The “good therapist” isn't necessarily the type of therapist you want to be.
It's not the most actualized version of you as a therapist. It's not even necessarily a particularly effective therapist.
The good therapist is about being seen as good and about being able to reassure ourselves that we are good when maybe we don't feel so sure.
Maybe we bump up against the specter of the good therapist when we have difficult clients and we genuinely feel at a loss for what to do.
Maybe it's when we have something heavy going on in our personal lives and find our minds repeatedly drifting away from a client in session and back to our own problem of the week, because a good therapist wouldn't do that.
Maybe the good therapist peeks through the office window judging us when we go against established norms, like when we use self-disclosure more than other therapists might think we should, or talk more in session than we think we're supposed to, or whatever else gives us the sense that we're stepping outside of bounds.
And the specter of the good therapist has definitely been much more activated for almost all of us during the past two years of the pandemic.
The pandemic has made the gap between who we believe we should be as therapists and who we actually are much, much harder to bridge.
Listen to the full episode to hear:
Learn more about Riva Stoudt:
Ep 3.3 - Unraveling Popular Ideas: Challenging Neuroscientific Narratives in Therapy with Kristen Martin
Ep 3.2 - Finding Our Place in the Lineage of Therapeutic Practice
Ep 3.1 - Between Mysticism and Modernity: Reclaiming the Jewishness of Therapy with hannah baer
Introducing The Kiln: Revolutionizing The Therapy Training Landscape
EP 2.12: 10 Things I Have Learned in 10 Years as a Therapist – Part 2
EP 2.11 - 10 Things I Have Learned in 10 Years as a Therapist – Part 1
EP 2.10 - Client Relationships in the Trenches: The Role of Self-Validated Intimacy
EP 2.9 - Immediacy in Therapy: Breaking the Fourth Wall with Dr. K Hixson
EP 2.8 - Paradox, Love, and the Therapeutic Journey
EP 2.7 - Let's Talk About Sex: A Humane Approach to Sexual Boundary Violations with Dr. Andrea Celenza
EP 2.6: The Vulnerability of the Therapist as Client
EP 2.5: Behind the Scenes: When Therapists Become Clients with Dr. Elena Herrera
EP 2.4: What Happens When Our Clients Encounter Our Humanity?
EP 2.3: Normalizing Vulnerability: The Power of Authenticity in Client Relationships with Onyx Fujii and Asher Pandjiris
EP 2.2 Deep Play: Exploring the Therapeutic Playground
EP 2.1: Balancing Goals and Healing in Therapy: Navigating the Tension with Silvana Espinoza Lau
Ep 18 - Therapists as Makers of Culture
Ep 17 - The Intimacy and Aliveness of Clinical Supervision with K Hixson
Ep 16 - Marketing With Integrity
Ep 15 - Is Ethical Marketing Possible? with Rachael Kay Albers
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