What Do I Do Now? When We Feel Resentful, Bored, or Powerless in Session

Have you ever wondered “Now what do I do?” in session? Have you ever had a patient say “yes, but…” just when you thought you were making progress?

 

There are two important things we don’t learn enough about in our training:

• How patients really behave in session

• How we actually feel in session

 

And so more than we expect, we periodically find ourselves not knowing what to do in session—while feeling resentful, bored, confused, or powerless.

 

Rather than being surprised when this happens, we should expect it. These feelings are baked into psychotherapy and couples counseling—regardless of anyone’s clinical orientation. We’ll look at the architecture of the therapeutic relationship, which provides clues about what to do when we don’t know what to do.

 

We’ll discuss approaches that include wrestling with our own boundaries; having really clear therapeutic goals (which many patients will challenge); predicting that couples will gang up on us; and sharpening our skills at identifying, challenging, and reframing patients’ narratives.

 

Recorded live with almost 200 therapists, you’ll also enjoy the lively Q-&-A.