We've gathered Psychotherapy Networkers most popular posts and arranged them here by topic.
A Script for Male Dementia Caregivers
Helping a Husband Be More Than a 'Pillar of Strength'
Many spousal dementia caregivers struggle emotionally watching their life partners slowly decline. But I also knew that male caregivers, especially spouses, tend to be stoical, avoiding expressions of negative feelings, and often declining other’s help.
How Therapists Can Support Parents and Children Impacted by Mass Shootings
When senseless tragedy turns a child's world upside down, parents are looking for mental health support for the whole family.
Should I Hand My Crying Client a Tissue?
Reading Between the Tears, Permission-Giving, and More
When clients cry in therapy, should you pass the tissues? And what do you say? One clinician worries his clients might interpret passing tissues as him rushing them through whatever they're feeling. To tissue, or not to tissue? Five therapists share how they usually respond.
Wartime Trauma Treatment
Reflections from a Therapist Treating Ukrainian Survivors
A therapist specializing in trauma treatment in the wake of human-made and natural disasters shares what she's seeing in her work with survivors of the war in Ukraine.
Is There Meaning in Loss? (Part 2)
Four More Therapists Weigh In
Our last Clinician’s Quandary on helping clients—and ourselves—navigate grief work received an overwhelming number of responses. So many, in fact, that we’ve decided to make it a two-parter. Here are four more of our top responses.
COVID Trauma
The Invisible Pandemic
What can we do in the face of our current crisis? There are no clear answers or easy fixes. As providers, we must endeavor to do what we teach our patients: in an out-of-control situation that we cannot change, we can only control how we respond to our own fear and trauma, and, for us therapists, that also means the secondary trauma we experience as a result of our work.
Is There Meaning in Loss?
Helping Our Clients and Ourselves Navigate Grief Work
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 clients.
The Grieving Therapist
Take a Break, or Keep Going?
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.
Grief Anniversaries
Acknowledging Loss a Year Later
It’s critical for clinicians to recognize anniversary reactions. When clients describe their experiences as depression, we naturally think of solutions like prescribing medication, talking about relationships, or finding ways to raise energy and reframe negative thoughts. But those methods to lift mood won’t be productive when the suffering is mourning. Grief requires a different process than depression: reflecting on the loss, which is real and should be honored as significant.
The Year of Canceled Plans
Coping with Loss as Disappointment
As all of us in the United States move into the coming months, a full year into COVID life, our personal losses will come into focus. If we don’t process them, they’ll be magnified. As therapists, we can be on the lookout for symptoms of anniversary reactions in our clients, and with our help, our clients can both recognize what they’ve lost and what they can still share with their friends and family.
