Showing Up for Your Clients
Curt and Katie chat about the importance of therapists in the therapeutic process. We look at how the medical model, upon which the continuing education and ethical guidelines are built, is flawed leading to solely client-facing training and rules. We talk about the importance of optimizing your practices as well as the negative clinical outcomes when you aren’t taking care of yourself.
It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.
In this episode we talk about:
The case for self-care as continuing education
The problem with looking at consumer protection bodies rather than the research
The goals of helping people and the problem with sacrificing ourselves in those efforts
How we protect consumers by taking care of ourselves
The importance of being strong clinicians, optimizing our performance
The problem with the medical model and framing ourselves as inconsequential to therapeutic outcomes
When we aim models or regulations around the minimally acceptable competence or performance
The benefit of seeing therapy as art versus as a science
How non-specific effects (therapist effects, client effects and effects of the therapeutic relationship) are more important than the specific treatment modality or adherence
Common factors and the Contextual Model
The requirement for a Bond for successful treatment
Pathways to change according to the Contextual Model: Real Relationship, Expectations, Specific Ingredients
How we practice at being better humans
Why we need to have more in our lives than being therapists
Showing up in resourced ways
Elements of burnout as specific predictors for clients having worse outcomes, dropping out, or not engaging actively in treatment
The importance of optimal performance in creating a therapeutic alliance
How we aren’t trained on optimal performance, focus, setting up our environment
The need to refocus our graduate programs to support the education that is needed to be a good therapist
How self-awareness can impact clinical work
The lack of humanity in the medical model and research based on it
Who we are makes a difference
The need to understand how to take care of ourselves and structure our practice
