In The Therapy Room

True tales and lessons from the therapist’s chair
Article January 4, 2023

The New Premarital Counseling

A Good Match for Therapists?

Premarital counseling is growing in popularity, and research indicates it has numerous benefits. So why aren't more therapists offering it? Read more

Article January 4, 2023

Quieting the Relentless Inner Critic

Memory Reconsolidation in Action

Pulling back the curtain on the mysterious and often misunderstood reconsolidation process can bring greater precision and depth to our interventions. Read more

Article January 3, 2023

Will I Survive My Therapist’s Retirement?

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do...

When it comes time for your therapist to retire, hope like hell that it's not right after your marriage ends and your mother dies. Read more

Article November 29, 2022

Reducing Client Dropout

What Makes a Difference?
Bernard Schwartz

How to build a therapeutic relationship from the first session that keeps clients coming back. Read more

Article September 14, 2022

Therapy for People Living with Dementia

Creating Possibilities for Clients and Their Families

With an estimated 6.2 million Americans in need of mental health support tailored to the challenges of dementia, why are so few therapists working with them? Read more

Article August 11, 2022

A Feeling of Fullness

Reflections on Therapy with Kids in Foster Care

With plenty of misconceptions about treating traumatized children, one clinician shares why it's a chance to help them share their stories and a personal... Read more

Article July 27, 2022

The Narcissistic Client

Four Ways to Break Through

Whether it's vanity, a failure to take constructive criticism, mistreating family and friends, or lacking empathy for others, clients with narcissistic traits... Read more

Article July 27, 2022

How I Start and End Therapy

Six Clinicians Weigh In

Unfortunately, there's no playbook for beginning and ending therapy. So how do you make first and last sessions not only less awkward, but memorable and... Read more

Article July 22, 2022

When senseless tragedy turns a child's world upside down, parents are looking for mental health support for the whole family. Read more

Article July 14, 2022

Shattered by Suicide

Helping Families in the Aftermath

Suicide isn't simply the tragedy of someone taking their own life: it's also the long, excruciating nightmare of being left behind. Read more

Article July 13, 2022

Moving Through Grief

An Emotionally Focused Approach

Once blocks to the organic grief process are identified and removed, how can therapists choreograph corrective emotional experiences? Read more

Article July 13, 2022

The Inheritance of Loss

A Therapist and Client Grieve Together

While grief can be a familiar creature that lives inside us, we often treat it as a stranger Read more

Article July 13, 2022

Cultivating Empathy

Do We Really Know How Our Clients Feel?

Rather than proclaiming that you understand a client's experience, you're far better off assuming that you don't have a clue what they're going through. Read more

Article July 13, 2022

It's Still Unfair!

Struggling to Establish Equitable Relationships

When couples don’t have models for mastering healthy communication skills, they may regress to old gender scripts to cope, which can feel like its own kind... Read more

Article May 22, 2022

De-escalating Disputes

How Therapists Can Stop Runaway Conflict

Exploring “high conflict” with a bigger picture in mind. Read more

Article April 19, 2022

Elderly Clients, Hidden Gifts

Best Practices for Working with Older Populations

Five things every therapist needs to know about working with older clients. Read more

Article March 22, 2022

“Be Yourself—But Don’t”

Mixed Messages from a Mother to Her Gay Son

What happens when loving mothers of gay sons unknowingly send them mixed messages about being themselves? Read more

Article March 7, 2022

The Therapy Mistake That Changed Me

Three Stories of Professional Growth

Three therapists share their stories about the learning experiences and “happy accidents” that helped make them better clinicians. Read more

Article January 10, 2022

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... Read more

Article January 10, 2022

My Biggest Challenge as a Therapist

The Hardest Things About Practice

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... Read more

Article January 7, 2022

When Adult Siblings Struggle

Three Steps Toward Repair

The session was supposed to be a consultation between two middle-aged sisters—my client, Annie, and her sister, Carol—about sharing their multigenerational... Read more

Article November 11, 2021

“You Have Borderline Personality Disorder”

Sharing a Difficult Diagnosis with a Client

Therapists need to consider not only what diagnosis to give, but also the pain or hardship that can result from sharing it with a client. Read more

Article November 10, 2021

A Therapist's 40-Year Learning Curve

Maybe the Hard Way Is How We Learn Best

Over 40 years, a long-term client gives renowned trauma therapist Janina Fisher an opportunity to recover from clinical mistakes and apply new frameworks and... Read more

Article November 5, 2021

To Take Notes or Not to Take Notes?

When a Valuable Tool Becomes a Distraction
Psychotherapy Networker

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... Read more

Article September 15, 2021

Surrogate Partner Therapy

Crossing Lines or Expanding Boundaries?

The debate around surrogate partner therapy. Read more

Article July 29, 2021

The Breaking Point

Supporting Fragile and Separating Couples
Julia Mayer

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. Read more

Article July 29, 2021

The Pager Incident

From Therapeutic Stagnation to Growth

When therapy stagnates, sometimes it takes a mistake to catalyze change. Read more

Article July 29, 2021

Navigating the Rift

A Therapeutic Rupture and the Art of Repair

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

Article July 29, 2021

Sex Post-Covid

Healing the Rifts

Lockdown provoked a wide range of emotions among partnered people, including an increase in anxiety, fear, loneliness, boredom and frustration. It’s been... Read more

Video July 29, 2021

This week, the Networker's assistant editor, Chris Lyford, sat down for a live conversation and Q&A with hip hop artist and therapist, J.C. Hall. Read more

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