Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development Podcast by Daryl Chow, Ph.D.

Today’s episode is dedicated to two readers of Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD): Austin Sparks and Ash Burton.I answer both Austin’s and Ash’s question on working with more than just the individual youth in therapy. I address the challenge and merits, along with six guiding principles, and six strategies that I take. Guiding Principles1. Give Voice to the Voice-less2. Listening to Each Other into Speech3. Being a With-ness to Each Other4. We are a Community of Internalised Others5. When We Love, We Love PoorlyStrategies 1. Structure is “Where are we? were are we going? and why?2. Mixing Individual and Conjoint Sessions 3. Allow Contradictory Perspectives4. Express the Unspokens5. How Healthy is the Family?6. Practice of forgivenessSHOWNOTES: 1. 10 Years of Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD). Frontiers Friday #189 2. Listening Into Speech: Will Say, Won’t Say, Can’t Say.Quotes: Understanding is love’s other name. If you don’t understand, you can’t love. — Thich Nhat Hanh, in How to Love. Forgiveness is the name of love practice among people who love poorly. The hard truth is that all people love poorly.— Henri Nouwen.--- Subscribe to Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD). The aim is to help you grow at your bleeding edge of personal and professional development. Frontiers Friday is released newsletter. Plus you get to access 10 years of the archive at no cost. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

This is about the Difficult Conversations in Therapy (DCT) study that has just recently been released.I talked about1. Main findings2. Surprising findings3. Uniqueness4. The Evolution of the DCT Study5. What I’ve learned from the DCT Project.Main Study: https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1037%25252Ftep0000493/readerSee https://darylchow.substack.com/p/ff207 for shownotes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

A talk recorded at the Association of Counselling Psychologist (ACP) Conference, Oct 2024. Taking aim at doing the right thing, and not just doing things right. Watch the video version to make sense of the references made in this talk: https://youtu.be/Pa-cv9V3_ZM?si=FTSstO9Ex8g-WLgr CHAPTERS: - Intro: (0:00) - Performing vs. Learning (4:20) -Concept Creep ((10:40) - What is Deliberate Practice(11:39) - Profile of Highly Effective Therapists aka Supershrinks (15:45) The Seven Mistakes: 1. DP is Not Clinical Practice (22:55) 2. DP is Not Model Specific (25:36) 3. DP is Not Reflective Practice (32:48) 4. DP is Not Purposeful Practice (36:25) 5. DP is Not About You (38:04) 6. DP Needs Guidance (41:39) 7. DP Should Not Be Mandated (41:13) Closing: My Three Wishes for You (46:49) --- 🎁 Would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations to nourish your professional development each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: 🎯 https://darylchow.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

An antidote to dogma.See this Substack post for more:https://darylchow.substack.com/p/ff205 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

Here’s the video version: https://youtu.be/wcU7ch-MFW0 This is a Q&A video and podcast series based on a question from a therapist in Glasgow, Scotland.I hope this email finds you well.I'm not sure whether this will get to you, but wanted to reach out as I have been feeling in a bit of a crisis with my practice as psychotherapist. And have been reading your book 'First Kiss'To put it bluntly - there is too much choice! I am constantly distracted and preoccupied by the great myriad of trainings, books,  models, etc. And find myself paralysed at times on what to actually do with people. I want to help and be the best I can.I have been excited and intrigued by your writings, and the writing of Dr. Scott Miller as well, and I appreciate that there are factors more important than the therapeutic school/model, but it still leaves me anxious about what do I actually subscribe to in a session, as I can't just do anything/everything, I still need to present a coherent narrative to my clients, and link that to the work we do together. Even integrative or transdiagnostic models (like PBT or Multimodal Therapy) feel overwhelming.And when I look at Deliberate Practice, it seems great, but doesn't answer my overall questions.I wonder, should i just pick a good, well-fitting for me, model, and then work at practicing the best version of that i can? Or whether I am missing something entirely?So I wanted to write in case there was anything you could point me in the direction of reading or doing that could help.Warmest regardsPeterTimestamp:00:00 Intro00:07 Email from a therapist in Scotland03:14 Step 1: What is your belief about how healing takes place?04:31 Step 2: Identify 2-3 approaches that resonnates with you. 06:34 Step 3: Your History of Change07:34 Step 4: Your Clinical History with Clients08:51 Step 5: Develop Your Own Blueprint of How You Conduct Therapy Sessions10:43 Step 6: Capture Weekly Therapy Learnings (WTL)12:29 Step 7: Retrieval Practice13:50 Our Misunderstandings of What "Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)" is.15:24 Invitation to Pose Your QuestionsFor previous podcast episodes, click here.Submission of QuestionsQuestions have the power to bring us together, as questions put us on a quest.I would love to hear from you if you would like your questions to be answered in detail. Drop a comment below or email me at info@darylchow.comThanks for reading Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Warm Welcome to New Folks on Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD)If you are new here, I just want to say a big hello to you and would love to hear from you. Tell me a bit about you and where you are from. Drop me an email info@darylchow.comClick here to see more resources about Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development and Frontiers Friday.Daryl Chow Ph.D. is the author of The First Kiss, co-author of Better Results, and The Write to Recovery, Creating Impact, and the new book The Field Guide to Better Results . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

Frontiers Radio podcast is back! Here’s the video version:This is a Q&A video based on a question from a therapist in Montreal: "When Do You Get Time to Read?" I just wanted to say once again that I really appreciate your newsletter. I look forward to reading it every week. This week, I especially liked the comment on the importance of giving more attention to the conversational nature of psychotherapy in our training. I also liked the quote at the end, "It takes two to know one", which made me appreciate the importance of supervision and co-development groups to understand our clients better. I wanted to ask you a more personal question. When do you take time to read? I am asking this because there are so many interesting articles and books that are on my reading list but somehow I barely manage to make the time to read. I have a 2 year-old boy so that makes it a bit trickier too, but you and other therapists have children too.Thank you for your work, it's inspiring. Admittedly, if you look at the timestamp below, my response stretches a little further than the original question. Timestamp: 00:00 When Do You Get Time to Read? 01:13 The Daily Practical 02:06 Thinking is a monologue; reading is a dialogue 03:32 What Not to Do 05:01 Taking care of our intentions 05:57 Reading strategy 08:08 The 4 Tenets of becoming a Deep Learner 09:41 Developing a Personalised Learning System (PLS) 10:55 The Ignorant Section 11:45 What to Read 14:08 What Format to Read On 16:57 Periods of "No inputs from other minds" 17:33 Summary 18:28 Invitation to your questionsFor previous podcast episodes, click here.Submission of QuestionsQuestions have the power to bring us together, as questions put us on a quest.I would love to hear from you if you would like your questions to be answered in detail. Drop a comment below or email me at info@darylchow.com Thanks for reading Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.Warm Welcome to New Folks on Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD)If you are new here, I just want to say a big hello to you and would love to hear from you. Tell me a bit about you and where you are from. Drop me an email info@darylchow.comClick here to see more resources about Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development and Frontiers Friday.Daryl Chow Ph.D. is the author of The First Kiss, co-author of Better Results, and The Write to Recovery, Creating Impact, and the new book The Field Guide to Better Results . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

n this week's tip, I'd talk about how we can specifically listen for changes between sessions, and why measuring a person's wellbeing matters more than a symptom-specific measure. If you have missed the previous videos on how to improve working alliance and being outcome informed, here are links: Seek to be Disconfirmed The Devil is the Details Between Sessions How to Use Measures Less Like an Assessment Tool... Time Stamps: 00:00: Introduction 00:47: Listening for Differences Between Sessions 01:02: Limits of Symptom-Specific Measures 02:53: Paying Attention to Changes Outside of Therapy Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. Related Links: Melissa Bond's research on the limitations of the DASS measure and why it was not designed to be used as a routine outcome measure. Podcast episode on The Dyson Vacuum Cleaner and Making Progress Visible   --- 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. https://darylchowcourses.teachable.com/p/deeplearner/ - -- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked handpicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: 🎯 https://darylchow.substack.com Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760832_frontiers-friday-101-sensitivity-part-i- 2. On Emotions: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760804_frontiers-friday-95-emotions-part-i- 3. On Deliberate Practice: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760599_frontiers-friday-51-deliberate-practice-part-v-    This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

In this week's Therapy Tip of the Week #7 (TTW), we talk about how to use outcome monitoring tools, not as an assessment tool, but as a conversational tool. If you have missed the previous videos on how to improve working alliance, here are links: 1. Seek to be Dis-confirmed 2. The Devil is the Details Between Sessions  3. How to Elicit Nuanced Feedback  ⏳ Time Stamps: 00:00: Introduction 00:40: Not Just an Assessment Tool 01:08: Why Measure at Each Session 02:44: A Clinical Example of Conflicting Ratings ➡ Sidenote: There are backfire effects if we use measures purely as an assessment tool. See this: The Tyranny of Metrics. Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. --- 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. https://darylchowcourses.teachable.com/p/deeplearner/ - -- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked handpicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: 🎯 https://darylchow.substack.com Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760832_frontiers-friday-101-sensitivity-part-i- 2. On Emotions: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760804_frontiers-friday-95-emotions-part-i- 3. On Deliberate Practice: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760599_frontiers-friday-51-deliberate-practice-part-v-  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

In Therapy Tip of the Week #6, we continue on the topic of improving working alliance. Here's my recommendation, when seeking for feedback, avoid talking about... you! If you have missed the previous videos on how to improve working alliance, here are links: ⏳ Time Stamps: 00:00: Introduction 01:00: Using Depersonalised language 01:42: What Feedback is Not 02:02: Feedback to Feed-Forward 04:14: Summary Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. 📕 Related Link: Capturing Weekly Therapy Learnings How Do You Get Better At Eliciting Feedback? How Do You Get Better at Receiving Feedback? 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. https://darylchowcourses.teachable.com/p/deeplearner/ --- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter:   🎯https://darylchow.substack.com Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760832_frontiers-friday-101-sensitivity-part-i- 2. On Emotions: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760804_frontiers-friday-95-emotions-part-i- 3. On Deliberate Practice: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760599_frontiers-friday-51-deliberate-practice-part-v-             This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

"Every impactful person brings to you themselves and not needing to proof ‘how impactful I am’, ‘how smart I am’, and ‘how needed I am.’" ~ Sr Joan Chittister. If the therapy room is a vessel, it needs a scaffold in order for you to create a healing environment so as to help the person who is in distress. But how do you structure a therapeutic session so that it is impactful for your client and not get caught up with trying to be “impactful…smart…needed”? I want to help you solve this particular issue: How to develop a sense of structure in how you conduct therapy sessions. Shownotes:  1. To read this article, go to https://darylchow.substack.com  2. Charles Eisenstein (see his Substack newsletter and his books, Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World That Our Hearts Know). 3. Cultures of Healing by Robert Fancher 4. To Sign up to Structure and Impact, click here.  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

Dissonance can be a powerful ingredient for learning. How do we challenge our intuition in order to listen to our client's unspokens in order to foster a deeper connection with them? In this video, I recommend an exercise that I use called the "Rate and Predict," to help me open up the conversation in therapy. ⏳ Time Stamps: 00:00 Introduction 00:25: What is the Rate and Predict Exercise? 01:25: Seeking to be Disconfirmed 02:30: A Clinical Example Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. 📕 Related Link: 1. https://darylchow.com/frontiers/the-tension-of-opposites-clinical-intuition-vs-clinical-data-part-2-of-2/  --- 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. https://darylchowcourses.teachable.com/p/deeplearner/  --- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: https://darylchow.substack.com Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760832_frontiers-friday-101-sensitivity-part-i-   2. On Emotions: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760804_frontiers-friday-95-emotions-part-i-   3. On Deliberate Practice: https://darylchow.substack.com/p/4760599_frontiers-friday-51-deliberate-practice-part-v-  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

In this week's therapy tip of the week, we are going to talk about the subject that you as a psychotherapist would be more than familiar with–except that it's not what you expect. ⏳ Time Stamps: 00:00 Introduction 01:08 Three Parts of Working Alliance 01:53 Perspective Taking vs. Perspective Getting 03:14 Highly Effective Therapists and Lower Initial Working Alliance Ratings 03:43 Tip: Compare and Contrast Between Sessions Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. 📕 Resources/ Related Links: 1. https://darylchow.com/frontiers/altered/  2. https://darylchow.com/frontiers/solvingforpatterns/ --- 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course.  --- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: https://darylchow.substack.com  Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons:  2. On Emotions:  3. On Deliberate Practice:  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

As psychotherapists, it's easy to get lost in our heads. Our pet theories end up dominating and preventing us from being in touch with the person in front of us. In this Therapy Tip of the Week, I'd talk about how psychotherapists can employ principles of embodied cognition—the idea of embodiment as a way of thinking—to help you deepen your empathic understanding of your clients, especially in stuck situations. ⏳ Time Stamps: 1. Intro (00:00) 2. What is embodied cognition? A clinical example (00:42) 3. Personal story (04:59) 4. Related resources on embodied cognition (06:31) Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. 📕 Resources: 1. Focusing by Eugene Gendlin: focusing.org 2. The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul --- 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. https://darylchowcourses.teachable.com/p/deeplearner/ --- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: https://darylchow.substack.com  Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons: https://mailchi.mp/darylchow/101frontiersfriday   2. On Emotions: https://mailchi.mp/darylchow/95frontiersfriday   3. On Deliberate Practice: https://mailchi.mp/darylchow/51frontiersfriday  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

Understanding the current season you are in helps you figure out where you are at, in order to know where you need to go. Appreciating the seasonality of your inner and outer life provides you a navigational guide as to where you need to nurture your nature. In this video, I provide a way to open a conversational doorway about this with your client, so as to provide focus and directionality of the therapeutic endeavour. ⏳ Time Stamps: 1. Intro (00:00) 2. What to ask your clients (00:59) 3. The Season Points to the Needs (02:07) 4. A Clinical Example (02:32) Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. 📕 Resources: 1. The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe 2. Wintering by Catherine May --- 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinical effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. ---  --- 🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter: https://darylchow.substack.com   Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons: https://mailchi.mp/darylchow/101frontiersfriday 2. On Emotions: https://mailchi.mp/darylchow/95frontiersfriday 3. On Deliberate Practice: https://mailchi.mp/darylchow/51frontiersfriday  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com

In this series on Therapy Tip of the Week, we'll provide psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists one practical tip in each episode. My idea of giving you this is not so much as to prescribe to you what you should be doing, but to describe possibilities, to give you ideas that can inspire you to create your own ideas in the practice of psychotherapy. My hopes of doing this is that it may widen the palette of possibilities to allow you to see a wide array of different things that you could do that is not restricted by particular theoretical models, but tapping into various schools of therapy that can help you in a synergistic and integrative way. By exploring these various tips of the week, I hope that you get to think about how to construct first principles that will guide you in your work as well. In this episode, I talk about one idea relating to William Glasser's 5 Basic Needs: 1. Survival 2. Love and Belonging 3. Autonomy 4. Freedom 5. Fun For the video version, go to https://youtu.be/1v1XxBGFdUc  ⏳ Time Stamps: 1. Intro (00:00) 2. Capturing Your Weekly Therapy Learnings (01:29) 3. 5 Basic Needs (02:18) i. Survival (03:27) ii. Love and Belonging (3:49) iii. Autonomy (04:20) iv. Freedom (04:34) v. Fun (04:57) 4. A Clinical Example ✍️ Shownotes: 1. darylchow.com/frontiers/weeklytherapylearnings 2. William Glasser Reality Therapy / Choice Theory 3. Check out the Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development website: darylchow.com/frontiers 4. Note: Any personally identifiable information in clinical examples used are changed, in order to protect their confidentiality and privacy. 📜 Becoming a Deep Learner: If you value lifelong learning and want to leverage this into your clinicial effectiveness as a mental health professional, check out The Deep Learner course. https://darylchowcourses.teachable.com/p/deeplearner/  🎁 Finally, would like to receive 5 wicked recommendations each Friday? Subscribe to our Frontiers Friday newsletter Here's a sample of past FF newsletters: 1. On Highly Sensitive Persons 2. On Emotions 3. On Deliberate Practice This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit darylchow.substack.com