What Clients Want

Curt and Katie talk about the therapeutic alliance – challenges of defining it, what clients think about it, and how to incorporate best practices.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

In this episode we talk about:

The definition of therapeutic alliance and the difficult we have in practically defining it
What actually matters to clients, that makes up the therapeutic relationship
Validating the client’s experience
Looking at the client as a whole person
Therapist honesty
Showing good boundaries
Normalizing the client’s experience
Making eye contact with our clients
Body language, who we present ourselves
Clients feeling heard and respected
The challenge of getting accurate feedback from clients
How to incorporate best practices

Resources mentioned:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links.

Bedi and Duff Study on Therapeutic Relationship: Client as Expert

Scott Miller

Our new consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour

Other Episodes Mentioned:

The Brand Called You

Our events this year:

The Therapy Reimagined Conference in Los Angeles in October 2018!!

Who we are:

Curt Widhalm is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is a Board Member at Large for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, a Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, Adjunct Faculty at Pepperdine University, 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 is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant. As a helping professional for two decades, she’s navigated the ups and downs of our unique line of work. She’s run her own solo therapy practice, designed innovative clinical programs, built and managed large, thriving teams of service providers, and consulted hundreds of helping professionals on how to build meaningful AND sustainable practices. 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.