545 Substance Use, Co-Occurring Disorders and Addiction (2)
- MFT 553 Human Sexuality (2)
- MFT 535 Family Violence (2)
- MFT 555 Professional Ethics and the Law (2)
- MFT 570 Evidence Based Practice (3)
- MFT 571 Psychopathology of Adulthood (3)
- MFT 575 Child Adolescent Therapy (3)
- MFT 580 Research Methods and Critical Analysis (3)
- MFT 625 Clinical Skills in Family Therapy (3)
- MFT 635 Psychopharmacology (2)
- MFT 640 Couples Therapy (2)
- MFT 645 Group Therapy (2)
- MFT 653 Cross-Cultural Mores and Values (3)
- MFT 620 Gerontology (2)
- MFT 660 Trauma and Recovery (3)
- MFT 600 Clinical Training Orientation (0, online)
- MFT 605 Pre-Practicum and Professionalism in the Field (0, online)
- MFT 626 Practicum I (3)
- MFT 628 Practicum II (3)
- MFT 667 Practicum III: Clinical Portfolio (2)
- MFT 685 Practicum Continuation (0, if needed)
- MFT 615 African American History and Culture (3)
- MFT 616 African American Family and Child (3)
- MFT 617 African American Families, Historical Trauma and Recovery (2)
- MFT 618 African American Psychology (3)
- MFT 619 African American Community Resources & Advocacy (1)
- MFT 610 Latinx History and Culture (3)
- MFT 611 Latinx Family Systems (3)
- MFT 612 Latinx Families, Historical Trauma and Recovery (2)
- MFT 613 Latinx Psychology (3)
- MFT 614 Latinx Community Resources and Advocacy (1)
- MFT 656 LGBTQIA+ History and Historical Trauma (3)
- MFT 657 LGBTQIA+ Family Systems (3)
- MFT 658 LGBTQIA+ Psychology (3)
- MFT 662 LGBTQIA+ Community Resources and Advocacy (1)
- MFT 671 Complex Trauma and Recovery (3)
- MFT 673 Historical Trauma (2)
- MFT 677 Culture, Attachment, and Trauma (3)
- MFT 680 Immigration Trauma (2)
- MFT 682 Military Trauma and the Family (2)
- MFT 670 Career Development Theories and Techniques (3)
- MFT 681 Advanced Topics in Addictions Counseling (1)
- MFT 683 Advanced Topics in Psychopharmacology (1)
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.
The Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT) Program maintains relationships with clinics, county and community-based agencies, and schools throughout the greater Los Angeles area to provide students with extensive opportunities for supervised clinical training as an MFT Trainee. the school’s own page →
There is no in-house training clinic. The college maintains relationships with clinics and community agencies across greater Los Angeles and Pasadena, but the student contracts with the site; the two 0-credit pre-practicum courses exist specifically to walk students through that contracting, insurance and paperwork process. Trainees may not work in private-practice settings, per BBS rules. The 225 hours run concurrently with MFT 626, MFT 628 and MFT 667, and the sequence ends in a Clinical Portfolio rather than a thesis. Separately, 36 hours of the student's own psychotherapy are required — at least 18 of them individual therapy, and at least 18 completed before practicum begins. The First Year Review evaluates seven named readiness competencies: maturity, insightfulness, capacity for establishing appropriate boundaries, reflection, professionalism, empathy and compassion, and interpersonal and relational skills. source ↗
Will this degree travel
Not COAMFTE accredited
That is not a defect — 66 of the 78 institutions on the Board’s list are in the same position, including most of the Cal States, and their graduates license in California every year.
It becomes a problem if you leave. Several states will not accept a non-COAMFTE degree without remedial coursework, and a few will not accept it at all. If there is any chance you move, check the destination board’s rules before you enroll, not after.
What the Board requires of any qualifying degree →
What it is, on paper
Specializations: African American Family Studies; Latinx Family Studies; LGBTQIA+ Studies; Trauma Studies (secondary add-on)
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
Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution, official transcripts, summary of work/volunteer experience, personal statement, two letters of recommendation, a faculty interview source →
How its graduates did on the Board’s exam
Counting every attempt rather than only first attempts, the figure is 45% across 680 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, 62% of this school’s 404 first-time candidates passed, against 80% statewide.
Recorded by the Board as Pacific Oaks College, Pasadena. 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 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.
- No term-by-term course sequence is published; the catalog uses credit blocks plus prerequisites, so the order below is structural rather than temporal.
- Cohort size and entering-class size are not published.
- No licensure exam pass rate, graduation rate or employment outcome data is published for the MFT program.
- Verbatim course descriptions here are from the 2023-2024 Pacific Oaks catalog PDF (the most recent full-text catalog retrievable), while the course codes, credits and program structure are from the current 2026-2027 online catalog. Two codes changed between them: Practicum III: Clinical Portfolio moved from MFT 655 (3 credits) to MFT 667 (2 credits), and Human Sexuality moved from MFT 548 (1 credit) to MFT 553 (2 credits). Descriptions for those two renumbered courses are therefore not quoted.
- The current catalog lists a fully synchronous online delivery modality for the MFT program (including a Trauma Studies specialization delivered online), which contradicts the 'not offered online' framing; the in-person/hybrid Pasadena track has students on campus for two courses a week with a third by live videoconference.
- There is no in-house training clinic, and the catalog does not name any specific partner agencies.
- No Reddit, Student Doctor Network or GradCafe discussion of this program was found; the available student voices are Niche reviews.
- No freely-licensed photograph of the Pacific Oaks College Pasadena campus exists on Wikimedia Commons.
Sources for this page (7)
- M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy program page
- Academic catalog 2026-2027 — M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy program requirements
- Pacific Oaks College academic catalog (current index)
- Pacific Oaks 2023-2024 Academic Catalog and Student Handbook (PDF) — MFT course descriptions, program narrative, delivery modalities
- Pacific Oaks College — Wikipedia (1958 founding, Quaker heritage, WASC accreditation since 1959)
- Niche graduate student reviews
- Sentio University third-party program review