Scott Smith LCSW

31/10/2026

29/10/2026

🌈 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 🌈

Irvin Yalom, in The Gift of Therapy (London: Piatkus, 2008, p.11), captures the essence of therapeutic healing: “The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.”

This profound statement reminds us of the transformative effect that acceptance can have on an individual's healing journey. To be seen, understood, and accepted for who we truly are is not just liberating; it's deeply healing. It's a powerful reminder that at the heart of therapy—and indeed, at the heart of all meaningful relationships—is the gift of acceptance.

💡 Key Significance to Counselling: Yalom’s insight highlights the critical role of unconditional positive regard in the therapeutic process. It’s a call to action for therapists to foster an environment where clients feel safe to open up, share their deepest thoughts and fears, and find acceptance.

🤝 Takeaway: Let’s all strive to be that safe haven for others, where they can reveal their true selves without fear of judgment. Whether it’s within the context of therapy, friendships, or family relationships, the act of accepting someone fully can be a powerful catalyst for change and growth.

Share this post to spread the message that acceptance can be a beacon of hope and healing. Let’s encourage one another to embrace our vulnerabilities and celebrate our authentic selves. 💖

More counselling quotes, with a free download, here: https://counsellingtutor.com/counselling-quotes/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=counselling_quotes

29/10/2026

“While formally modest in its claims, the DSM can operate in practice as a system that powerfully shapes self-understanding [2].
Across high-income countries, DSM-based systems now classify roughly 25% of the population as having a mental disorder each year, with notably high rises among young people [3]. For people who are suffering, DSM-classifications can feel both alleviating and explanatory, even when they are not intended to be. At the same time, when such descriptions are internalized as explanations for one’s suffering, they can profoundly shape who a person becomes, since people in distress often strongly desire to understand what is happening and to relieve their suffering [4]. This mechanism can affect people’s self-understanding because it assigns meaning and coherence to complex context-dependent human experiences at a moment of heightened receptivity and subsequently becomes embedded in the context of a person’s entire life. In this way, living with the understanding that a DSM-classification accounts for one’s suffering, and interacting with others and one’s environment through its lens, can give rise to new kinds of experiences that may ultimately feed back into diagnostic descriptions themselves.”

Do we understand the real-world consequences of a future DSM?

PLOS Mental Health is an inclusive journal addressing challenges and gaps in the field of mental health research, treatment, and care in ways that put the lived experience of individuals and communities first.

28/10/2026

ALL IN YOUR HEAD: Illness as Identity, Trauma as Fashion, and the Desire to Be Disordered, by Fredrik deBoer

DeBoer’s strongest criticism, however, is directed at social media, which, he argues, promotes cartoonish representations of complex psychiatric diagnoses, and fosters imitative group identities based on little more than the wish for attention and validation. In describing the “fun-house mirror reality of mental illness in the 21st century,” he invokes the thousands of adolescent girls who took to TikTok in the early 2020s claiming to have dissociative identity disorder — otherwise known as “multiple personality disorder.” The “will to be ill” flourishes in a medium where illness can morph into “a kind of in-group status marker,” he writes, where truly grave conditions can be spun into a hashtag and there is gratification in gulling strangers within online support groups.

23/10/2026

“Being defensive about a patient's chatbot use or competing in a rivalry with a chatbot is the best way to lose the patient. It is far wiser to inquire how the chatbot is helping and to program it to be an assistant working harmoniously as part of the therapy team. And again, this is remarkably easy to do: quick, no technical skill required, and a great way to improve the therapeutic alliance.”

Allen Frances Interview: Mental Health Chatbots and Therapy

Dr. Allen Frances discusses mental health chatbots, their benefits and risks, patient privacy, and how AI might support therapy alongside human clinicians.

22/10/2026

Creators used trending audio, second-person language, and point-of-view formats that made viewers feel personally diagnosed, whatever the content’s accuracy. Many videos dismissed experts, treating self-diagnosis as equally valid as a clinical assessment, and linked everyday habits like arranging pillows or using small spoons to ADHD or autism, and both of these diagnoses blurred under the term “neurodivergent.”

This is a new diagnostic pathway. The algorithm, not the user, initiates the suggestion. A separate analysis of 100 ADHD TikTok videos found 55% didn’t match DSM criteria, and a survey of Austrian psychologists found over half had seen a rise in patients self-diagnosing ADHD or autism, linked partly to social media.

How "Dr. TikTok" Suggests a Diagnosis - PsychPartners

A new study finds TikTok's algorithm can suggest ADHD and autism diagnoses to users who never searched for them. See how.

17/10/2026

Well into his adult life, right after the birth of his twins, Andrew Lipstein started experiencing O.C.D. “I wasn’t always like this,” he writes. “The suddenness of it all was terrifying, even paralyzing, and yet, at the same time, oddly relieving.” If such a severe thing could come on so quickly, perhaps it could go away just the same way. “No, it wouldn’t—that quickly became apparent,” he continues. “As did the fact that, unless I got help, I might lose the ability to function in everyday life. How could I return from my parental leave in this state and keep my job? How could I write books? How could I possibly be a parent and husband?” Lipstein chronicles the ongoing process of learning to live with severe O.C.D.—while writing a book, going to exposure therapy, and caring for his family: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/Oo4dsX

16/10/2026

"Most experts now agree that the idea depression is caused by a chemical imbalance is a gross oversimplification"