Many people assume that an open relationship will cause jealousy in both partners. Historically, it has been assumed that pair-bonded individuals who are attached in a “healthy” way are sexually exclusive, and that exclusivity is an indicator of the success of their romantic pairing. Therefore, jealousy should be a hallmark of a successful relationship. Instead, research has found that some pair-bonded partners experience positive feelings instead of jealousy when they open their relationship

Even the best therapists rely on advice from peers. In the spirit of building community, we're introducing Clinician's Quandary, a new forum where you can weigh in on how you'd handle a particular clinical quagmire. Here's this month's Quandary.

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.

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.

Therapy is hard work. But what are therapy’s biggest challenges, and how do therapists overcome them? Here, five therapists share the clinical challenge that tested them, frustrated them, continues to stump them, and made them the therapists they are today.

Andrew has started showing symptoms of OCD. He’s struggled with anxiety for a while, but the pandemic seems to have been a tipping point for him. His therapist, who works in a rural area and doesn't specialize in treating OCD, doesn’t have many options for referrals and isn't sure how to help. Five clinicians share how they'd handle the situation.

A therapist is ready for a new challenge, a new context in which to put their clinical skills to work. Here, five clinicians offer practical guidance on finding rewarding projects.

Social-emotional learning isn’t entirely new, but as more districts emphasize the curricula in the wake of COVID, confusion from parents appears to be on the rise. And in some communities, parents are doing much more than weighing this new reality: they’re staging entire revolts.

A therapist feels her sessions are getting a little dry and is looking for a way to bring play and humor into the work. Five therapists share how they do it in their own practices.

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.

The loss of roles, structure, and purpose that accompanies retirement may trigger a late-life identity crisis. As clinicians, we need to assist clients in asking a deeper question: “Who am I now?”

A client has a lot of regret about past decisions he’s made, and although his therapist has talked with him about them at length, the client still can't seem to move on. Here, five therapists offer effective, creative ways of helping clients like these work with regret.

A client who’s been estranged from his mother for 15 years recently told his therapist he wants to reconnect with her. The therapist isn't sure how to support him, since there's a history of abuse there. Here, five therapists weigh in.

The clinician and bestselling author discusses her new book and what it means to "alchemize" pain.

Given the wildfires, Covid variants, hurricanes, droughts, earthquakes and periods of social unrest that abound these days, the world can feel like a scary place. Use this quick meditation to help find comfort during sleepless nights.

Networker content editor Meaghan Winter sat down for a live conversation and Q&A with Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren, pioneer of America's first mental health court and author of "A Court of Refuge." The pair discussed Lerner-Wren's activism, in addition to the concept of therapeutic justice, mental health care reform, and much, much more.

When a therapist begins to sense that her in-session note taking may be distracting her clients and impeding their work together, she begins to wonder whether it's doing more harm than good. Five therapists offer their take on how to proceed.

Seeing clients through the COVID-19 crisis has shown us not only that psychotherapy can be effective outside the traditional frame—complete with an office, couch, and a therapist who never breaks character—but also that shattering the frame when necessary, and allowing our humble humanness to be present, is actually necessary to connect with each unique client.

Over the last year and a half, therapists have been pushed to the limit listening to clients worry, ruminate, grieve, and suffer in magnified ways. And we’ve all been suspended in similar uncertainty. Psychotherapy Networker talked with Margaret Wehrenberg, therapist and author of Pandemic Anxiety: Fear, Stress, and Loss in Traumatic Times, about how clinicians can help interrupt their clients’ anxious thought loops.

A graduate student has to pick a focus to train on, but is unsure of which to choose. Here, clinicians offer advice.

Week after week, a client’s sessions focus on her issues with her partner. Her therapist thinks couples therapy would be tremendously helpful, but the partner refuses to attend. The therapist worries her client is just spinning her wheels in individual therapy, since all she talks about are the changes she wants to see in her relationship, and isn't sure how to help her. Five therapists share how they'd proceed.

As clinicians, we need to keep alert to the struggles couples have had during the pandemic and find ways to support those who couldn’t hold together under the pressures created by this grueling year.

A decades-long therapeutic relationship shares some of the same elements as a marriage of similar length: the commitment to stay, the ups and downs, the intimacy, and the tendency to fall into the rut of assuming you know the other person. Keeping both fresh requires a strong bond, a willingness to be vulnerable, and most importantly, a willingness to learn from the consequences of your actions.

The bioenergetic approach is a strong model for helping clients understand and assert boundaries, since it relies heavily on body-based interventions and movement to increase feeling, expand awareness, and promote overall health. When working with the body in therapy, clients often become more aware of the relational trauma they’ve suppressed.

After being insulted by a difficult client, this therapist doesn't know how to proceed. Here, seven clinicians weigh in.