Psychology Today asked me to write a brief intro to some pieces by other writers, about how therapists are emotionally affected by our patients

Here’s the piece with my off-the-cuff thoughts
psychologytoday.com/us/articles/20…

CBT and cognitivist models of psychotherapeutic change overvalue critical thinking and undervalue the following:

-creativity in adaptating
-expressing feeling
-capacity to symbolize
-healthy emotional dependence/reliance/connection

When the latest acronym repackages an idea that has been around for 80 years.

This is a fascinating example of the application of psychoanalytic thought outside clinical practice.

Pretty solid list. There's too many stories about yellow and red flags out there. Good therapy can be hard to find.

Seems about right. So many people talk about 'going to therapy' as if it's all one thing. Psychotherapy differs wildly in it's quality, methods, and goals, based on who you work with (which, sadly, is most often based on an uneducated recommendation from a primary care doctor).

A.I. therapy is just A.I.
It is not therapy.

rekram Venting is a part of therapy actually

These are the people cashing in on people's suffering under the guise of AI progress. Calling something 'therapy' knowing full well it's not. Preying on people who can't afford therapy while their Twitter profile is a shrine to the money they've make with these tools.

“Psychoanalysis is a conversation that enables people to understand what stops them having the kinds of conversation they want'
—Adam Phillips

❤️ And this is why we need more therapies of depth, insight, and relationship. We don't get to know someone deeply by 'saying the right thing.'

Friends don't let friends use BetterHelp

This is where therapies of depth, insight, and relationship shine.

Louis Cozolino on the 'grab bag' approach to psychotherapy:
'[Students are] getting taught how to do programmatic interventions…As far I can tell, it’s just a different way to sell books. It's not anything new...

Psychotherapy is an uncertain business and all the acronyms in the world won’t change that.

Be as supportive as you can be, so that you can be as expressive or as exploratory as you will need to be…A warmly supportive stance towards the patient is the best facilitator of his capacity to explore previously warded-off thoughts, feelings, and wishes.
- Paul Wachtel

In real (inflation-adjusted) dollars, health insurance companies pay psychologists ~75% less today than in 1980. No other healthcare profession has seen this decline

Of course people cannot access quality psychotherapy

Any psychotherapist worth their salt has had their own deep, meaningful psychotherapy. And will probably continue to return throughout many stages of life.

One’s ability to invite someone into painful spaces is proportional to their experiential conviction that they can join them there.

They have been to similar lived depths within themselves, with another.