The Family Institute is proud to partner with MASA to offer you a one-year training program
Enhance your professional expertise in therapy and experience Israel and its culture from new perspectives. Take this opportunity to join The Family Institute’s one-year MASA advanced training program.
The Family Institute is located in Jerusalem on a beautiful, flourishing campus. We have been training religious therapists for over 23 years and offering subsidized therapy to more than 400 clients weekly. We are the only English-speaking Israeli training center acknowledged by the Israeli Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.
We have academic training programs in Couples and Family Therapy, offered in English or in Hebrew.
The one-year program for MASA provides an educational component in advanced therapeutic skills for postmasters’ therapists in couples and family therapy. Additionally, it includes the opportunity to practice a caseload in the clinic while receiving individual, group and live supervision. The education and clinical hours are recognized by the Israeli Association for Couples and Family Therapy.
The program also includes a comprehensive acquaintance with Israel, its history and the variety of cultures in the present. The educational program includes learning professional Hebrew in a therapy-oriented ulpan and theological studies about Israel and its peoplehood. The immersive aspect includes trips all around Israel to get to know important historical aspects with a fun experience in the present.
Come and join the family!


The Family Institute is recognized by the Israeli Association for Couples and Family Therapy as a category A institution.
What does the program include?
- Education
The educational component of the training program is an intensive immersion in the theoretical and practical applications of working with families. The program provides you with a carefully structured educational and training experience including classes on personal growth, family therapy techniques, couple’s counseling and more.
- Group Supervision
Group and live supervision is one of the most powerful experiences in training to become a therapist. It includes presenting and observing live therapy sessions behind a one way mirror. Discussion, receiving feedback and peer support with facilitation from an experienced clinical supervisor provide invaluable growth experience.
- Individual Supervision
Real-world experience is essential to your clinical skill development as a therapist. Your hands-on training will begin early and build throughout the program. You will learn to practice under the guidance of experienced clinical supervisors utilizing process recordings and intensive live and video-supported supervision.
- Client Contact
The Family Institute provides you with the opportunity to work with diverse populations: adults, couples, individuals and families from various cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds giving you the opportunity to gain a breadth of clinical experiences within a professional setting.
- Clinical Resources
You will be given access to a variety of clinical resources including a well-stocked library and staff room. You will have use of our beautifully appointed consultation rooms including large rooms designated for families, child-friendly rooms, supply closet and a designated sandtray room. In addition, you will be able to utilize our state of the art technology to access courses online, record your sessions, generate receipts and more.
- Community and Family
One of the most crucial aspects in the development of our trainees is the continued and frequent opportunities for trainees to meet and exchange ideas with each other, with advanced therapists and with the clinical staff. With a student-faculty ratio of 5:1, you will be able to build relationships with, and learn from, the supervisory team contributing to the development of a more mature and well-rounded professional self.
- Professional Ulpan
Engage in an ulpan like no other where you will learn the words, phrases and questions that most commonly come up in therapy. You will also receive a therapeutic dictionary printed by The Family Institute.
- Trips
You will enjoy beautiful trips around Israel, taking in the history and culture. You will also be given the opportunity to visit different mental health agencies around Israel, getting a broad understanding of how the mental health system works in Israel.
What does the educational component include?
This is a basic theory course. Systems are appreciated through the lens of Bowen differentiation theory. Other theories learned are structural, strategic, narrative and paradoxical. The theoretical approach emphasizes the importance of dyadic co-creation among family members and adjusting therapeutic expectations and technique to family level of differentiation.
In this introductory course trainees learn about the dynamics of creating and sustaining couples’ relationships. A detailed account of the theories of John Gottman serves as the anchor for clinical approaches to difficulties among couples.
This is a use-of-self course that takes trainees through the basic challenges of the therapeutic situation and the role of therapist with couples, families and individuals. The course involves many simulations and dynamic exercises.
The course addresses the personal changes and challenges faced by trainees in the process of becoming family therapists. Trainees respond to the kinds of materials clients bring through individual journaling and class discussions. The course stresses the technique of self-growth that makes family therapy dynamic, exciting and personal for the therapist.
A systematic look at “family time” is provided. Each stage of family transaction is analyzed through the lens of various developmental theories of childhood, adolescent, young adulthood, coupling through old age.
This more advanced course addresses the clinical challenges of couples in distress. Techniques for conflict resolution go through maintaining the couple and helping the couple to separate if necessary. Emotional aspects of physical intimacy are explored. Managing divorce conflict and custodial disputes are defined.
The course teaches psychopathology from the extra vantage point of interactional pathology. The relationship between individual and systemic pathology are explored. Diagnoses are taught with an eye to the effect of the individual pathology on transactional processes in the family.
Parallel to the psychopathology course, here we look at the family therapy techniques that have proven helpful with families with low and very low levels of differentiation. Emphasis is given to strategic therapies for symptomatic pathology and paradoxical interventions with families resistant to change.
The course will focus on a detailed understanding of sexual physiology and its emotional components. Sexual dysfunctions in each partner and in the couple transaction and therapeutic approaches will be explored. Men and women are taught separately.
Trainees integrate the theories and techniques they have learned. The focus is on assisting each trainee in defining his or her own therapeutic identity, choosing areas of pathology and forms of treatment that most suit him or her and learning to refer difficulties that are better suited to other trainees.
Alternating years teach child protection law and divorce and child custody law. The material is presented as relevant to family therapy practitioners.
Ethical dilemmas and challenges facing family therapists are presented and discussed. Trainees are encouraged to define their practice from the point of views of the client and the therapist.
*Please note, all courses are tentative and subject to change.
Admission Requirements:
Trainees must have the following in order to be considered for admission to The Family Institute’s Family Therapy Training Program:
- Acceptance for MASA grant
- Clinical Master's degree in a field related to mental health from an accredited university.
- Ability to offer psychological services in Hebrew is preferred.
- Ability to work evening hours.
- Adherence to cultural and religious sensitivities
- Completion of application process.