In at least 30 percent of couples who come to therapy, partners enter the consulting room with different agendas---one wants a divorce, the other wants to save the marriage. Bill Doherty, cofounder of The Doherty Relationship Institute and director of the Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project, says the stakes are high in this scenario and traditional approaches fall short with these mixed-agenda couples.

Most therapists are aware of the perils of trying to connect with teenage clients. Teens are often brought to therapy against their will by adults, which can make them especially unwilling to let therapists in. And don’t talk to them like kids--they’re too old for that. But don’t bore them with stereotypical “therapist talk” either--they’re expecting that. So how do therapists relate to teens without seeming patronizing, clueless, or invasive? Therapist Dan Hughes explains...

There’s no question that helping clients return to a basic functional level should be the main goal with trauma survivors. But what if clients could not only eliminate traumatic stress, but also come away from treatment feeling more resilient and with a fuller sense of self? Lisa Ferentz explains her concept of Post-Traumatic Growth.

Brain science has revealed how deep breathing can calm our overactive nervous system, clear our distressed mind, and restore us to a balanced emotional state, says Amy Weintraub, a recognized leader in the practice of yoga and a presenter at this year’s Psychotherapy Networker Symposium. 

Susan Johnson, couples therapist and author of Love Sense: The Revolutionary New Science of Romantic Relationships, will be a keynote speaker at this year's Networker Symposium. Here, she talks about how creating emotionally valuable experiences in therapy helps keep struggling couples engaged and better able to see their partner's point of view, and communicate better outside of therapy and in the bedroom.

Rick Hanson, a neuropsychologist and author of Buddha's Brain, will be a keynote speaker at this year's Networker Symposium. Here, he talks about our brain's negativity bias and how to help our clients overcome it. After all, our job as therapists is to help our clients make lasting changes by changing the brain.

Being compassionate and trusting is fundamental to our nature. But according to noted mindfulness teacher Tara Brach, it can be hard to stay true to our highest selves in a world that’s fragmented and fragmenting. In this address from the 2013 Symposium, she shares a moving personal example of how deliberate practice leads to inner transformation.

What someone resists persists. It’s a paradoxical dynamic that you’ve probably seen in the course of your own clinical work. In this video, Chris explains how “fixing” approaches can backfire and then he shares an example from his own life of self-compassion’s ability to soften resistance and heal a deep, persistent issue.

For many clients who come into therapy with low self-esteem, shame, or self-blame, the practice of self-compassion is the missing piece in the therapeutic puzzle. But it’s not that straightforward for all clients. To learn more about the barriers to self-compassion and how to overcome them, we turned to Tim Desmond, clinical psychologist and author of Self-Compassion in Psychotherapy.

In this brief video clip, child psychologist and Symposium 2016 presenter Martha Straus discusses the benefit of using co-regulation with a young client in trouble.