Psychotherapy too often fails to help clients like myself make changes in their lives because of the blind spot at its core--it undervalues the central role our automatic habits play in our lives.

Though psychotherapy is a relational field, it’s not uncommon for therapists to struggle with a sense of professional isolation. Faced with the difficulties of everyday practice, therapists can feel lost and alone when tackling challenges and unanswered questions about how to best meet their clients’ needs.

I began clinical practice some 25 years ago, firmly committed to what might be called Christmas Carol therapy. I secretly believed that change for every client was always a transformational session away.

That’s what’s so revitalizing about the conversations that we have in tribe—through continuing education events and in communities of practice. Unlike everyday conversations, they are ongoing and communal in a way that layers key insights about the direction of our field.

In the black-and-white popular view of trauma, people who have gone through life-threatening or injurious experiences either grow up to be innocent victims or damaged villains, with little room for the shades of gray therapists frequently encounter in their work.

I feel unprepared to make a proper suicide assessment with my clients. I’m nervous that I’ll neglect to ask, or the client won’t tell me, something vital to making the right clinical decision. Can you recommend an objective measure for reliably determining suicidality?

Nothing makes me feel punchier and more ill-informed than glancing at the accumulation of advertisements announcing trainings, new publications, practice trends, and research findings in my email inbox every day. But my job as editor of the Networker has given me the opportunity to regularly discover that keeping up is actually not so beyond my capabilities.

As the language of neuroscience sinks deeper into the public consciousness, the brain has become a scapegoat for explaining the mysterious behaviors, moods, and impulses that drive everyday life.

As both an art therapist and a marriage and family therapist, I believe that vulnerability, doubt, fear, and uncertainty—feelings most people try to avoid—are essential to getting unstuck in life and engaging in creative problem solving.

There are more than 600,000 mental health practitioners around the country, but for the most part, we might all be hidden away in cloisters for the chances we get to directly connect and learn from each other.