44 Search results
For the term "First Kiss".
First Sessions in Therapy
Note: This is originally from Frontier Friday, a weekly Substack published, originally released on 09 Feb. 2024 Part I Reflection When was the last time you opened up to someone for the first time?...
Intake Second (Not First)
Over the next few blogs, I will share with you excerpts from the book, The First Kiss: Undoing the Intake Model… Each chapter is to the point. This book will be in ebook and...
Three Ways to Develop First Principles in Your Clinical Practice
Try this little thought experiment: Take a piece of paper, and in the next 2-3mins, in no more than 2-3 paragraphs, write down your philosophy of what guides you in therapy. Most of us...
4 Lessons from 20 Weeks of Very Bad Therapy
Ben and Carrie got me on their show for one of their episodes. (Listen to Episode 11, regarding the problem with an intake model. More about this in the book, The First Kiss). What they are doing is so underrated. I asked them in passing, “Wouldn’t it be super interesting to hear what you both learned after doing the first 20 episodes, so that we can learn too?”
I was surprised that they took up the invitation.
This is a guest post by Ben Fineman and Caroline Wiita.
Native Wisdom
Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 08 Nov. 2024 By definition, wisdom is specific, local and indigenous. Therefore, wisdom is native. And everyone has native skills. Native skills are located in...
Working with Youths. Frontiers Friday
Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 09 Aug. 2024 The Challenges Working with youths has been the most challenging and the most rewarding aspect of my clinical practice. Even though I...
10 Years of Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD, Part IV)
Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 5 Jul. 2024 This is part IV of the 10 years in writing for Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD), helping practitioners move toward at their...
Moving the Giant Outcome Goal (TDPA, Part IV)
Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 07 June 2024 Today, I want to share with you how one clinician used the Taxonomy of Deliberate Practice Activities (TDPA) to guide her professional...
What do I do!?
Note: This is originally from Frontier Friday, a weekly Substack published, originally released on 29 Sept. 2023 Here’s the video version: This is a Q&A video and podcast series based on a question from...
Develop a Fast and Frugal Clinical Decision Pathway
Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 22 Sept. 2023 Could less information actually be better in our improving our clinical decision-making process? Turns out that with more information, our confidence might...
Structure & Impact Series
Note: This is a compilation of Frontier Friday, a weekly Substack published, originally released on 14 Apr. 2023 PART I
Reduce negative variance and increase positive variance
How to reduce dropouts from psychotherapy and inviting therapists to bring everything to bear.
Existence Series
Note: This is a compilation of Frontier Friday, a weekly Substack published, originally released on 21 Oct. 2022 PART I Writing about existence is like writing about writing. This particular series is not exclusive...
Thinking in Thirds Closing The Session (Part III of III)
How Do You Close a Session in a Meaningful Way? In the previous 2 parts on Thinking in Thirds, I’ve detailed about the process of Stage 1 of creating an invitational beginning and Stage 2...
Thinking in Thirds: Going Deeper (Part II of III)
In Part I of Thinking in Thirds, I talked about the rule of three in various domains like the performing arts, storytelling and music, and how segmenting the therapy hour into thirds can be structurally...
Pay Careful Attention To a Highly Sensitive Person’s Inner Life
I’m not comfortable with labels. As a musician, I disliked the idea of categorising artists I listen to into genres. As a therapist, I’m rarely imposed a label or a DSM-V. We don’t like...
Tech Tools for Therapists
Note: This article was originally published in Substack on 6 May 2022 PART I p/s: Happy Mother’s Day Reflection: What do you consume? The measure of what you output is based on the measure...
Take Note of These 4 Perennial Factors of Your Clients
I’m amazed it has taken me about 2 decades of writing case-notes to finally come up with this system for myself. I’ve been using this particular format to capture what I call “evergreen” information,...
Parameters and Samples for Capturing Weekly Therapy Learnings
Since 2013, I’ve been capturing weekly short notes on what I’ve learned as a psychotherapist. I wished I’ve started earlier in career. In one of my first few posts on Frontiers, I talked about...
“I Don’t Mean To Be Mean But…”
How is it possible that when we are not our best “therapeutic” self can lead to a good outcome? In the last post, Develop Good Taste, I talked about the benefits of listening to...
Obsession with Map Finding
We have an obsession with map finding. We think that if we search hard enough, we will correct the map that we have, and/or find the right map to rule them all. To see if this...
Empathy Series
Note: This is a compilation of Frontier Friday, a weekly Substack published, originally released on 28 Aug. 2021 PART I Here’s one of the “Daily Stories” that I’ve kept from 2019. ~~~ # 57. Communicating...
Outrospection
This originally appeared in the book, The First Kiss: Undoing the Intake Model and Igniting First Sessions in Psychotherapy, Chapter 19. “What is Your View of the Problem?” “Curiosity never killed the cat.” ~...
Circle of Development
Note: The original version of this article first appeared in Psychotherapy.net, June 2019. Today we are going to use the concept of Circle of Development (COD) to elaborate on how clinical supervisors can help...
The Domino Effect
A domino can knock over another domino about 1.5x larger than itself. A regular domino fall is a linear progression, whereas in a geometric profession, as described by physicist Lorne Whitehead “a very small...
9 Distinctions of Burn Out
Despite our sophisticated understanding of various psychological mechanisms that lead to stress, anxiety, and depression in our clients, we have a tendency to conflate the signal for the fire. The alarm bells tell us that something’s burning. Unless it’s a false alarm, the sirens aren’t the problem.
The experience of burnout is symptomatic of a compounded problem. What we need to gain clarity of is what cumulated to the emotional exhaustion.
Private Thoughts: Looking Back In Order to Move Forward (Part I of II)
I haven’t been able to hit publish for the past several weeks. I feel crippled by some intense glass walls. These walls seem to have voices that utter, “It’s not good enough,” “That’s nothing...
Follow the Spark
The paperback of the book, The First Kiss: Undoing the Intake Model and Igniting First Sessions in Psychotherapy is now available! The ebook from various retailers (Kindle, Apple, Kobo, etc.) with different reading formats is...
Recent Comments