BLOGS
Links to Elizabeth’s Psychology Today Blog Essays for Therapists
* What to Do When Therapy Stalls: The Questions to Ask (second in a series)
What might be contributing to the lack of progress?
What might be contributing to the lack of progress?
* What to Do When Therapy Stalls: How to Address a Lack of Progress with Clients (first in a series)
How to address a lack of progress with clients.
How to address a lack of progress with clients.
* The Best Advice I Ever Got About Being a Therapist
Mentors play a huge part in shaping who we are as therapists, and my very first supervisor gave me advice I hold close even forty years later.
Mentors play a huge part in shaping who we are as therapists, and my very first supervisor gave me advice I hold close even forty years later.
* Therapy as Pilgrimage: Understanding our inner and outer journeys to wholeness
We don’t talk much about “pilgrimage” in the field of psychotherapy, but in some ways, we are in the business of pilgrimage, with clients traversing inner (and sometimes outer) landscapes to find new meaning.
We don’t talk much about “pilgrimage” in the field of psychotherapy, but in some ways, we are in the business of pilgrimage, with clients traversing inner (and sometimes outer) landscapes to find new meaning.
* The Crucial Work of Facing Suffering: Meeting our clients' anguish
Bearing witness to—or meeting--our clients’ suffering is one of the most essential and crucial tasks we therapists face. In a way, it sounds simple: You listen carefully, empathize, inquire as to the nuances, and offer support. But looking back at the moments when genuinely meeting a client’s anguish broke my heart or changed me, I’m stunned by how much this particular clinical task asks of us.
Bearing witness to—or meeting--our clients’ suffering is one of the most essential and crucial tasks we therapists face. In a way, it sounds simple: You listen carefully, empathize, inquire as to the nuances, and offer support. But looking back at the moments when genuinely meeting a client’s anguish broke my heart or changed me, I’m stunned by how much this particular clinical task asks of us.
* Embracing Thresholds of Life Changes: Crossing into new definitions of self
Thresholds can be as small as a glance that tells us a relationship is beginning, or as big as a catastrophe. Thresholds can be so quiet as to go unnoticed, or they can roar through our lives with a fierceness that leaves us shattered—an unexpected job loss, a scary and voracious pandemic, a need to shed an old life and shape a new definition of self.
Thresholds can be as small as a glance that tells us a relationship is beginning, or as big as a catastrophe. Thresholds can be so quiet as to go unnoticed, or they can roar through our lives with a fierceness that leaves us shattered—an unexpected job loss, a scary and voracious pandemic, a need to shed an old life and shape a new definition of self.
* Losing Home: Rediscovering a Sense of Self
Watch the news on any given day, and you'll see folks losing their homes – running from the bombs of war, fleeing wildfires, earthquakes, floods, or leaving their country searching for a better life. They walk away from all they’ve known and face the profoundly complex task of starting over, rebuilding, and finding a new anchor in life.
As therapists, we encounter clients who’ve lost homes internally – losing their sense of self or facing events that rupture a deeply grounded sense of knowing who they are in the world.
Watch the news on any given day, and you'll see folks losing their homes – running from the bombs of war, fleeing wildfires, earthquakes, floods, or leaving their country searching for a better life. They walk away from all they’ve known and face the profoundly complex task of starting over, rebuilding, and finding a new anchor in life.
As therapists, we encounter clients who’ve lost homes internally – losing their sense of self or facing events that rupture a deeply grounded sense of knowing who they are in the world.
* Establishing Trust: The challenging process of a client's wariness
Underlying the concerns our clients bring to therapy, perhaps the most crucial task they face is establishing trust: trust that they can heal their psychological/emotional wounds, trust that counseling has something useful to offer, and trust in themselves as they move toward a fuller sense of self.
Underlying the concerns our clients bring to therapy, perhaps the most crucial task they face is establishing trust: trust that they can heal their psychological/emotional wounds, trust that counseling has something useful to offer, and trust in themselves as they move toward a fuller sense of self.