Dr. Forisha holds licenses in both Psychology (MN) and Marriage and Family Therapy (WA). He is a Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He has been conducting, supervising, teaching, and administering graduate programs in MFT for over 35 years. Having been honored for teaching excellence and creating graduate programs in MFT at Bowling Green State University in Ohio and Antioch University in Seattle, Dr. Forisha remains on the faculty of each of these institutions as an Associate Professor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus respectfully. In 2008, Dr. Forisha received the “Teacher of the Year Award” from the Washington Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Prominent among the people he thanked at the award banquet were the mentors he was grateful for having known and/or been significantly influenced by over the passing years, starting with Carl Rogers and including Ruth McClendon, Virginia Satir, Alfred Adler, Claude Steiner, Ernest Becker, Carl Whitaker, Jay Haley/Cloe Madanes, and Murray Bowen.

Also in 2008, Dr. Forisha created the third Doctor of MFT Program (DMFT) in the country at Argosy University in the Twin Cities. While serving as Chair of the DMFT, two of his students received the “Student of the Year Award” from the Minnesota Association for MFT. Dr. Forisha himself received the 2015 “Distinguished Service in MFT Award” before retiring the following year. Dr. Forisha has published three books in the interrelated fields of educational psychology, developmental psychology, and family psychology. He also has published articles or chapters on parenting, eating disorders, couple communication processes, and culturally consonant therapeutic interventions. He has given professional presentations, provided clinical supervision and training, and provided both public and private consultations on numerous occasions in his own country and in many different parts of the world—including: University of Hong Kong, Shri Ram College in India, Moscow State University in Russia, Catholic University of Arequipa In Peru, University of Bangalore in India, University of Maryland in Germany and Japan, and Galileo University in Guatemala.

Dr. Forisha believes that what is most remarkable about the field of marriage and family therapy is that it invites, perhaps, commands the clinician to proactively work out his or her own creative integration of what often appears on the surface to be divergent theories and practices—and in so doing helps the client couple or family to do likewise amongst the deeply personal forces that divide them. Helping other clinicians to discover what theories and practices work best for them as they work to help others resolve their interpersonal conflicts is the heart and soul of Dr. Forisha’s work as an educator, trainer, and supervisor.

For details and/or examples of Dr. Forisha’s work, please access his CV HERE.