Becoming a Smarter Therapist

Once we’re past the early stages of our training, the accumulating evidence suggests that, despite our own favorable impression of our increasing therapeutic savvy, most of us don’t improve our clinical skills. With so many smart, devoted, hard-working practitioners in the field, how could this be? In “Is Psychotherapy Getting Better?” a provocative article by Diane Cole in the March issue of the Networker, Bill Doherty observed:

Dear Colleagues,

In celebration of the Networker’s 30th anniversary, we’ve been taking some time to reflect on the past three decades: what have we been doing as a magazine? As a community? As a field? Where are we going?

Back in January, we asked subscribers to contribute their personal stories about how the magazine has influenced their development as therapists and as people. We wanted to know if there were any specific issues or articles that had a significant impact, led to an interesting experience, or really, anything that readers wanted us to know.

We were so honored by the responses that came pouring in, and would like to post some of these responses (many in an abridged format) here. We’d love to hear more, too. If you’re a subscriber of the magazine, we’d love to provide you with another opportunity for response and comments here.

If you’re not a magazine subscriber but still a part of the Networker community—a webcast participant, a Symposium attendee, or just a fan in general—we want to hear from you, too. How has the Networker community impacted you? And an even larger question, if you’ve gotten a chance to read our March/April issue on “Is Therapy Getting Better?”—what do you think? Where do you think this community, and the wider community of mental health professionals, is headed?

-Rich Simon

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I just have to say “wow.” What an incredible session. I always love hearing Mary Jo present because she’s such an incredibly clear speaker and seems so down-to-earth. I have this overriding feeling of trust in her—she knows what she’s doing, based on both her experience and research, and although she’s confident in her work, she’s organized and meticulous about staying in the moment and being deliberate.

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It turns out that we’re not the only ones talking about MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, our Symposium keynote speaker. Her new book, Alone Together, an insightful look at our shifting relationship with technology, has gotten a lot of press recently, earning glowing reviews from both Newsweek and Time.

Have you ever text messaged someone who’s in the same room or e-mailed people in your office rather talking face-to-face? While our beloved new gadgets make our lives more efficient—and entertaining—are they actually separating us, instead of connecting us? Turkle says they are. This week, she appeared on the Colbert Report to discuss it.

“It’s that time of the year again,” writes Judith Matz in her cover piece on our national obsession with dieting in the January/February Networker. “Every January, the weight-loss frenzy begins anew as the overeating of the holiday season subsides and millions of us resolve that this will be the year that we will lose weight and keep it off.”

Our national cornucopia spilleth over our waistlines in rolls of fat even more than it did 13 years ago: obesity rates were 15 to 20 percent in 1995, and about 34 percent in 2008. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us we’ve become an “obesogenic” society, “characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, nonhealthful foods, and physical inactivity.” For more information, click here. Read more

Last September, the Networker published an issue called “Life After 2.0,” devoted to exploring whether we’ve crossed a threshold in our relationship to technology--even therapists like me, a committed technophobe. As we explored the social and clinical impact of the ever-more-advanced communication technologies, I got more and more curious about what I was missing out on. Finally, I took the plunge and bought an iPod, and my life hasn’t been the same since. Read more

Remember when setting appropriate boundaries in psychotherapy was a no-brainer? “No” was the operative word--no gifts, no sex, no self-disclosure, no financial or social connection whatsoever outside the hermetically-sealed cloister of the consulting room. The rules were simple, direct, and unambiguous. But in today’s more informal therapy marketplace, the rules often don’t seem as clear anymore.

So what’s a therapist to do when a client anxiously offers a diamond-studded token of appreciation for all of the positive change you’ve helped him achieve? Do you accept a not-so-valuable gift--a tin of holiday cookies--from a vulnerable client to express thanks? What’s your decision when your therapeutic instincts conflict with the rulebook?

I highly recommend one article in particular--Ofer Zur’s “The Ethical Eye” is a refreshingly sane and practical discussion of how to reconcile risk management with humanistic values. You can read this article free or you can read it as part of our 3-CE Ethics Reading Course.

How does today’s culture make ethics more (or less) complicated in your practice? What resources do you consult in order to make the best possible therapeutic decisions?

Does communications technology--Skype, e-mailing, text messaging, Facebook, or even the telephone--pose any ethical issues to our therapeutic practice? Which modern ethical dilemmas would you like to hear more about--or are there any of your own that you’d be willing to share?

Rich Simon
Editor, Psychotherapy Networker

An article in the December Archives of General Psychiatry just reported that only 43 percent of people who sought treatment for depression went to a psychotherapist. This is part of a larger trend over the past couple of decades that has seen the number of people referred for therapy by physicians drop nearly 50 percent.  Read more

Thank you to everyone who attended today’s webinar, Bill O’Hanlon’s “The Web Made Easy.” This session--and this Comment Board!--is an integral part of the collective learning process we’re all embarking on together, in order to understand the changing world around us.

Please take a minute to tell us about what stood out for you during today’s session--a piece of useful information or a thought-provoking anecdote. Or, share with us your favorite technological tools that have benefited your professional or personal life. What are some resources you use to improve your practice or yourself?

Please share with us whatever you felt was most striking about today’s webinar and, to create a better sense of community, we invite you to include your name and hometown with your comment. Thank you all so much for your participation and inspiring thoughts.

Wow… after reflecting on yesterday’s second session of Dan Siegel’s Master Class, I realize that that feeling of amazement comes from the idea that we really are “dancing” with our brains through this particular course. It’s taken me a little while to process all that I learned in his one-hour webinar (which never really seems to be long enough for a conversation with Dan!) because I found so many aspects of his talk so intriguing.