USU Marriage and Family Therapy Program
The USU MFT program begin in the early 1990’s. Our mission is to prepare students to serve others as practicing marriage and family therapists. We provide a wealth of diverse and practical experiences, research opportunities, and attentive supervision. Our focus is to inspire students to excel academically, professionally, and personally. We aim to create culturally competent, ethical, and effective therapists who strive to make valuable contributions to the MFT profession and their communities. We work hard to make our program challenging, enjoyable, and effective in helping you achieve your personal and professional goals. Click here to learn more about our program.
The Marriage and Family Therapy program is housed within the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at Utah State University. COAST is deeply grateful to the College which has provided the technological support and backing for our Virtual Education Conference.
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Aspen Grove Family Therapy is a “whole” family therapy clinic in Twin Falls, Idaho. Our mission is to provide evidence-based, person-focused, systemic therapy. We believe doing so allows families, and individuals within families, to have an environment where everyone is treated with respect, and compassion. We value mentoring beginning systemic family therapists and strive to provide a nurturing environment where providers from all backgrounds can receive live and video taped supervision of their work to become excellent systemic family therapists themselves.
VAMFT (Virginia Association for Marriage and Family Therapy) is an independent association representing the interests of the marriage and family therapy profession. VAMFT is dedicated to advancing marriage and family therapy, maintaining high ethical standards, promoting inclusivity and culture competence and increasing recognition and awareness of systemic family therapy. 
Ashley A. Hicks, PhD, IMFT-S is a Clinical Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science at The Ohio State University. She is a licensed independent marriage and family therapist, clinical supervisor, researcher, consultant, speaker, and registered yoga teacher. Her clinical practice and research focus on adolescent/family development in marginalized communities, adolescent eating disorder treatment and recovery, and the creation, delivery, and evaluation of culturally appropriate mental health services for diverse populations. Ashley is the current Director of the OSU Couple and Family Therapy Clinic.
Diane Gehart, Ph.D. is Professor and Program Coordinator in the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at California State University, Northridge and is the Founder of the Therapy that Works Institute, where she provides post-graduate training and license preparation. She has authored numerous professional books including Mastering Competencies in Family Therapy, Theory and Treatment Planning in Counseling and Psychotherapy, Mindfulness and Acceptance in Couple and Family Therapy, and has co-edited with Harlene Anderson Collaborative Therapy: Relationships and Conversations that Make a Difference and Collaborative-Dialogic Practice: Relationships and Conversations Across Contexts and Cultures. You can learn more about her at 
Dr. Eliana Gil is a bilingual, bicultural MFT who immigrated to the US as a teenager. Partly because she experienced the frustration of incorporating into a community without knowing the language, she has always treasured alternative forms of communication, including the expressive arts. She has spent her professional life focused on two specific topics: the prevention and treatment of child abuse as well as the use of play therapy with children and families. She has a special interest in encouraging professionals to consider enlivening the work they do with families, couples, young adults, teens, and children. Specifically, Eliana believes that the expressive therapies can provide a different way to make emotional connections between family members, introduce laughter and play which tends to motivate repetition of rewarding experiences, and decreases the typical hesitancy thet many individuals can feel in therapy. She is an AAMFT Approved Supervisor, a Registered art and play therapist, and continues to oversee a private practice in Fairfax, VA which provides mental health services to individuals with trauma histories.
Jeremy Pierce, LMFT-S, LPC-S, AAMFT Approved Supervisor, PhD Student & TA, CMFT Program, Texas Tech University is quality-oriented professional with 8 years of direct care experience and 6 years of supervisory experience. He is passionate about
Justine Mastin, LMFT, LADC is a psychotherapist, author, and so much more. Justine runs Blue Box Counseling, a private practice in Minneapolis, MN and is an AAMFT-Approved Supervisor. She literally wrote the book on Therapeutic Fanfiction—Starship Therapise: Using Therapeutic Fanfiction to Rewrite Your Life—and she offered support to healers in The Grieving Therapist: Caring for Yourself and Your Clients When it Feels Like the End of the World. Justine also co-hosts both the Starship Therapise and Dark Side of the Mat podcasts and has presented a TEDx talk. Justine is proud to educate future therapists at the University of Massachusetts Global.
Kevin P. Lyness, PhD, LMFT is Professor and Director of the Couple and Family Therapy PhD Program at Antioch University New England, where he has been on the faculty since 2004. Previously he was on the faculty in Colorado State University’s Marriage and Family Therapy Program. He studies various aspects of couple and family functioning with a focus on diversity issues. His work has been published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Family Process, The Family Journal, the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, and the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, among others, along with numerous book chapters and he serves as the Monograph Series Editor for the Groves Conference on Marriage and Family. He serves on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the Journal of Feminist Family Therapy, the Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy, and the International Journal of Systemic Therapy. He received his PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy from Purdue University and his MS and BS from Texas Tech University.
Larisa Garski, LMFT is the chief of clinical staff for Empowered Therapy in Chicago IL. Larisa is the co-author of The Grieving Therapist: Caring for Yourself and Your Clients When it Feels Like the End of the World, and Starship Therapise: Using Therapeutic Fanfiction to Rewrite Your Life. Larisa has also contributed to numerous other books on pop culture and psychology, co-hosts the Starship Therapise podcast, and is an AAMFT-approved supervisor.