American Board of Clinical Social Work

NOVEMBER 7, 2021

Too often couple conflicts make therapists anxious, and they prematurely shut down the most fertile ground for empathy and understanding. This should be an end-goal for the work; not the first reaction from the therapist. But this isn’t often the case, unless the therapist is working in a domestic violence setting.

Domestic Violence 40

Domestic Violence Therapist Empathy 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

SEPTEMBER 17, 2024

Most of the time most of us therapists work as hard as we can to keep a treatment going, knowing that attempts to derail therapy have many meanings that can be explored and understood. I know that I have always been extremely reluctant to “give up.”

Therapist 40

Therapist Counseling 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MARCH 10, 2022

Couples therapists are not responsible and cannot control the timing of a couple’s desire to be together or their readiness to use therapy. So, our clients’ right brains are in charge of the treatment; not us therapists. I was once treating a couple referred by the woman’s individual therapist.

Therapist 40

Therapist 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JANUARY 10, 2024

When the therapist begins to feel pressure to see partners individually–either from within or by request from the couple–this should signal curiosity about why their intersubjective system needs to temporarily break (maybe escape) the couple frame. Perhaps they are reliving childhood history by desiring special attention from the therapist.

Therapist 40

Therapist Psychology 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

FEBRUARY 10, 2022

Every skilled couples therapist needs to have some ideas about what to do when the treatment doesn’t seem to be working. However, the therapist should resist participating in any decisions about the relationship. In the end, it is up to the couple to decide whether to continue their relationship.

Therapist 40

Therapist Adoption 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JUNE 11, 2023

Our training histories as therapists have unfortunately tended to focus more on the first definition. Therapists tend to spend too much time dwelling on how to get their clients to stop resisting, rather than seeing a client’s resistance as an important window into understanding what it has been like to be them.

Therapist 40

Therapist 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

APRIL 19, 2023

Anxiety often causes a conflict to be prematurely shut down — by either the couple or the therapist. It is often tremendously relieving to both partners to be told by the therapist that their conflicts are their brains’ attempts to move toward growth.

Therapist 40

Therapist Anxiety 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

AUGUST 11, 2022

A frequent complaint that therapists hear from couples when they enter treatment is that they have felt hurt by each other. They want to tell us all about the pain that their partner has inflicted on them, and they often seem to want the therapist to declare which one of them has been the “most” hurt.

Self-harm 40

Self-harm Therapist 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JANUARY 9, 2022

Every therapist will have their own ways of expressing their exploration questions and reflections. Therapist — “I’m not sure what you mean by ‘right’. Therapist — “I’d like to know what you mean when you use the word ‘monster’. Therapist — “What isn’t worth it? Needless to say, these are my words–merely suggestions.

Therapist 40

Therapist Empathy 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Most of the time most of us therapists work as hard as we can to keep a treatment going, knowing that attempts to derail therapy have many meanings that can be explored and understood. I know that I have always been extremely reluctant to “give up.”

Therapist 40

Therapist Counseling 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

OCTOBER 10, 2023

Most therapists have had the experience of feeling that a treatment is being derailed and perhaps headed for failure. The neurodynamic couple therapist must understand what is being relived during couples’ repetitive conflicts, rather than focusing on one or both partners’ individual issues.

Therapist 40

Therapist Psychiatric Disorder 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JULY 9, 2023

In my opinion, Dan Wile (1993, 2021) was one of the most brilliant and effective couple therapists to ever live. While curiosity can be seen as a left-brain technique of the therapist, since it involves putting feelings into words, emotional dwelling is a right-brain process. pejorative word coming up) Stupid.

Therapist 40

Therapist Empathy Recovery 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

OCTOBER 12, 2022

The competent therapist who is utilizing these mechanisms must be attuned to material that triggers their own right-brain generated focus and attention. Something about the way he says “having to wait” creates a feeling within the therapist that something important has been said. Does it seem that they care about your waiting?

Therapist 40

Therapist Empathy 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

APRIL 10, 2022

The appearance of dysregulated emotions show the therapist and the partner the out-of-control aspect of what their right brain has stored about their trauma. As the therapist, if you are feeling anxious or frightened by a client’s out-of-control behavior, say so.

Therapist 40

Therapist 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MAY 6, 2024

It is our job as their therapists to help them get there. This natural mechanism puts partners in the perfect position to be each other’s mutual healers, but only if awareness of their highly similar historical feelings can be tolerated.

Empathy 52

Empathy Therapist 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MAY 7, 2024

It is our job as their therapists to help them get there. This natural mechanism puts partners in the perfect position to be each other’s mutual healers, but only if awareness of their highly similar historical feelings can be tolerated.

Empathy 52

Empathy Therapist 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

It then follows that the couple’s therapist must be very thorough, methodical and patient in understanding their system before any attempts to intervene are implemented. To them, it is a lifeline. Prematurely confronting and attempting to change the system is a form of succumbing to its power.

Therapist 40

Therapist Psychology 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

SEPTEMBER 10, 2023

That is precisely the job of those two societal institutions, but not of the therapist. Most of us therapists are quite familiar with the instant visceral dislike we can feel for the partner who appears impervious to the pain in the relationship–the pain they are inflicting and the pain they are feeling themselves.

Justice and Corrections 40

Justice and Corrections Criminal Justice Therapist 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MAY 11, 2023

Therapists in my consultation groups often ask, “What do I do when I try to get into family history and they just won’t go there?” There are a number of approaches therapists have used to do this exploration: “I see that you have strong feelings about xxxx. But often couples don’t want to talk about their pasts. Can you tell me more?”

Therapist 40

Therapist Consultation 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MARCH 13, 2023

Initially, the therapist assists the couple in exploring and developing an understanding of what they are nonconsciously attempting to expose through one of them being an unsafe partner. Often, the unsafe partner represents an inability to tolerate shame, which can be a primary unmetabolized feeling in both partners.

Domestic Violence 40

Domestic Violence Therapist Interviewing Engagement 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JANUARY 10, 2023

Both of these definitions capture the felt sense that many of us therapists had through our training that repetition compulsion is essentially a negative process, although an inescapable part of human psychology that can be put to good use in a therapeutic relationship.

Therapist 40

Therapist Psychology 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MAY 11, 2022

The couples therapist is called upon to empathize with the shame of both partners, work toward eliminating blame, and help the partners verbalize the historical shame instead of getting stuck on continually processing only the affair.

Domestic Violence 40

Domestic Violence Substance Abuse Therapist Mental Health 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

FEBRUARY 12, 2023

The therapist in this configuration can feel tremendously pulled toward identified patients, through either annoyance or sympathy. The skilled therapist must work to develop a deeper–and equally balanced–understanding and empathy for both partners’ contributions to their repetitive conflicts.

Therapist 40

Therapist Psychiatric Disorder Empathy 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JULY 11, 2022

The competent couples therapist is alert to the transition into more primitive states which must be transformed into words about the childhood trauma that has been awakened through current anger. Therapists have heard many stories about a partner who becomes violent and then feels horrified and ashamed about harming their mate.

Self-harm 40

Self-harm Therapist Empathy Communication 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MARCH 14, 2024

When a partner in the midst of describing a conflict in their relationship speaks a particularly impactful word or phrase that resonates within the therapist as meaningful, that “thread” is then repeated and “followed” with interest and curiosity. The primary technique we use to explore feelings is what we call “following threads.”

Empathy 40

Empathy Therapist Mental Health 40

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JUNE 13, 2022

I have frequently described the care that must be exercised by the therapist when the victim and perpetrator roles that are necessary to relive terror result in domestic violence. In this case, couples might be enacting not only their own terror, but that of their parents and even sometimes their grandparents.

Domestic Violence 40

Domestic Violence Therapist 40

Social Work Haven

SEPTEMBER 7, 2023

So, whether you’re considering a psychology program or an MSW program, or if you’re intrigued by the prospect of a bachelor’s degree in social work, join us on this enlightening journey as we uncover the depths of clinical social work and psychology. The answer is yes.

Psychology 52

Psychology Social Worker Mental Health Clinic 52

Social Work Blog

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

I’m a mere therapist, but if I could share one piece of life advice with anyone, it would be this: Take an improv class. And, improv teachers and therapists cultivate an environment of support, empathy, validation, and a space to improve skills. There is a shared idea that it’s ok to be vulnerable and experience an array of emotions.

Therapist 111

Therapist LMSW Clinical Social Work Mental Health 111

Social Work Blog

JUNE 1, 2022

Large hospital systems typically employ LMSW social workers because they have demonstrated clinical acumen and the ability to navigate practice scenarios. So why should students enter the realm of clinical social work in addiction? A clinical social worker is a professional juggler.

Addiction 97

Addiction Clinic LMSW Social Worker 97

American Board of Clinical Social Work

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

It has been said almost too many times that treating couples is very hard work. Most couple therapists aren’t afraid of hard work. What they don’t like is working too hard and feeling like they are getting nowhere. But, so what. It is very difficult to stay motivated that way. Who are we to threaten that safety?

Therapist 52

Therapist 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

APRIL 7, 2025

To borrow from Winnicott, it takes good enough relationships, the type that all therapists strive to have with their clients. The connected and safe curiosity of the therapist models empathy and understanding and gently guides both partners toward experiencing their own version of genuinemutualempathy, a developmental triumph.

Empathy 52

Empathy Therapist Psychology 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

JANUARY 12, 2025

Accompanying requires resistance to diagnosing, which usually implies that there is something pathological about a partners behavior and places the therapist in a position of power that subverts teamwork. It comes from the therapists innermost self and is therefore different in each therapist.

Therapist 52

Therapist Interviewing Administration University 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

DECEMBER 17, 2024

We work to help couples view their conflicts as natural, right-brain-generated processes to expose unmetabolized feelings so they can be verbalizednot as problems. The long-term and consistent effort the therapist exerts to reach genuine understanding is likely a new experience for a couple.

Therapist 52

Therapist Mental Health 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

APRIL 9, 2025

It is important for the therapist to keep in mind and to reinforce with a couple that these frustrating patterns are normal and helpful. It doesnt matter; the brain must do its work. The therapists interventions guide a couple into understanding how their patterns are designed to heal. How could that be?

Therapist 52

Therapist Psychology Interventional 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

FEBRUARY 13, 2025

Do they think their therapist or their partner is withholding their magic? The truth is, most therapists have a fixing fantasy, too. The extent to which we manage it will determine how effective our work is. We use our consistent curiosity to discover their past experiences with fixing.

Therapist 52

Therapist 52

Social Work Blog

FEBRUARY 11, 2025

Now, the donkey is a co-therapist at the Barking C.A.A.T Even chickens work as co-therapists at the Center for Animal-Assisted Therapy. In an episode of the NASW Podcast Social Work Talks, Elizabeth Strand , PhD. Ranch in Arvada, Colo. That would be C.A.A.T.

LCSW 52

LCSW Therapist University Clinic 52

American Board of Clinical Social Work

MARCH 24, 2025

Therapists who are stuck in their own fixing fantasies may quickly succumb to joining the good guy in working to get the bad guy to see the error of their ways and agree to engage in better behavior. These types of therapists play judge and convey who or what must change for the relationship to survive.

Therapist 52

Therapist Psychology Engagement 52