Marlene F. Watson, PhD is an associate professor emerita and the former Department Chair in Couple and Family Therapy at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She is the author of the E-Book, Facing the Black Shadow, and a licensed couple and family therapist. Dr. Watson is the 2004-2005 recipient of the prestigious Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship. 

Academic Distinctions

Watson is a national leader in the field of family therapy and has been a local and national voice for a focus on policy and sociocultural forces that impact families’ lives in education and practice. She has devoted much of her professional energies to establishing new and innovative programs. For example, she partnered with the City of Philadelphia’s Coordinating Office for Drug and Alcohol Abuse Programs to provide family therapy services to substance dependent clients both behind prison walls and in the community. This rewarding work was recognized in 1997 by the publication Utne Reader who named her as one of ten most innovative therapists in the nation.

Faculty Fellowships

Robert Wood Johnson Fellow

Professional Society

Watson is the former Chair of the Commission on Accreditation for Marriage and Family Therapy Education and on the Editorial Review Board for the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy. She is a member of Family Process Institute Board of Directors and lectures nationally on issues of health disparities, race, ethnicity, gender and class.