It's All Relational

The national MFT exam is not testing your clinical brilliance - it’s testing whether you can decode the test writer’s game. Rob Guise reveals exactly how to stop overthinking, spot the trap answers, and prepare with a system that has helped more than 120,000 clinicians get licensed.

If you’re a new grad, a recent MFT student, or anyone staring down the AMFTRB exam, this conversation gives you the practical edge most programs never teach. Trevor White and Rob Guise break down why systemic thinkers often struggle on multiple choice, how to shift from open-ended clinical reasoning into exam mode, and what it actually takes to pass without burning out.You’ll discover:

• Why the question writer is not your friend and how that mindset changes everything
• The four-answer structure Rob teaches, including how distractors are designed to fool you
• Why you need about 200 focused study hours, not a last-minute cram session
• How to use the 3-month e-study program, virtual workshop, model comparison chart, and personalized profile to target weak spots
• Why language, culture, and test anxiety can affect outcomes, especially for non-native English speakers

Rob also traces the evolution of the exam itself, from questions written by leading theorists to the more standardized format candidates face today. He explains why that shift matters, how his seventh edition study guide stays current with the DSM-5-TR and ethics changes, and why the best preparation is about more than memorization - it’s about learning how to think the way the exam expects.Essential listening if you’re trying to move from graduate school knowledge to licensure success. This episode is a roadmap for anyone who wants to pass with confidence and finally put the exam behind them.

Rob Guise is a leading voice in marriage and family therapy licensure preparation and a key figure behind Family Solutions Institute, which has helped more than 120,000 clinicians get licensed. He is the author and editor of the Family Solutions study materials, including the seventh edition of the well-known “big green book.”

In the final episode of our fifty-year retrospective, Trevor White sits down with former WAMFT president Dr. Rebecca Cobb, who led the association through one of the most consequential transitions in its history.

When AAMFT changed its relationship with state divisions, WAMFT had to decide what kind of organization it wanted to be. Rebecca describes guiding the association through its move to Independent Affiliate status: the questions it raised about identity and sustainability, the work of standing up structures that had previously come from the national level, and what it meant for members to have an association that was fully their own.

She also walks through the transformation of the Annual Conference into a longer, more substantial event, adding breakout sessions that gave clinicians more choice in their training and student poster presentations that brought emerging researchers and clinicians into the heart of the profession. Much of what attendees experience at conference today traces back to decisions made during her tenure.

Thank you for listening to WAMFT at 50. Across these conversations, former leaders have described licensure campaigns, scholarship funds, a pandemic, anti-racism work, and a declaration of independence, each one a decision made without knowing how it would turn out. We hope the series gives you a sense of what this association is built on, and what it might become.

Join us in person to celebrate: WAMFT's 50th Anniversary Party takes place the evening of September 25th at Great Wolf Lodge, during the Annual Conference. Come mark five decades of the association alongside the people who built it.

Trevor White sits down with former WAMFT president Anthony Pennant to talk about two threads that ran through his tenure: pushing the association's anti-racism work past statement and into structure, and building WAMFT into a more active force in Olympia.

Anthony describes what it takes to move anti-racist commitments from language into the actual operations of an organization, and the resistance and slowness that come with that work in any professional body. He also walks through the effort to strengthen WAMFT's legislative presence, from clarifying what the association was asking for to building the relationships and capacity that make it possible to ask at all.

Join us in person to celebrate: WAMFT's 50th Anniversary Party takes place the evening of September 25th at Great Wolf Lodge, alongside the Annual Conference. Come mark five decades of the association alongside the people who built it.

Trevor White sits down with Dr. Jennifer Sampson, who led WAMFT through the early stretch of the pandemic, to talk about what the job asks of a president when the ground is moving.

Jennifer describes leading an association whose members were absorbing a crisis in their own practices while the organization tried to stay useful to them, and the decisions that came with it about what to cancel, what to rebuild, and what a professional community owes its people in a year like that. She also speaks to the anti-racism work that became a central focus of her tenure, taking up questions about who the association had served and how it needed to change at a moment when many organizations were making statements and fewer were making commitments. Running through both is a conversation about leadership under sustained uncertainty: making calls without enough information, holding a board together remotely, and doing it while carrying the same disruption as everyone else.

More episodes are coming in the weeks ahead, featuring former leaders who guided WAMFT through licensure, the transition to independent affiliate status, and much more.

Join us in person to celebrate: WAMFT's 50th Anniversary Party takes place the evening of September 25th at the Annual Conference at Great Wolf Lodge. Come mark five decades of the association alongside the people who built it.

Trevor White sits down with Dr. Michelle Finley, WAMFT president from 2021 to 2022, to talk about leading the association through a period when nearly everything about how it operated had to be rebuilt.

Michelle describes the push to expand virtual offerings for members, from continuing education to the connective work that had always depended on being in a room together, and the questions that came with it about what an association is when it can't gather. She also walks through the development of the WAMFT therapist and supervisor directory, a project aimed at making it easier for clients to find qualified MFTs and for associates to find supervision across the state.

More episodes are coming in the weeks ahead, featuring former leaders who guided WAMFT through licensure, the transition to independent affiliate status, and much more.

Join us in person to celebrate: WAMFT's 50th Anniversary Party takes place the evening of September 25th at the Annual Conference at Great Wolf Lodge. Come mark five decades of the association alongside the people who built it.

In the second episode of our fifty-year retrospective, Trevor White sits down with former WAMFT president Julie Woods to talk about widening the door: who the association was built for, and who it needed to make room for next.

Julie describes the creation of the WAMFT scholarship fund and the broader effort to make the association accessible to students, from lowering the practical barriers to participation to building pathways that brought emerging clinicians into the organization early rather than after licensure. She also speaks to the experience of MFTs working in multidisciplinary environments like hospitals, community mental health, and integrated care, and what it takes to hold a systemic, relational lens in settings organized around other models.

More episodes are coming in the weeks ahead, featuring former leaders who guided WAMFT through the transition to independent affiliate status, the challenges of 2020, and much more.

Join us in person to celebrate: WAMFT's 50th Anniversary Party takes place the evening of September 25th at the Annual Conference at Great Wolf Lodge. Come mark five decades of the association alongside the people who built it.

In the first episode of our fifty-year retrospective, Trevor White sits down with former WAMFT president Scott Edwards to talk about the association's early work and the pieces of it that are still standing.

Scott walks through the campaign to establish LMFT licensure in Washington State — what the profession looked like before it, what the effort required, and what changed for clinicians once it was in place. He also recounts the origins of two WAMFT traditions he helped launch: Mentor Day, which connects students and emerging clinicians with established practitioners, and the annual Awards Dinner, which has recognized contributions to the field in Washington for decades.

More episodes are coming in the weeks ahead, featuring former leaders who guided WAMFT through the transition to independent affiliate status, the challenges of 2020, and much more.

Join us in person to celebrate: WAMFT's 50th Anniversary Party takes place the evening of September 25th at the Annual Conference at Great Wolf Lodge. Come mark five decades of the association alongside the people who built it.

Before she became one of the most influential voices in psychotherapy, Dr. Diane Gehart was a University of Washington student who almost ended up at the CIA! 👀

In this keynote preview episode, Dr. Gehart joins us to talk about her journey and the work she has dedicated her career to: a Unifying Framework for Psychotherapy that brings together over 500 recognized psychotherapy theories into something every clinician can actually use.

Do not miss her keynote at the 2026 WAMFT Annual Conference, September 25–26 at Great Wolf Lodge!

The 2026 WAMFT Annual Conference is coming and we're getting a sneak peek.

I sat down with Claudia Johnson to talk all things Roots of Connection: Deepening Systemic Practice in Changing Times, happening September 25–26 at Great Wolf Lodge and virtually across Washington. From the three conference tracks to what makes this year's gathering especially meaningful, this episode is your inside look at what to expect.

And yes, bring the family. Great Wolf Lodge means CE credits AND a water park.

WAMFT's own foreign correspondent checks in from Bergen, Norway.

In this episode, we send our regards overseas as Henry Phillips brings us a firsthand dispatch from the International Family Therapy Association World Congress in Bergen, Norway. As WAMFT's unofficial correspondent on the ground, Henry sat in the rooms where the global conversation about family therapy is happening, and he's here to tell us what he saw, heard, and brought home.

We cover what it looks like when family therapists from around the world gather under one roof — the ideas being debated, the approaches being shared, and the moments that reminded Henry why this work matters across every culture and context. We also explore what Washington State's MFT community can learn from the international stage, and what our global colleagues might learn from us.

Think of this one as your postcard from Bergen!

It's still all relational, even 5,000 miles from home.