Counselors

230 articles for this audience.

• Collecting haunts: the clients who never leave your mind
• Diagnosing your ex-husband in session
• Empathy fatigue: when compassion turns into disgust
• Faking empathy for an hour
• Giving up on a Borderline before the first session
• Grieving the ones who get better
• I liked her better before she healed
• I miss the clients who needed me too much
• Keeping them in treatment for the mortgage
• Lies that help more than truth
• Manipulating the spouse to leave
• My burnout looks like enlightenment
• My favorite pathological liar
• My favorite sociopath
• My inner supervisor is drunk
• My unspoken crushes in session
• Righteous cruelty in the name of growth
• Secretly enjoying someone's relapse
• Strategic gaslighting for a good cause
• Taking a client you know you can't help
• The addiction of hearing secrets
• The client who reminded me of my mother — and paid for it
• The client who taught me to manipulate better
• The confession that shouldn't have healed me
• The day I wanted to slap a client
• The dopamine hit of being needed
• The erotic thrill of ethical restraint
• The erotic transference you actually enjoyed
• The fear of being useless when clients actually heal
• The god complex you never lose
• The guilt of enjoying transference
• The love affair that almost happened
• The orgasm nobody names: saving someone
• The porn addicts I envy
• The power trip of being the safe one
• The secret joy of a client's divorce
• The seductive charm of damaged people
• The superiority that keeps us employed
• The therapeutic use of a well-timed insult
• Therapy for sociopaths who want to get better at it
• Transference is just attraction we legalized
• Unethical fantasies at professional dinners
• When holding space becomes emotional masturbation
• When silence becomes punishment
• When the couple is better off breaking up (but you need the fee)
• When therapy becomes kink with paperwork
• When your client becomes more interesting than your spouse
• Why CBT is for robots
• Why I don't send my kids to therapy
• Why the most ethical thing I ever did looked terrible on paper
• Adapting the Directive Approach for Executive Coaching
• Assessing Motivation: Who Wants Change and Who is Invested in the Status Quo
• Building Therapeutic Authority Without Being Authoritarian
• Delivering Directives Effectively in Telehealth Sessions
• Designing a Practice Case for Trainee Skill-Building
• Designing Between-Session Tasks for Remote Clients with No Therapist Oversight
• Designing Consequences That Actually Work for Oppositional Teens
• Designing Social Assignments for Isolated Anxious Clients
• Designing the Client's Personal Crisis Plan as a Final Directive
• Designing the Trauma Boundary Directive: Containing Intrusive Memories Strategically
• Disrupting the Depression Ritual: Identifying and Changing Daily Maintaining Patterns
• Evaluating Whether a Trainee is Ready to Work Without a Supervisor
• How to Adapt Directives for Collectivist Family Cultures
• How to Assess Whether a Case Needs Individual or Family-Level Intervention
• How to Assign Physical Tasks to Break a Depressive Episode
• How to Avoid Being Triangulated into the Family System
• How to Conduct a Strategic Follow-Up Session 3 Months After Termination
• How to Design a Competing Behavior Task for Habit Disruption
• How to Design a Directive for a Client Stuck in a Life Decision
• How to Design a Goodbye Ritual That Consolidates Therapeutic Gains
• How to Design a Strategic Intervention for Chronic Lateness and Time Blindness
• How to Get a Teenager to Talk in the First Session
• How to Give a Trainee Feedback That Actually Changes Their Behavior
• How to Intervene When One Partner Has Already Emotionally Left
• How to Involve Extended Family Networks in the Intervention Design
• How to Involve Parents Without Making the Teen Feel Ganged Up On
• How to Read Family Dynamics Through a Video Screen
• How to Recover When an Intervention Fails in the Room
• How to Respond When a Client Returns After Successful Termination
• How to Stop Pursuer-Distancer Patterns with a Single Directive
• How to Stop the Anxiety-Reassurance Loop in Couples and Families
• How to Supervise the Trainee Who is Too Nice to Give Directives
• How to Use a Trial Separation as a Therapeutic Directive
• How to Use Humor Without Undermining the Intervention
• How to Use Metaphor to Address Trauma Without Re-Traumatizing
• How to Use Paradox in Coaching for the Overachiever Who Can't Rest
• How to Use the Family System to Lift Depression Without Medication Discussion
• How to Use the Genogram Strategically Rather Than Historically
• How to Use the Group as a Hierarchy Intervention
• How to Use the Paradox of Control for OCD-Type Presentations
• How to Use Your Body Language to Shift Family Dynamics
• How to Work Through an Interpreter Without Losing Strategic Momentum
• How to Work with Adult Children Who Are Taking Over a Parent's Life
• How to Work with the Adolescent Who Has Become the Parent's Confidant
• Incorporating Traditional Healing Practices into the Strategic Framework
• Recognizing the Stage of Family Life Cycle That is Driving the Problem
• Spotting the Cross-Generational Coalition Before It Derails Therapy
• The Accountability Directive in Coaching: Making Goals Impossible to Ignore
• The Anger Regulation Directive: Designing a Sequence Interruption for Rage Episodes
• The Anti-Helplessness Directive: Assigning Mastery Tasks for Depressed Clients
• The Anxiety Hierarchy Directive: Building Courage Through Graduated Tasks
• The Art of the Therapeutic Compliment: Praising Strategically Not Generically
• The Behavioral Activation Directive: Getting the Depressed Client Moving
• The Deliberate Use of Silence in a Strategic Session
• The Emergency Stabilization Directive for Couples on the Brink
• The Future Focus Directive: Moving Trauma Clients from Past to Present Action
• The Gratitude Directive: Rebuilding Positive Sentiment with Hostile Couples
• The Grief Directive: Moving a Bereaved Client from Mourning to Meaning
• The Group Ordeal: Designing Shared Tasks That Build Accountability
• The Isolation Directive: Assigning Deliberate Solitude to the Enmeshed Client
• The Maintenance Directive: Assigning Ongoing Tasks After Therapy Ends
• The Neutral Expert vs. The Involved Strategist: Choosing Your Therapeutic Stance
• The Parallel Process: When the Supervision Mirrors the Therapy
• The Public Commitment Directive for Clients Who Can't Stop a Behavior
• The Response Delay Directive: Inserting a Gap Between Urge and Action
• The Safety Ritual Directive: Designing Grounding Tasks for Dysregulated Clients
• The School Refusal Case: A Step-by-Step Strategic Intervention Plan
• The Sequence Map for Workplace Conflict: A Coaching Tool
• The Strategic Intervention for Selective Mutism in Children
• The Strategic Use of Peer Pressure in Adolescent Directives
• The Strategic Use of Self-Disclosure in Brief Therapy
• The Strategic Use of Worst-Case Scenario Thinking as a Directive
• The Three Questions Every Strategic Therapist Asks Before Planning an Intervention
• Using Live Supervision: How to Send a Message to the Therapist Mid-Session
• Using Strategic Directives in Group Therapy Settings
• When the Problem IS the Solution: Recognizing Attempted Fixes That Backfire
• When the Teenager Refuses Therapy: Working Through the Parents Instead
• When to Push and When to Back Off: Calibrating Therapeutic Pressure
• Working with the Elderly Client Who Has Lost Their Primary Role
• Working with Traditional Gender Roles: Strategic Flexibility Without Imposing Values
• Adjusting the Ordeal When the Client Finds It Too Easy
• Crafting Ordeals for Procrastination: The Work Before Work Method
• Creating Ordeals for Couples: The Scheduled Fight Technique
• Defining Specific Behavioral Goals Instead of Broad Emotional Ones
• Designing a Penance for Infidelity to Restore Marital Balance
• Designing an Ordeal for Insomnia: The Middle of the Night Chore
• Designing Metaphoric Tasks for Clients Who Resist Direct Advice
• Designing Tasks that Require Parents to Agree Before Acting
• Disengaging the Over-Involved Parent from the Child's Schoolwork
• Disrupting Cross-Generational Coalitions Between Mother and Son
• Empowering the Peripheral Father: Specific Tasks to Increase Involvement
• Ending the First Session: How to Leave the Client Hooked for the Next Visit
• Establishing Rules for the Parentified Child to Return to Childhood
• Exaggerating the Symptom: Making the Unconscious Conscious and Voluntary
• Follow-Up Strategies: What to Do When the Client Forgets the Homework
• Framing the Ordeal as a Cure to Bypass Client Defensiveness
• Gathering Information Through Action: Asking the Family to Enact the Problem
• How to Agree with the Client's Resistance to Neutralize It
• How to Amplify a Marital Quarrel to Break the Conflict Cycle
• How to Block a Grandparent's Interference in Parenting Decisions
• How to Block Mind Reading During Couples Mediation
• How to Ensure the Ordeal is Actually Worse Than the Symptom
• How to Frame a Directive So the Client Actually Does It
• How to Give a Directive Through a Third Party: The Message Technique
• How to Handle the Client Who Brings a Crisis of the Week
• How to Handle the Client Who Refuses to Speak in the First Session
• How to Handle the Spokesperson Child in the First Family Interview
• How to Handle the Threat of Divorce Used as a Weapon
• How to Identify the Hidden Function of Any Symptom
• How to Manage the Intellectualizing Client Who Won't Take Action
• How to Prescribe Silence When Couples Talk Too Much
• How to Prescribe the Symptom Without Sounding Sarcastic
• How to Shift the Family's Focus Away from the Identified Patient
• How to Stop Parents from Using the Child to Communicate with Each Other
• How to Use Awkward Social Tasks as an Ordeal for Anxiety
• How to Use Mind-Numbing Tasks to Eliminate Obsessive Thoughts
• How to Use Paradox to Deal with the Yes But Client
• How to Use Paradox with Rebellious Adolescents
• How to Use the Devil's Pact to Secure Commitment Before Revealing the Task
• How to Utilize a Client's Anger Toward the Therapist
• Intervening in Sibling Rivalry by Putting the Older Child in Charge
• Knowing When NOT to Use Paradox: Identifying High-Risk Clients
• Mapping the Sequence: How the Family Solves and Fails to Solve Problems
• Paradox in Mediation: Highlighting the Benefits of Staying Deadlocked
• Pinning Down the Vague Client: Moving from Complaints to Solvable Problems
• Predicting Failure: How to Use Pessimism to Provoke Client Action
• Prescribing the Worry: Setting a Daily Worry Hour for Anxious Clients
• Reading the Room: How to Assess Family Hierarchy in the First 10 Minutes
• Realigning Power in Blended Families: Integrating the Step-Parent
• Reframing Jealousy as Protective Caring: A Strategic Shift
• Relabeling Stubbornness as Fierce Independence
• Restraining Change: Telling the Client They Aren't Ready to Improve
• Reversing Roles: Having the Bad Twin Play the Good Twin
• Setting the Contract: How to Negotiate the Rules of Therapy
• Shifting from Facts to Metaphor: Working with Literal-Minded Clients
• Splitting the Therapy Team to Foster Client Autonomy
• Step-by-Step: Constructing a Penance Directive for Guilt-Ridden Clients
• Stopping the Blame Game: Shifting Focus from the Past to the Present Sequence
• Strategic Mediation: Forcing the Couple to Argue Over a Trivial Object
• Taking the Blame: Apologizing to Increase Client Cooperation
• The 4 Stages of the Strategic First Interview: A Practical Guide
• The Art of the Absurd Directive in Breaking Rigid Family Rules
• The Be More Depressed Paradox for Treatment-Resistant Clients
• The Benevolent Ordeal: Assigning Good Deeds to Disrupt Bad Behavior
• The Confusion Technique: Speaking Ambiguously to Disrupt Rigid Thinking
• The Courtship Task: Forcing a Distressed Couple to Date Again
• The Do Nothing Directive: When and How to Tell Clients to Wait
• The Donation Ordeal: Using Financial Stakes to Stop Destructive Habits
• The Encouraging the Relapse Technique for Post-Therapy Anxiety
• The Exercise Ordeal: Linking Physical Exertion to Unwanted Habits
• The Go Slow Intervention: Warning Clients Against Changing Too Fast
• The Illusion of Alternatives: Giving Choices That Lead to the Same Goal
• The Incompetent Parent Stance: Forcing the Teenager to Take Responsibility
• The Leaving Home Strategy: Pushing the 20-Something Out of the Nest
• The Listening Only Task for Defensive Partners
• The No Sex Directive: Taking the Pressure off Intimacy Problems
• The Odd Days Even Days Rule for Managing High-Conflict Couples
• The One-Down Position: Playing Dumb to Elicit Client Competence
• The Parental Executive Meeting: How to Realign Divided Parents
• The Pretend Technique: Asking Clients to Fake Their Symptom
• The Public Speaking Ordeal for Social Phobias
• The Secret Mission Technique to Build Solidarity Between Spouses
• The Sequence Map: Tracking the Six Steps Before and After a Symptom
• The Social Stage: Why Small Talk is Crucial to Strategic Assessment
• The Symptom Scheduling Technique for Somatic Complaints
• The Therapeutic Double Bind: Creating a Win-Win Catch-22
• The Veto Power Technique for Gridlocked Financial Decisions
• The Waking Up Early Ordeal for Depressive Ruminations
• Timing Your Interventions: When to Deliver the Task During the Session
• Treating an Individual's Problem as a Marital Metaphor
• Troubleshooting Ordeals: What to Do When the Client Refuses the Task
• Turning the Client's Critical Language into a Therapeutic Asset
• Unbalancing a Couple: How and When to Strategically Take Sides
• Using Ordeals with Teenagers: Enlisting Parents as the Enforcers
• Using Small Step Directives to Build Momentum in Depressed Clients
• Using the Client's Spiritual Beliefs in the Design of an Intervention
• Using the Partner as Co-Therapist for the Other Partner's Symptom
• Utilization: Using the Client's Hobbies as the Vehicle for Change
• Utilizing Client Symptoms to Protect Another Family Member
• Writing Strategic Letters: A Tool for Long-Distance Interventions