Challenging Cases & Treatment Populations

The Hidden Trauma of Childhood Neglect

What to Make of Too Much of Nothing

The way neglect can shape a child’s brain is often misunderstood. Read more

The Amazon Package in Your Waiting Room

Unboxing Anger as a Path to Vulnerability

A client’s anger over his therapist’s environmental choices leads to an important turning point in their work. Read more

3 Tips for Working with Hard-to-Reach Clients

Matching Your Clinical Style with Your Client’s Needs

Are you matching your self-presentation and efforts with your clients' emotional capacity to respond? Read more

"I've Got Nothing to Talk About"

How to Work with Tight-Lipped Clients

What do you do when your client comes to session with nothing to say? Longtime experts in the field offer how to get the conversation going. Read more

The Client No One Wants to Treat

What Happens When We Shun Pedophiles in Our Practices

Advocates are calling on more therapists to consider how they can help people whose inclinations toward minors most of us find abhorrent. Read more

Terry Real on Achieving Breakthrough Results with Difficult Men

Transforming Behaviors by Facing Narcissists, Bullies, and Avoidants Head On

Learn how to work with narcissists, bullies, avoidants and other difficult male clients with leading expert Terry Real. Read more

Covert Narcissism Unmasked

What Are We Really Treating?

A covert narcissist’s eagerness to share their suffering can make them feel like ideal clients. And that’s what’s so vexing for clinicians. Read more

Are You A Conflict-Avoidant Therapist?

Harnessing Antagonism in the Therapy Room

For therapists who shy away from confrontation, harnessing their reactions to an antagonistic client in clinically useful ways may require learning new skills... Read more

Harry Ayling

A therapist must abandon his treatment plan to provide mental health services to the homeless population. Read more

When Medication Gets in the Way

Listening, Collaborating, and Helping Clients “Choose Their Own Adventure”

"One of my clients takes prescription medication for anxiety and often complains about the negative side effects. I can’t help but feel it’s getting in the... Read more

How Do I Make Therapy Stick?

Creating a Vision, Building Momentum Between Sessions, and More

Sure, your clients may find therapy helpful. But do they find it memorable? How can we get clients to retain all the wonderful information they learn in... Read more

Therapy for People Living with Dementia

Creating Possibilities for Clients and Their Families

With an estimated 6.2 million Americans in need of mental health support tailored to the challenges of dementia, why are so few therapists working with them? Read more

A Feeling of Fullness

Reflections on Therapy with Kids in Foster Care

With plenty of misconceptions about treating traumatized children, one clinician shares why it's a chance to help them share their stories and a personal... Read more

The Narcissistic Client

Four Ways to Break Through

Whether it's vanity, a failure to take constructive criticism, mistreating family and friends, or lacking empathy for others, clients with narcissistic traits... Read more

Three Myths About Domestic Violence

…And How Social Media is Changing the Way Clients Think About It

Before talking to your own clients about domestic and intimate partner violence, here are three myths you should know about. Read more

Confessions of a Psychological First Responder

A Different Approach to the Healing Craft

A therapist who also provides psychological first aid after critical incidents opens up about his work and shares why it's been the most challenging—and... Read more

Ron Taffel talks with Angela Diaz, Director of the Mount Sinai Adolescent Center, on how we can tailor our interventions to meet the unique needs of our young... Read more

Is There Meaning in Loss?

Helping Our Clients and Ourselves Navigate Grief Work

Many grief specialists talk about helping clients finding meaning after loss. But often, loss feels meaningless. One therapist working with grieving clients... Read more

My Biggest Challenge as a Therapist

The Hardest Things About Practice

Therapy is hard work. But what are therapy’s biggest challenges, and how do therapists overcome them? Here, five therapists share the clinical challenge that... Read more

The Love Magician

A Therapist Lays Down Her Wand

There’s magic in therapy—all types—the most astonishing of which only happens when you stop trying to put on a flawless show. Read more

Activism and Mental Health

A Conversation with Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren

Networker Content Editor Meaghan Winter sat down for a live conversation with Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren, pioneer of America's first mental health court and... Read more

Surrogate Partner Therapy

Crossing Lines or Expanding Boundaries?

The debate around surrogate partner therapy. Read more

Community Wisdom

Walking in Balance with Indigenous Cultures

Nan LittleWalker never formally signed up to be one of my teachers. In fact, I first met her as one of my colleague’s patients. Several years ago, during my... Read more

Editor's Note - May/June 2021

Taking Therapy to New Places

What are therapists doing to expand access to those too often shut out of the mental health system? Read more

The Outcast

A Hard Road to an Unexpected Connection

How do you work with a client who intentionally tries to break every rule of therapy, spoken and implicit? Read more

My Angry Client is Getting to Me

Five Clinicians Weigh In
Psychotherapy Networker

Mark has anger issues, and his therapist finds herself getting extremely reactive when he loses his temper in therapy. Recently, he called her “a joke” and... Read more

Stealthy Change, Healthy Change

Three Ways to Practice Presence

During my internship after graduate school, I worked as therapist at an intensive out-patient eating disorder (ED) clinic. One of the patients, Amber, was a... Read more

My Nightmare Client, My Greatest Gift

Sometimes Our "Worst" Clients Are Our Best Teachers

My young client, Brian, can reduce even confident mid-life adults to an infantile puddle, one provocative comment at a time. He's a therapist's nightmare... Read more

Psychotherapy Networker

A client sees his perfectionism as an advantage, even though it ramps up his anxiety, exacerbates his sense of shame, and keeps him living a very rigid life... Read more

VIDEO: Handling Microaggressions in Therapy

An Eight-Step Process for Talking About It With Your Clients

Let's say your client lets a microaggression slip during a session. Do you bring it up? Therapist and author Anatasia Kim shares her eight-step process for... Read more