A Therapist Can't Say That

Epizode

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  Introducing A Therapist Can't Say That 22.03.2022 2min

  We're going to get real about what it’s like to do this job. We’re going to unpack the clichés you’ve assumed every other therapist believes, and speak out loud the thoughts you’ve thought no other therapist has had. We’re going to let it get messy, complicated, and uncomfortable. And we’re going to say it’s okay for therapists to disagree, even in public, without immediately accusing each other of being unethical. Welcome to A Therapist Can’t Say That.
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  Ep 02 - The Myth of the "Good Therapist" with Nancy Jane Smith 05.04.2022 52min

  Nancy Jane Smith and I talk through some uncomfortable questions: When you think about that archetypal good therapist that you compare yourself to, is that therapist a blank slate? Does a good therapist take all the most challenging cases? Do they self-disclose? Do they diagnose and write treatment plans? Are they quiet introverts? Do they have it all together? Who is this mythical good therapist? What are their qualities and where do those ideas come from?
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  Ep 01 - Why I Started A Therapist Can't Say That 05.04.2022 15min

  There is a kinship among people who do this work. Even from the privacy of our offices, we are in this together. So, let's open those office doors and have some fun exploring the things that it feels like a therapist can't say.
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  Ep 03 - Uncharted Waters: The "Good Therapist" and Collective Trauma 26.04.2022 20min

  The specter of the good therapist has definitely been much more activated for almost all of us during the past two years of the pandemic. The pandemic has made the gap between who we believe we should be as therapists and who we actually are much, much harder to bridge.
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  Ep 04 - Doing Our Own Work: Mental Health and Workplace Culture with Rebecca Ching, LMFT, PCC, Certified IFS Therapist 10.05.2022 56min

  Today I’m talking with psychotherapist and certified leadership coach, Rebecca Ching. Rebecca also has extensive experience with supervision, teaching, and advocacy in the mental health field and we’re going to dig into dysfunctional mental health workplace culture, how we got here, and why it’s so hard to change it.
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  Ep 05 - How Are You Doing? Building A Culture Of Support 25.05.2022 24min

  There is a culture of silence from supervisors that contributes to the dysfunctional workplaces in mental health. Silence imbues the event with shame and inhibits the capacity to do self-work. So what stops supervisors from supporting their clinicians after a crisis?
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  Ep 06 - Carrying the Weight of Moral Injury with Dr. K Hixson 07.06.2022 52min

  Dr. K Hixson and I get into some of the big factors that contribute to moral injury among therapists like individualism and the burdens of excessive responsibility that we place onto individual clinicians, and how the larger systems that we operate within prevent us from living out our own values, both as clinicians and as regular humans.
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  Ep 07 - The Poison and The Cure: Expanding Our Understanding of the Wounded Healer 28.06.2022 25min

  Therapists are tasked with being secret keepers. But what does it really mean for us as therapists to be the bearers of all of this confidential information about other human beings?
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  Ep 08 - Why We Become Therapists with Ben Fineman and Carrie Wiita 12.07.2022 1h 1min

  Today I’m joined by Ben Fineman and Carrie Wiita, co-hosts of the Very Bad Therapy podcast, and we’re discussing the reasons we become therapists, consciously and unconsciously, and how that shows up in the therapy room for us and for our clients.
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  Ep 09 - It's Complicated: Why We Become Therapists 26.07.2022 26min

  Why do we become therapists? You wouldn’t necessarily think this is a spicy topic, but it is.
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  Ep 10 - Leave No Stone Unturned: The Healing Opportunity of Exposure Therapy with Allison Aosved 09.08.2022 1h

  Today, I'm talking with Allison Aosved, a clinical psychologist who specializes in prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD and does a lot of supervision and training in that modality. I wanted to talk with her about the importance of trauma exposure and some of the factors that may be contributing to increasing anti-exposure bias in this field.
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  Ep 11 - Anti-exposure Bias in Trauma Therapy 30.08.2022 35min

  I want to dig a little deeper into the factors that are contributing to anti-exposure bias, and how opinion on theoretical orientation inevitably shifts and swings over time, and how concerns about retraumatization and vicarious trauma may be impacting therapists’ ability to truly help their clients heal.
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  Ep 12 - Subsequent Therapist Syndrome with Dr. Ofer Zur 13.09.2022 45min

  Today, I’m talking with Dr. Ofer Zur about what he calls subsequent therapist syndrome, a surprisingly common phenomenon where a client makes a licensing board complaint against a prior therapist based on the advice or encouragement of their new therapist.
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  Ep 13 - Why is Subsequent Therapist Syndrome Common in Our Field? 27.09.2022 26min

  Today, I’m digging into the contributing and converging factors that may explain just what it is about therapists that makes Subsequent Therapist Syndrome possible.
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  Ep 14 - Growing Into the Light: In Memory of David Schnarch 11.10.2022 26min

  I have tried and failed to pay tribute to David Schnarch before, but in this episode, I will attempt it again through my personal recollections of his work, and how his training and methodology impacted me and my practice.
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  Ep 15 - Is Ethical Marketing Possible? with Rachael Kay Albers 25.10.2022 1h 16min

  How do we market ethically? What does it actually mean to be authentic in our marketing? Is there any way to do this without feeling icky or like we’re selling ourselves?
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  Ep 16 - Marketing With Integrity 15.11.2022 24min

  On episode 15, creative director and brand strategist Rachael Kay Albers said something that I have been turning over and over in my mind since: Marketing artificially accelerates the pace of human relationships.
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  Ep 17 - The Intimacy and Aliveness of Clinical Supervision with K Hixson 29.11.2022 1h 4min

  In this dance of apprentice and mentor, we are building professional lineages that will shape the culture of our profession potentially long after we are no longer around. So what kind of culture do we want to shape?
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  Ep 18 - Therapists as Makers of Culture 20.12.2022 14min

  I’m becoming more aware of how important I think it is that as therapists–all of us, clinical supervisors or not–we cultivate an understanding of ourselves as makers of culture.
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  EP 2.1: Balancing Goals and Healing in Therapy: Navigating the Tension with Silvana Espinoza Lau 05.04.2023 1h 5min

  In the final episode of my last season, Therapists As Makers of Culture, I asked you to think about what kind of professional culture you want to leave behind for the next generation of therapists and clients. We have an opportunity, with a little luck and intention and skill, to change something important about the structures of how things have been. We have an opportunity to lay the foundations for a different, hopefully better, culture of therapy that we’d like to leave behind for whoever comes next.I want to make a professional culture where we challenge ourselves and each other to stretch our capacities to hold complexity.In this conversation with Silvana Espinoza Lau, we’re discussing some of those complexities.We’re talking about how we determine and assess where we’re actually trying to go with clients when we embark on the journey of therapy with them, the importance of paying attention to all of the different and sometimes competing agendas that inform a client’s stated goals, and how we can use connection and curiosity as our guideposts.Silvana Espinoza Lau (she/her/ella), is a healer and settler in unceded Kalapuya land of the Champinefu band. She holds several privileged and marginalized identities that inform the way she supports people. Experiencing an oppressive system, that at times told her she did not belong, has given her enough empathy to support people who have felt othered, unseen, underserved, and underrepresented.She loves to support individuals who feel as the representatives of their culture, or who feel in between cultures. She especially likes to support BIPoC, a population that has been largely underserved and asked to adjust to Western norms.Even though she believes in anti-oppression, decolonization, and liberation, her hope is to move towards dismantling and recreating therapy as centering the people who have been forced to exist at the margins due to our current oppressive systems.Listen to the full episode to hear:The complex set of factors that impact how therapists approach goal-setting before a client even gets in the room, from education to pressure from insurance companiesWhy we need to acknowledge the biases and agendas we bring to our practice, and the wider context of cultural agendas that impact our clientsWhy measured progress is not the same as real healing, especially within oppressive systemsHow to lean into curiosity and connection when working with clients with differing identitiesLearn more about Silvana Espinoza Lau: Seventh Self Consulting@ecolonizeyourpractice on InstagramLearn more about Riva Stoudt:Into the Woods CounselingInstagramResources:Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire