Why It’s Hard for Therapists to Be Friends: Understanding Boundaries, Identity, and Reciprocity

Curt and Katie chat about the complexities of friendships for therapists, especially those with non-therapists. They explore how therapeutic identity, emotional labor, and confidentiality boundaries can impact how therapists show up in their personal relationships. From being “the wise listener” to overidentifying with clients’ needs in friendships, Curt and Katie dig into how to foster more reciprocal, sustainable connections.

(Show notes provided in collaboration with Otter.ai and ChatGPT.)

In this podcast episode: Why Therapists Struggle with Friendship Outside of Work

Curt and Katie explore the topic of friendship for therapists, diving into the hidden pressures of emotional labor, the identity of caretaking, and how being trained to prioritize others can create imbalance in personal relationships. They reflect on their own friendship and give practical insights into building reciprocal relationships that nurture both parties.

Key Takeaways for Therapists Navigating Boundaries, Burnout, and Friendships

“There’s a pressure at certain points to be an expert in how people are thinking and feeling… so I find myself doing a lot of disclaimers.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT

• Therapists may default to over-functioning or caretaking in friendships due to professional conditioning and personal history (e.g., sacrificial helping or parentified childhood roles).
• Emotional labor during the workday can leave therapists with little capacity for social interaction after hours.
• Confidentiality and identity boundaries make it hard for therapists to share about their days or be fully present in social conversations.
• Non-therapist friends may expect therapists to hold space or provide insight without reciprocating emotional support.
• Friendships with other therapists can quickly become “deep” or remain filtered through professional roles and assessment.
• Reciprocal friendships require intentional communication, boundary-setting, and clarity around needs—not assumptions.
• Therapists often feel responsible for managing others’ emotional needs and may delay or avoid setting necessary boundaries, especially in draining friendships.
• Prioritizing friendships that are mutual, supportive, and respectful of the therapist’s full humanity is key to sustainable connection.

“When I’ve taken some space for myself and see who continues to check in—that’s how I know which relationships to feed.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Resources on Friendship, Boundaries, and Therapist Identity

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

• Katie Vernoy’s Website
• Curt Widhalm’s Website
  
• Other referenced content linked at mtsgpodcast.com
  

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:

• Partners of Therapists
• Self-Care, Self-Compassion, and Self-Awareness for Therapists
• Choosing Yourself as a Therapist: Strategies to address burnout, compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma – An Interview with Laura Reagan, LCSW-C
• Structuring Self-Care
• REPLAY – Structuring Self-Care

Agency Work and Burnout

• The Burnout System
• Addressing the Burnout System
  

Meet the Hosts: Curt Widhalm & Katie Vernoy

Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

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Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:

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Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/

Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).

… 0:00
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Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:12
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that go on in our practices, the things that go on in our lives, the territory that comes with being a therapist. And there was a recent post in the therapist subreddit about just being outside of the work that we do, and about having friendships, and especially some of those friendships that might end up weighing down a little bit more on us, the the friends who bring a lot of just extra work and talking about their lives. And Katie and I were talking about this a little bit as far as we should do an episode on, hey, what are, what makes therapist friendships? We’re not talking about being friends with clients in this episode. That’s maybe a different episode at this point, that’s four seconds long, that says, Don’t do it. But really, in the nature of being a therapist, and what it is to have truly healthy relationships with friends, potentially even family members. But we’re going to lean more into the friends part during this episode. How our just very nature of being therapists might impact just the way that we show up, some of the obstacles that can come up, as well as maybe some advice on how to have some healthy friendships. So Katie, let’s, let’s talk about friends. What are some of the difficulties that you see in making friends or keeping relationships going as therapists outside of what are some of the difficulties?

Katie Vernoy 2:05
This is actually a topic that I think I’ve talked about a lot before we started working together pretty extensively, although I think we did cover some of it in the podcast, and I’ll link to some, you know, relevant episodes over at mtsgpodcast.com, but I kind of called it sacrificial helping syndrome. I think that’s an element of it. As therapists, or to become therapists, let me be more accurate with that, when we become therapists, oftentimes we become therapists because we’ve been the parentified child, or we’ve had our role be as helper, and then we reinforce that with being super empathic, having one sided relationships where we care for our clients, we set these really firm boundaries to create safety for the client and for ourself, but also for the client, and we are kind of relied upon to have superhuman coping skills so that we can have reparative, healing, communication, interactions, relationships with our clients. And so we move into this place where we become this perfect seems too dramatic, but, but this really strong, compassionate presence in people’s lives, and then we’re supposed to show up in these reciprocal friendships as something different, where we’ve worked so much on becoming a therapist. And so to me, when I look at becoming a friend, the the challenges I often face are, are many fold, but one of them is this idea that someone might want more advice. And how do I draw the line between what is actually friendly advice and what is you should get a therapist and not talk to me about this. And then there’s also this thing of, where can I fit in? Like, what part do I play in this relationship? How do I ask for what I need? Because I’ve been trained in a lot of these other compassionate relationships to not put my needs almost completely in them, but but definitely not at the forefront. How about for you? What have you seen in the challenges that you’ve had in being a friend and just a friend with the people in your personal life.

Curt Widhalm 4:26
I think you know, as we’re just starting to talk about this, there’s kind of two different directions in this. One is those friends who are kind of the over sharers and talking about things, and maybe subconsciously taking advantage of some of the skills that we end up putting out there. And the other aspect is about how we kind of contribute to things. Because the first thing that I had really kind of identified as one of the barriers to talking about friendship sorts of things is kind of the very nature of the work that we have, in and of itself, is that my friends who aren’t therapists can tell me, here’s blow by blow every minute of what happens during my day. And I did this, and this person was there, this other person said this, and I’m sitting there thinking, even if I changed a lot of details about clients that I work with, I can’t talk about a lot of my day, that just the nature of confidentiality and disclosure just makes it to where, yeah, I saw some clients, and there might have been some trauma work. And this is a very, you know, titrated little story that I could have been anybody, but there’s not a lot to be able to really talk about when it comes to some of our moment by moment out of the day. So sometimes finding some things to talk about ends up putting us into this nature where, all right, we have to keep things really, really topical to things that are going on in news stories or reality TV or whatever else it is that doesn’t feel for me, particularly fulfilling conversations. Now I know that there are plenty of our listeners that would love to tell you everything about whatever the most recent reality show is, and to those listeners, you do you, you have my support in that. But I think sometimes finding that common ground of what to talk about is one of the big barriers to just getting into some of the back and forthness of what some of those reciprocal relationships are.

Katie Vernoy 6:41
And that, I think is pretty specific to non therapist friends. I find with my non therapist friends, it does become more of that topical thing, but I kind of enjoy it. I think there is a pressure, though, at certain points, to be an expert in how people are thinking and feeling, and so I find myself doing a lot of disclaimers, like there’s some, you know, ethics or scope issue of me talking about just what I think, you know. And so it is interesting in our personal lives, we don’t have to worry about scope of practice or scope of competence, but it is something where I think there’s some really interesting conversations to be had. And there is a different thing that we have to pay attention to. There’s a filter that we have to put things through. We talked about this a little bit, I think, when we had our episode on partners of therapists or whatever, and the advice I gave there was really talking about dynamics and broad patterns. And it’s so interesting I think about the friends that I have, and some of them have jobs where they can just talk about every single person they do all the things. And there’s also a lot of folks that are in, whether it’s, you know, stuff where they have a clearance, or stuff where they’re like, you know, I’ve got a great friend who’s in HR. And so there’s also confidentiality there. And so we we have a dance that we can do, but I think it is communicating about how to have a meaningful conversation about your experience of work versus the identifying information that none of us can share.

Curt Widhalm 8:18
And I find that the nature of our work, whether it ends up being with non therapist friends or with therapist friends, is we’re also very used to sitting and holding the space for people and let inviting other people to tell their stories first.

Katie Vernoy 8:35
Yes.

Curt Widhalm 8:36
And so, especially if we’re in this kind of chess game where it’s all right, I’m waiting for you to talk and somebody else is waiting to talk, that it can take a while to kind of therapist unmask and start allowing yourself to really be out there. And I noticed this recently I was out with a couple of friends to socialize and just kind of sitting there waiting for other people to tell stories. And it took a while into the evening before I felt, Oh, now, now I’m now, I’m here. I’m able to kind of be out and be gregarious. And this is something where it just does take a while to kind of not be so empathic about everything that it’s I get to come out and be and be in a space where I can be myself and not necessarily be judged for it.

Katie Vernoy 9:33
I find the reverse to almost be true in situations where I’m in therapist friend groups, where it goes super deep, and it’s all about what is your childhood trauma, and why did you become a therapist, and the state of the world and all of those things. And so I’ll use one of the things that you say your miles may vary, but I do feel like there’s a lot where the fact that we’re even thinking about how we show up in these relationships is potentially fairly different than a lot of the non therapist friends that we have. They aren’t necessarily tracking who’s speaking first, what they’re saying, how to open the space up for more conversation. It could be that they’re just showing up. I don’t know. I’m not a, I’m not a non therapist at this point, but I do think that there’s an element where we kind of overthink these things, and we overthink the dynamics, what boundaries should be held? Like we really get into it, and whether it’s with other therapists, where we either collectively decide, you know, let’s just go for it, or we hold those boundaries in the in the way that we do with our clients, I think it can be kind of confusing what what rules of engagement apply here.

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Curt Widhalm 10:51
I’ve noticed this a little bit with myself, and especially as my wife introduced me to some of the friends that she has and the ways that she relates some of the very hilarious things that I end up sharing and talking about with my wife, and for those who are in some of my closer circles, recognizes some of the awesome perks of being a friend of mine. And we had gone out with one of her new work friends, and my wife had said, hey, you know she’s you’re gonna love her. She’s similar to you in a lot of ways. And I found myself kind of being very aware of, okay, for a lot of the people who are in my closer circles, they’ve gotten some time to acquire the taste that is the the bouquet of all of the flavors that Curt contains.

Katie Vernoy 11:47
Even just listening to that, people are going to be like, What are you talking about, dude? But, but I get it.

Curt Widhalm 11:55
But so we had gone out, and it was kind of the third wheel there, but it was something where I’m kind of testing out what’s the dynamics here? And some of this hyper awareness that you’re talking about is furthered by this idea of I’m still a professional. I still want to be seen as a professional. I can’t let my hair down on my own terms until I’m ready to do that. And a couple of days later, this friend messaged my wife and said, Why is Curt so quiet? And like this is one of the only times in my life that I’ve ever been accused of that. But I think that it’s something where, if we’re not conscious about it, we can end up holding ourselves back because not wanting to rock the boat with people that we don’t know too well, not jumping into things too fast, while also trying to, whether it’s conscious or not, be seen as put together and still seen as a representative of the profession that we’re in.

Katie Vernoy 13:00
That leads to another issue that I experience, and I’m sure you do as well, in larger social gatherings with people friends of all different types, all different professions, it can be difficult to determine, do folks want to know I’m a therapist? How will they respond to that? Would they rather me say I’m a consultant, or whatever, the other you know, things that I might put forward? And then also, should I stand up as representative of my field? I know there’s been conversations where, you know, there’s a group of folks, and there’s a doctor and an attorney and this one and that, and people start talking and kind of interpreting the world based on their expertise. And I have the question, do I step forward with my expertise as a therapist? And if so, will people then be more guarded around me, because now they know I’m a therapist? And we’ve had that conversation before, the whole, you know, I’m not therapisting you, I’m off the clock, those types of things. But I do think that it is interesting, and this one I actually think is pretty common across professions, is that, is this a friend or a professional contact where I need to kind of protect my reputation or the way that they view me, is this someone that could potentially be a referral source? Like it becomes that additional piece of the entrepreneurial conflict when you’re recognizing that friends may also be referral sources. So that’s a whole other conversation, but it is something of determining, when can I let my guard down and be a full human and and not a put together therapist.

Curt Widhalm 14:43
The visual that I’m getting from this is from the movie Shrek, when he’s describing that Ogres are like onions, and that we have only certain amounts of layers that we let off for other people, until we get down and it’s just more onion. But I think some of the other things that we bring into this is when we spend a lot of our days sitting and listening to people in some of the worst parts of their life and about very, very heavy topics, it can be very, very difficult to have the energy to be able to show up for those friends. You know, we’re talking at a couple of different levels, as far as what other people are bringing to us, whether it be kind of, here’s just everyday connection, kind of topics, or down into the very deep, very thick, you know, parts of people’s lives that they might be emotionally in need of somebody who’s there to caretake them. You know, I think that in a lot of the social media posts that I see about you need a therapist, not me, as your friend. Well, parts of what we say as therapists is have good friendships where you can talk about some of your problems. And so there is kind of a line there that we can let people get past a little bit too much, or we can shut people off too quickly, if we’re not careful about it. And some of this is contributed by maybe how heavy our day was or our week was, or if you’re not taking breaks, how heavy your quarter or decade is. And those can be things that also limit some of our reciprocal interactions with people, because if we’re just consistently, hey, I don’t have the energy for for you, I don’t have the energy for this topic. Can make it to where people start protecting us in our friendships and that that can limit some of how we’re able to show up and get our needs met, too.

Katie Vernoy 16:44
It’s interesting because I I know that I have that. There’s times when I definitely disengage or go into a little bit of protective mode because I don’t have anything left to give after a hard week of sessions, or whatever it is. And I think that there’s also this piece for me anyway, and I don’t know if this is probably different for each person that does get more into that sacrificial helping, where I recognize the need, I can define the need, this person, who is my friend, may have the same exact issues that my clients are going through, and I can show up for them, and I can do my job and totally step across the boundary of not being their therapist by framing it as this is what a good friend would do and/or just feel the pressure to get them connected to a therapist. And if they’re not getting to a therapist, how can I make sure that they’re okay, and I may, in fact, stay and work on relationships beyond the point that they’re healthy for me, and I may show up as the helper and lose complete reciprocity, because these are the types of relationships I’m used to being in. And I think that this is an older issue for me and not a current one, but I definitely see this with therapists and other folks who are very compassionate or or in this sacrificial helping, where they will stick with relationships where they are drained of all resources because of how big the needs are for the person that they’re around and don’t recognize that they’re not able to show up for themselves or anyone else. And so to me, the boundaries, the boundary side actually sounds a little bit better, although it potentially cuts you off from your friends. If the reverse is the if the only other option is diving deeply and being the caretaker for all of your friends, because you’re the therapist.

Curt Widhalm 18:37
And I think being your friend and you being mine, that we’ve experienced in our time over the years, just kind of some of the ways that each other operates differently with some of this kind of stuff.

Katie Vernoy 18:53
Absolutely.

Curt Widhalm 18:55
And I think in even just talking about our dynamics, sometimes in this is that it’s not necessarily even a static dynamic for us, that we do have ever changing needs, whether it be personal events, whether it be just kind of the major things that are going on. When we were talking about the LA wildfires earlier this year on the podcast, and one of the things that I had mentioned in that episode was, it’s really hard to be responsive to everybody trying to check in when you’re going through not only your work, you’ve got just a couple of minutes in between sessions and 75 text messages from people that you haven’t talked to since high school. Where there are other times where, when I’ve been going through some things, personally, my first desire is okay, I need to escape and do nothing and be not in contact with people for several days. Until then, I want people to check in with me, but it’s not right away, and that’s some of the individual processes that I know for myself can impact some my friendship dynamics. And I think that that’s one of the aspects when we talk about our systems of self care, and when we talk with agencies, about people who are working very much in the thick of things, to have some kind of emotional transition away from work, so that way, it’s easier to transition back into regular life.

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Katie Vernoy 20:30
The other element of this that’s really interesting bringing up our friendship, which is really interesting, is the line between work and friendship. And I think when I spend time with therapist friends, there’s some that I’ve gone beyond work with. We’re not talking about, you know, we’re not talking shop, we’re not being therapists around each other. But a lot of therapist friends, it feels like they’re that’s, that’s something that’s in the relationship. And so I think about our relationship like we’re also business partners. So when I’m thinking about checking in on you, I have to understand your needs for checking in, but also recognizing if I check in on you, it’s also work checking in on you, not because I’m bringing a work lens, but oftentimes I think that’s how we see each other. It’s like, oh yeah, I got to get that thing to you. And I think that happens in agencies too, that you know, colleagues become friends, supervisors and and supervisees have more of a caring, friendly relationship, and it’s hard, like, how do you navigate what is the relationship and what is work? That’s a whole other conversation. But I do think that when therapists are friends with other therapists, there’s a part of that where you don’t feel like you can really drop the mask necessarily, because now somebody is going to be assessing your therapy work based on how you’re taking care of your personal life. And I guess this happens with other non therapist friends too, but you that there is that worry of not being separated from work and hanging out with people that have nothing to do with your work can be so refreshing, because it’s actually a personal relationship that you can be a person in and not have your role of therapists be a part of it.

Curt Widhalm 22:13
One thing that also seems to come up is especially if you’re in kind of a more diverse group of friends, that there might be the expectation that you’re the listener or the wise one, and I think that this is because we work in human relationships where some of the nudging towards caretaking is all right, I’ve got a group of friends where one’s an accountant and one’s a sales clerk and one’s a whatever, and and then I’ve got Katie as the therapist friend that it’s just kind of the I know Katie will be the one that holds space for me, and…

Katie Vernoy 22:55
Yeah

Curt Widhalm 22:56
…replace your own name in this if you’re in one of these groups of friends, kinds of things. But it is something where when we’re that friend in those groups, there’s always kind of that is somebody going to call on me in the middle of a conversation or in the middle of life events, where it’s not quite being on call for everybody, but you can’t ever fully let your guard down, because you’d never know when somebody’s gonna turn to you with it.

Katie Vernoy 23:24
And it makes it really hard to seek out that space or that support. If everyone’s calling on me, who’s taking care of me?

Curt Widhalm 23:33
And I think that this is the transition to what makes being good friends and especially for some of the occupational challenges that come, that we’ve identified in the first part of this, is having reciprocal friendships, two way genuine relationships, where it is people who also seek you out and also ask about your day and genuinely listen to you, and being able to know that people are going to have that. And I think that at least for me, it’s a lot more natural to hang out with other therapists by the nature of not only our practices, but the nature of the podcast and everything that we do that we tend to spend a lot of our time around therapists, so we tend to be more friends with them. But having people who also kind of actively reach out to us or make it to where we are recognized for the demanding work that we do, and to be able to have just an outlet that’s not, hey, go to your own therapy.

Katie Vernoy 24:46
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 24:47
I have a couple of clients that are doing very intense medical type work. Think EMTs, emergency room kinds of things, and we talk about some of the aspects that just you do really intense work, and that has a lot of things that come up that need to be tended to. How are you getting taken care of? Is it with me in therapy? Do you talk about this with the other people that you work with, too? And that becomes something for them, and I recognize that that’s also something that we need met for us.

Katie Vernoy 25:22
Yeah, and I think we’ve talked about this in other spaces, so I won’t go into too much detail, but there’s a responsibility that we have within our work, whether it’s within a group or for us in solo practice within ourselves, to do and get some of those needs met within the work. You know, reflection teams, consultation, practices, you know, closing those things out. We have that in systems of self care. I think we also have trauma informed stuff, like we’ve got some different episodes, I’ll link to them in the show notes. And even with all of that, even if we leave our our office, virtual or physical, and we’ve done all the work to try to resolve the day, there’s still a heaviness. And I think that heaviness can be more pronounced when there’s big crises in the world, or when there’s things going on in your personal life. And our resources and resilience may be diminished, and so seeking out people who can meet you there and you can lean on each other, I think, is super important. One of the ways that that I try to do that is I don’t see myself as a therapist in my friendships. I know that a lot of my identity is that, but if I try to strip that away, and I think about myself as a client, I don’t know something else, something where I can say I am a whole person here, and I try to continue to assess my needs, continue to assess the dynamics that are showing up, I think reassessing my relationships based on that, based on what is being asked of me, and what am I offering, and what is being offered to me, and what am I asking. I think I’m able to assess the health of the relationships if I try to strip away that role of caretaker from my identity, and it’s a thought experiment, right? It’s it’s not true. I am a caretaker. I am a therapist. Like that is going to enter into the relationship, but I try to think through like, what would it be like if I wasn’t? How would I show up differently if I was not a therapist? And it’s a simple thing, but it helps me, and I think it does help me to find relationships where it feels more reciprocal, it feels more connected, because I’m not being asked to carry so much of the weight that I have in some relationships where people who are really chaotic and don’t have a lot of friends, and I know how to be a friend to them, because I’m a therapist, that those relationships I think have have kind of faded away a little bit because I’ve chosen to set different boundaries around how I take care of myself and how much I’m able to give to friendships. And honestly, some of that happened because of my own emotional needs after my dad died, like I was able to say, Hey, I just don’t have it. I don’t have the extra at all. And so then I had to really sort through what relationships were draining me and what relationships were nurturing, or at least neutral.

Curt Widhalm 28:33
And I think for me, when I’ve kind of taken some space for myself and see who it is that continues to reach out and check in. Those are the relationships that I’ve fed. That there’s a point in my life, at some point where I kind of made the decision, I’m not going to be chasing people down, if I’m the one who’s always doing the chasing. And I think that having other people who also initiate connection is very important, because there are times where life is busy, it’s hard, and to have other people who are Hey, I still I want to prioritize you being in my life are great to be around. And that is what really speaks to me as part of being in reciprocal relationships, is it’s not always reliant on me doing all of this stuff. And well, there can be some emotional support, it’s people who are able to kind of give in some of that back and forth that, hey, you I let you go last time when you said you were too tired from work. We gotta be able to make something happen again. It kind of makes it into very much an intentionality that makes it really work.

Katie Vernoy 29:59
Yeah, I think in even talking about our relationship, and granted, we have multiple layers, because we’re both therapists and we’re business partners and all of those things, but what we’ve done again and again is communicate about the assumptions, about the needs, that kind of stuff. And I think if we’re sitting back and opening space and not necessarily stating our own needs or trying to clarify, or if we’re making assumptions about the needs of other people, it can end up being this kind of mess and still end up in that caretaking space, or even in a space that’s just Yeah, well, this isn’t working out, and so I’ve found it really helpful for the two of us to use all of our communication skills and all of those things to ask each other, because we recognize that each of us are not going to ask for help, and so we push each other with that. We’ve we’ve made that a known thing in our relationship, and we’ve been able to sort through when there’s been misses or when there’s been times that we’ve needed something that the other person is not able to understand or offer, or whatever it is, and be able to support each other in that. And so to me, I think therapists are not necessarily great at conflict, and they’re not necessarily great at communicating their own needs. And I’m going to say, just stop it. Just do it, like, ask for what you need. The worst case is that somebody says what you’re weird. Why are you actually saying those things out loud? But to me, I think it’s been very, very helpful in our relationship and in many of the other relationships I have just to check in, like, Hey, am I doing this right? Am I catching this? Is this going? You know what? What’s happening here? You know, what do you need? What do I need? It? I think it. It’s even more required for therapists, because we have so much knowledge that we may make some pretty bad assumptions or just not ask for what we need.

Curt Widhalm 31:52
You can find our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media. Let us know how you handle your friendships and other things that you think we didn’t cover in this episode. You can also join our Facebook group, the Modern Therapist Group, to continue on with this and other conversations, and until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.

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Announcer 32:14
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