If we wish to stay professionally alive, it’s time we recognize that the idea that we must choose between being dedicated clinicians and being smart business people is a false one.

The expectation of a full caseload of clients who don’t question the length or expense of treatment belongs to a former age. Like it or not, therapists who wish to stay in business need to understand the educated mental health consumers of today.

For therapists, traditional ways of getting the word out—an ad here, a few hints to colleagues there, even a fancy website—just won’t cut it anymore. In a world of information overload, having a brand that stands out is the only way to attract clients.

What do you say to potential clients when they first call you or come in for a consultation? We may resist the idea, but in this initial phase, therapists face the same challenge as salespeople seeking to turn shoppers into satisfied customers.

To work as a school social worker in the Bronx’s high-crime, low-income Hunt’s Point neighborhood is to become an expert at expecting the unexpected.

Trainees today are buried beneath textbooks on theory, bombarded by lectures on current research, and taught to be experts in a variety of methods. But where and when do they learn who they are and how to use their own selves in therapy?

Most clinicians already know the basic questions to ask about a client’s suicidality, but it’s important to go beyond a rote assessment to get a fuller picture of suicide risk.

When clients feel blocked, therapists can help them tap their inner artist and view feelings of vulnerability, doubt, and fear as part of a creative, problem-solving process.

Psychophysiologist Stephen Porges’s research on the polyvagal nervous system provides insight into the evolutionary roots of trauma and anxiety, and how therapists can effectively convey safety to clients.

The increasingly blurry distinction between normal and abnormal not only makes us easy targets for Big Pharma’s advertising, but also distracts us from the larger social and economic forces that shape our lives.

A new retiree discovers the elusive secret of the endless present.