The family therapist has different training than the individual therapist.
The FT would have more extensie training in marriage science and social work, whereas the IC's training would be more in psychology... There IS overlap, but there is a difference between the science of family and the science of human behaviour... studying how marriages behave is a bit different from studying how humans behave as individuals.
Often you WILL find IC's (hacks) who think they can do both and use the same tools to do both, but to my mind they require a much different approach.
I choose to use the word FT in order to focus the training that's needed to repair a marriage under attack by an affair.
Someone with only psychology background would handle this much different than someone familiar with family science research.
It's actually quite an interesting topic comparing the two.. and certainly not a stupid question at all
If your therapist can't even tell you the difference between the two I would tell you to find a new therapist.
Repairing an individual and repairing a family are two different tasks... and require different research and different approaches.
