By William Doherty - Are therapists more like shamans or family doctors? Explorers of human depths or more like Siri on your iPhone, just directing you from one place to another? I'm a skeptic about whether any clinical approach is good at getting clients consistently to the promised land of transformation. Maybe therapy is better understood as being about breakthroughs—small, medium, and large—rather than about transformation.

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.

Rick Hanson describes how becoming more mindful of our body and thoughts, and the link between the two, can make us happier and less afraid of life's uncertainties.

As experts in any field will tell you, the secret to honing your craft is practice, practice, practice. But a little advice doesn’t hurt either. Here, four therapists well acquainted with the ins and outs, highs and lows, and successes and challenges of practicing psychotherapy share the most valuable lessons they’ve learned during their years in practice, as well as what they wish someone had told them before they ever sat down with a client.

I’ve begun to worry that in our headlong rush to embrace teletherapy, we’re going to train ourselves out of expecting the depth of connection and intimacy that we receive from body-to-body, gaze-to-gaze, in-person communication. In doing so, we may come to settle for an impoverished version of intimacy and connection; one that could even spill over into our lived, in-person relationships.

A maverick and a visionary in the '60s and '70s, Salvador Minuchin transformed the very idea of what a therapist was supposed to be. Here, he reflects on his journey as a therapist and what clinicians need to do in order to master their craft.

As parts of the country start to open back up from COVID-19 lockdown measures, a therapist worries about the risk of seeing clients in person again. Five clinicians give their take on some ways she might ease back into seeing clients in her office that ensures everyone is safe.

Therapists are continuously honing their craft. Much of what we learn through trial and error, and hours upon hours sitting across from clients, we were never taught in grad school. So we asked some seasoned therapists to pass on the lessons they wish someone had told them when they were first starting out.

Most clinicians need a mentor: someone who takes them under their wing and inspires them to be a better therapist. The five clinicians whose stories you’re about to read all agree on one thing: seeing how their mentors practice left an indelible mark on their personal and professional development that still resonates today.

The recent protests against racial injustice and police brutality have left many therapists wondering what they can do to be active forces for change in the therapy room and beyond. Four mental health professionals discuss where to begin.