Teach at Sentio University
NOTE: Faculty appointments are currently full, and the waitlist for teaching at Sentio University is approximately two years. If you would like to join the waitlist, please complete this form.
Join the Faculty of California's Most Innovative Graduate Therapy Program in Los Angeles
Sentio University is a nonprofit graduate institution based in Los Angeles, California, offering a Master of Arts in Marriage and Family Therapy built entirely on the principles of Deliberate Practice. We are the first MFT program in the country to integrate Deliberate Practice across every course, and we are actively seeking experienced clinicians who want to teach in a way that transforms how therapists are trained.
At Sentio, we have reimagined graduate education in psychotherapy. Rather than separating theory from practice, our Clinic-to-Classroom method brings real clinical work directly into the learning environment. Students spend roughly half of nearly every class session engaged in active skills training rather than passive lecture. As a Sentio faculty member, you will guide students through repeated skills rehearsal, provide immediate feedback, and facilitate reflective learning. Your classroom becomes a simulated clinic where students work with real cases from the Sentio Counseling Center, practice therapy techniques through role plays, and receive structured supervision. You will help trainees develop not just theoretical knowledge but the procedural skills, self-awareness, and adaptability essential for effective clinical practice.
Sentio serves students from across California, including the greater Los Angeles area, San Francisco and the Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, and the Central Valley. Our hybrid model allows clinicians throughout California to teach without relocating, while still participating in intensive in-person residencies held each semester in Los Angeles. Whether you are a licensed therapist in Southern California or practicing elsewhere in the state, Sentio offers a meaningful way to contribute to the future of the mental health workforce.
Comprehensive Faculty Development Program
Teaching at Sentio means joining a community committed to excellence in clinical education. We provide extensive support for our faculty through several layers of ongoing development.
Initial Training: When you join Sentio, you will receive comprehensive orientation to the Deliberate Practice model and our Clinic-to-Classroom and Deliberate Practice Supervision methodology, ensuring you have the tools to facilitate experiential learning effectively. You will learn how Sentio's approach differs from traditional MFT graduate programs and how to create a classroom environment where students build clinical skill through structured rehearsal and feedback.
Weekly Professional Development: Every week, our faculty gather for collaborative learning and growth. These sessions keep you connected to cutting-edge developments in clinical training, including the latest research on Deliberate Practice, and allow you to learn from colleagues across the program. Faculty development at Sentio also includes exposure to AI research in mental health, reflecting our position as the first graduate mental health program to formally implement safe and ethical AI training for students.
Video Review and Individual Feedback: Here is what makes Sentio truly distinctive: every single class session you teach is video recorded. Our Chief Academic Officer personally reviews each recording and provides you with detailed, individualized feedback during weekly faculty meetings. This level of support is unprecedented in graduate education. Just as we ask our students to embrace observation and feedback as pathways to mastery, we model this same commitment to continuous improvement in our teaching.
This video review process facilitates developmental coaching that helps you refine your teaching methods, identify opportunities to enhance student engagement, and strengthen your facilitation of experiential learning. You will receive specific observations about what is working well and concrete suggestions for growth. Many faculty members describe this feedback as the most valuable professional development they have ever received.
The Sentio Clinic-to-Classroom Approach
Sentio's teaching model brings real clinical work directly into the learning environment through what we call the Clinic-to-Classroom method. This approach integrates three elements: real clinical material in the classroom, structured and repeated practice of therapy skills, and ongoing feedback and reflection driven by data and supervision.
The method is grounded in the Deliberate Practice model of skill development, which emphasizes focused rehearsal of specific skills, immediate feedback, and gradual refinement over time (Levenson, 2024; Rousmaniere & Vaz, 2025). In practice, this means that in most Sentio courses, approximately half of class time is devoted to active skills training rather than traditional lecture. Faculty are supported by a growing library of training resources, including our Deliberate Practice videos and exercises, the Essentials of Deliberate Practice book series published by the American Psychological Association, and materials developed through our Innovation Lab.
Key features of the Sentio approach include:
Real and simulated cases in every course. Students bring recordings or transcripts from their clinical work at the Sentio Counseling Center, a nonprofit online clinic serving diverse and underserved California residents, into class for review. Faculty guide structured role plays that mirror common clinical situations so that students can apply techniques in real time.
Deliberate Practice woven throughout the curriculum. Complex therapy skills are broken into smaller, trainable components. Students repeatedly rehearse specific interventions in their zone of proximal development, with clear learning targets for each practice segment. This approach draws on decades of research demonstrating that experiential Deliberate Practice training methods are more effective than traditional didactic teaching for skill acquisition and professional growth.
Intensive supervision and feedback. Faculty and supervisors observe student work, provide immediate and specific feedback, and collaboratively set practice goals for the next cycle of learning. Supervisors receive formal training through our DP Supervision Residency so that feedback is consistent, structured, and growth-focused.
Outcome-informed learning. Students track client outcomes session by session and share data in supervision and class. Faculty help students interpret their outcome data and use it to identify strengths, areas for development, and targets for focused practice. This commitment to measurement and transparency reflects Sentio's broader institutional values, which you can explore further on our Transparency and 990 Forms page and our Institutional Achievement Data and Outcomes page.
What It Means to Teach at Sentio
Teaching at Sentio aligns closely with the Clinic-to-Classroom framework. Faculty are expected to integrate clinical material into teaching by inviting students to bring real session material, where appropriate and ethically sound, and by using role plays, live demonstrations, and structured exercises to translate theory into action. You will emphasize skill acquisition rather than knowledge transfer alone, designing class sessions so that students spend substantial time practicing targeted skills with clear performance criteria.
Faculty at Sentio offer specific, compassionate feedback. You will observe students closely during role plays and case discussions and give feedback that is concrete, behaviorally anchored, and oriented toward small, achievable improvements. You will also support self-awareness and adaptability, facilitating reflection on each student's internal experience during sessions, including anxiety, emotional reactions, and values, and helping students develop the flexibility to adjust their approach to different clients and contexts. Our emphasis on multicultural orientation ensures that faculty and students alike develop cultural humility and responsiveness across diverse populations.
Sentio is also the first graduate program in mental health to formally implement safe and ethical AI training for students. As a faculty member, you will be part of an institution at the forefront of AI research in mental health, with publications in high-impact journals and a formal affiliation with the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI. You can read more about our approach in our Statement on AI. Faculty who wish to deepen their expertise in this area can explore our AI certification courses.
Who We Are Looking For
Sentio faculty are typically licensed or license-eligible mental health professionals with strong clinical experience who value evidence-informed practice, are open to having their teaching videotaped, and welcome feedback about their work. We look for clinicians who enjoy hands-on teaching, including role plays, demonstrations, and close supervision of student performance, and who are committed to ongoing learning, self-reflection, and cultural humility.
Prior experience with Deliberate Practice is welcome but not required. More important is a willingness to engage deeply with this model, receive meaningful feedback, and experiment with new ways of teaching. You can meet our current leadership, faculty, and supervisors to see the caliber of clinicians who make up the Sentio community.
Why Sentio Attracts Top Therapists Across California
Sentio's nonprofit mission, rigorous training model, and growing national reputation draw clinicians from throughout California and beyond. Our MFT program features small cohorts of sixteen students, a low student-to-faculty ratio, and a guaranteed practicum placement at the Sentio Counseling Center where students accumulate over 400 clinical hours toward LMFT licensure in California. Students are eligible for need-based and merit-based scholarships ranging from $1,000 to 75% of the cost of tuition.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit institution, Sentio is committed to transparency in governance, finances, and operations. Our Transparency and 990 Forms page provides public access to IRS filings, financial information, and board-approved governance policies, and our Equity and Inclusion page outlines our commitment to serving diverse communities. Teaching at Sentio means contributing to an institution that values openness and accountability at every level.
If you are a licensed therapist in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, or anywhere in California and you want to be part of a graduate program that is redefining how therapists are trained, we encourage you to apply.
The Sentio Teaching Model
Sentio has developed a new training model that is significantly different from traditional academic teaching. Applying findings from psychotherapy research and the science of expertise, we emphasize the rigorous integration of didactic teaching and Deliberate Practice.
Many studies now demonstrate that experiential Deliberate Practice training methods are more effective than traditional didactic teaching for trainees' skill acquisition and professional growth. Perhaps equally important is the finding that trainees themselves consistently indicate that hands-on practice is the most helpful component of their skills training (Hill & Knox, 2013).
Why Focus on Deliberate Practice Teaching?
There is longstanding consensus between researchers and trainers for the need of more procedural skill building opportunities in clinical training programs. For example, prominent researchers Lambert and Ogles concluded "The research is rather unequivocal. If a mental health training program values the development of basic interpersonal or interviewing skills, this can best be achieved with a program that clearly specifies the skills to be learned and then develops training (including modeling and practice) directed at this goal. Systematic teaching is superior to unsystematic teaching." (Lambert & Ogles, 1997, p. 427).
Similarly, an influential literature review on therapist training by Clara Hill and Sarah Knox concluded that "Research ... has pointed to the effectiveness of instruction, modeling, feedback, and especially practice for learning helping skills." (Hill & Knox, 2013, p. 803)
Research indicates that Deliberate Practice learning procedures are reliably more effective than passive methods at changing behavior (McGaghie et al., 2011; Cross et al., 2011; Beidas & Kendall, 2010; Beidas, Cross, & Dorsey, 2014; Herschell et al., 2010). The Deliberate Practice methods used at Sentio are also distinctive in that they focus on direct observation and monitoring of trainee work performance, provision of expert feedback, and tailored behavioral rehearsal aimed at refining performance (Ericsson & Pool, 2016; Rousmaniere et al., 2017).
Many studies have now confirmed what influential researchers Safran and Muran suggested over 20 years ago "Training needs to go beyond the didactic presentation of declarative knowledge if therapists are going to develop the combination of procedural knowledge, self-awareness, and reflection-in-action skill necessary to respond to patients in a flexible and creative way. It is important for therapist training to include a substantial experiential component and to emphasize the process of personal growth." (2000, pp. 206)
The Sentio Teaching Model answers this call for the rigorous integration of didactic and Deliberate Practice teaching. To learn more about how Sentio is shaping the future of MFT education in California, visit our About page or contact us directly.
