Picture this: A mid-career therapist—let’s call her Alicia—is sitting on a park bench between sessions, trying to stave off a growing sense of panic and confusion. When she’s with clients, she’s present and attuned, but lately that doesn’t feel like enough.
She can guide people to breathe into the emotional pain they carry in their bodies. She can help them build tolerance to chronic stressors. She can introduce them to defusion techniques that distance them from their thoughts. But her caseload is filled with laid-off or furloughed workers, parents trying to make sense of ICE raids at school pickup lines, young adults drowning in the chaos of dating apps and AI chatbots. The fact is, even if all the corrective experiences in the world were piled up around today’s clients like protective sandbags, the floodwaters of anxiety and helplessness would still be surging through.
In the past, Alicia has quelled her doubts about her work with a gentle reminder about the power of holding space for people, one individual at a time. She’s been buoyed by the fact that despite the frenetic proliferation of new therapeutic frameworks and pick-your-acronym modalities, she’s up to speed on her training. But this year has felt different—and she, along with many other therapists, can’t quite put her finger on why. Everywhere she goes, there’s dysregulation in the air. She and her colleagues feel it. Her clients feel it. Even the White Robot, rushing down a path in front of her and muttering about being late, seems to be feeling it.
Wait, what?
She watches curiously as it disappears down a rabbit hole—err, robot hole—and deciding to investigate, she too goes down the hole, landing in a wonderful albeit strange place we’ll call Therapyland.
There, she encounters many of our field’s leading luminaries—including Ramani Durvasula, Terry Real, Lisa Ferentz, Deb Dana, Frank Anderson, and Tammy Nelson—and discovers that they’re grappling with the same questions she is. Why are we feeling so unsettled? How is it affecting our work as therapists? And what in the world do we do about it?
Alicia’s journey in Therapyland is the centerpiece of this issue. While the context is clearly fictionalized (yes, it’s a riff off Alice in Wonderland, and obviously, there’s no such thing as a Cheshire Clinician who dispenses wisdom then disappears into the trees, an Integration Inn providing a respite from our field’s many silos, or a Polyvagal Elevator that showcases your nervous systems in psychedelic displays), the conversations in the story are real.
They’re taken from exclusive interviews we did this fall that carry on our long tradition (almost 50 years, in fact) of putting our ears to the ground and listening to individual therapists around the country as a way to take stock of where we are as a field. The perspectives these clinicians share—on the personal traumas affecting their lives and the collective traumas shaping their practices—are candid gifts of vulnerability you won’t find anywhere else.
Another way we’re taking stock of the field in this issue is through our 2025 Best Story Awards. Of the 150+ articles we published this year, on just about every clinical topic under the sun, these winners were chosen by you, our readers. Whether they helped give shape to your unique struggles or provided practical tips you shared with your clients, these are the pieces you told us resonated most with you. And you are the beating heart of this wild, ever-evolving field we call psychotherapy. Congratulations to the winners—as well as the many deserving nominees—for sparking conversation and connection in our community.
After all, we hope Psychotherapy Networker continues to feel like part of your professional home. Here, you can kick off your shoes, put your feet up on the furniture, and nerd out on whatever clinical inquiry piques your interest. Why has energy psychology been at odds with APA’s Division 12 for so long? Networker Senior Editor Chris Lyford sheds light on this epic battle, one that raises larger questions about what’s “effective” vs. “evidence-based” therapy. How can you help a client who wants a relationship but can’t sustain sexual interest, even for partners they deem desirable? Two legendary therapists walk you through their different approaches to one case. What is “selfish forgiveness”? Find out why it might be a useful intervention. Want to see the five funniest memes therapists are sharing these days? Discover the deeper issues these snappy graphics reveal.
Our stories are written by you, for you. And while this issue addresses much of the heaviness and confusion in our world today, we hope it also offers some inspiration and whimsy too.
Livia Kent
Livia Kent, MFA, is the editor in chief of Psychotherapy Networker. She worked for 10 years with Rich Simon as managing editor of Psychotherapy Networker, and has collaborated with some of the most influential names in the mental health field on stories that have become widely read articles and bestselling books. She taught writing at American University as well as for various programs around the country. As a bibliotherapist, she’s facilitated therapy groups in Washington, DC-area schools and in the DC prison system. In 2020, she was named one of Folio Magazine’s Top Women in Media “Change-Makers.” She’s the recipient of Roux Magazine‘s Editor’s Choice Award, The Ledge Magazine‘s National Fiction Award, and American University’s Myra Sklarew Award for Original Novel.
