Submit to Clinician's Quandary!
Even the best therapists rely on advice from peers. In the spirit of building community, we're introducing Clinician's Quandary, a new forum where you can weigh in on how you'd handle a particular clinical quagmire. Here's this month's Quandary.
The Therapy Mistake That Changed Me
We all make mistakes. But oftentimes, it’s the mistakes that help us grow the most, personally and professionally. Here, three therapists share their stories about the learning experiences, recalibrations, and “happy accidents” that helped make them the knowledgeable, capable clinicians they are today.
Building Distress Tolerance
Encouraging anxious clients to face their fears is widely accepted as the gold-standard approach for treating anxiety-related disorders, including OCD. But a growing body of research suggests that our emphasis on habituation can undermine the real goal of exposure therapy.
Two Years In, This Therapist is Angry
When the pandemic first struck, I was concerned about its impact yet able to handle the anxiety about infection pretty well. After all, managing anxiety is my stock-in-trade ability. But two years later, what I feel most of the time now is anger, so I’ve been using my anxiety management skills to figure out what…
Covid Comes to Therapy
For a few years now, I’ve worked with groups around the world to address collective trauma. Our focus is usually on something that had happened elsewhere and in the past: never had I imagined that, with the advent of COVID, I’d find myself so deeply entrenched in an immediate and ongoing collective trauma. One group…
Dealing with Jealousy in Open Relationships
Many people assume that an open relationship will cause jealousy in both partners. Historically, it has been assumed that pair-bonded individuals who are attached in a “healthy” way are sexually exclusive, and that exclusivity is an indicator of the success of their romantic pairing. Therefore, jealousy should be a…
Is There Meaning in Loss?
Many grief specialists talk about helping clients finding meaning after loss. But often, loss feels meaningless. One therapist working with grieving clients isn't sure how to help them conceptualize loss or work through it. Here, five therapists offer advice, explaining how they do grief work—with themselves and their…
My Biggest Challenge as a Therapist
Therapy is hard work. But what are therapy’s biggest challenges, and how do therapists overcome them? Here, five therapists share the clinical challenge that tested them, frustrated them, continues to stump them, and made them the therapists they are today.
My Client Needs Help with Something That Isn’t My Specialty
Andrew has started showing symptoms of OCD. He’s struggled with anxiety for a while, but the pandemic seems to have been a tipping point for him. His therapist, who works in a rural area and doesn't specialize in treating OCD, doesn’t have many options for referrals and isn't sure how to help. Five clinicians share…
I’m Ready for a New Challenge
A therapist is ready for a new challenge, a new context in which to put their clinical skills to work. Here, five clinicians offer practical guidance on finding rewarding projects.
The Grieving Therapist
What practical guidance can you offer a therapist whose personal grief is so deep that she's finding it hard to stay present for clients? Six clinicians weigh in.
Should Therapists Go Back to an Office?
Seeing clients through the COVID-19 crisis has shown us not only that psychotherapy can be effective outside the traditional frame—complete with an office, couch, and a therapist who never breaks character—but also that shattering the frame when necessary, and allowing our humble humanness to be present, is actually…
The Breaking Point
As clinicians, we need to keep alert to the struggles couples have had during the pandemic and find ways to support those who couldn’t hold together under the pressures created by this grueling year.
Strengthening Personal Boundaries
The bioenergetic approach is a strong model for helping clients understand and assert boundaries, since it relies heavily on body-based interventions and movement to increase feeling, expand awareness, and promote overall health. When working with the body in therapy, clients often become more aware of the relational…
Wisdom, or Yesterday’s News?
An older therapist is beginning to feel insecure about their age and is considering whether to dive into new trainings or retire. Five clinicians offer advice.
Healing the Mother–Daughter Connection
Certain apologies are so courageous that the very word apology seems too glib. Letty’s story is one that falls on the heroic end of the apology spectrum. I believe it was the most stunning apology process I have ever witnessed.
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Managing Therapist Burnout
How do we hit the reset button as we begin a new year? Research on burnout across professions says the answer isn’t less work but rather more meaning and an increased sense of efficacy.
It's Never Too Late
By Daniel Siegel - A therapist’s skill base and experience are vital to good therapy. But they’re rarely enough. The following story, taken from Daniel Siegel's 2017 Networker Symposium Dinner Storytelling piece, highlights the need to bring vulnerability and some measure of risk into the treatment…
What Four Decades of Practice Has Taught Me
If you could go back in time and give advice to yourself as a beginning therapist, what would you say? Worry less? Train harder? Practice more self-care? Renowned trauma expert Janina Fisher shares the five things she wishes she’d known when she first began practicing.
Deb Dana’s Polyvagal Informed Therapy Master Class: with Special Guest Stephen Porges, PhD
Join world-renowned treatment expert Deb Dana and discover how Polyvagal Theory interventions can quickly guide your clients out of anxiety and terror, and into safety and connection!
