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09/17/2026

People get all worked up about self-disclosure, often seeing it as one of the great sins of psychotherapy. The spirit of the law is good: the relationship exists first and foremost to help the patient; correct. However, there are times when self-disclosure can be helpful to people. It can lend hope, skills, humor, or care. Don’t let the letter of the law strangle the spirit of it.

Check out our link in bio for upcoming classes, resources, and other goodies.

We often imagine personal growth as something you’ll feel: a breakthrough, a lightbulb moment, a major shift in how you ...
09/16/2026

We often imagine personal growth as something you’ll feel: a breakthrough, a lightbulb moment, a major shift in how you see yourself or your life.

And sometimes, it is.

But sometimes growth looks much less dramatic. It’s finally having the conversation you’ve been avoiding. Filing your taxes without turning it into a whole ordeal. Pausing before reacting when you’re overwhelmed. Getting through something painful without creating even more pain around it.

These changes can be easy to overlook precisely because they start to feel normal.

Freud famously described the goal of psychotherapy as turning “neurotic misery into ordinary suffering.” Not exactly the most glamorous description of personal growth. But maybe there’s something profound in it.

Sometimes growth is simply making the difficult parts of being human a little more manageable.

09/15/2026

A lot of therapist Q & A during CE courses is, honestly, a waste of time. Therapists spend too much time discussing abstract ideas. These aren’t relevant. What’s more useful is discussing a specific case, with specific problems, with a specific past, with specific goals. Then the discussion can really make progress focusing on what that person needs and how therapy can help them get it.

Sometimes what we call a feeling is actually a thought about what someone else is thinking or doing.“I feel judged” migh...
09/10/2026

Sometimes what we call a feeling is actually a thought about what someone else is thinking or doing.

“I feel judged” might really mean “I think they’re judging me” — with feelings like hurt, embarrassment, anger, or fear underneath.

Separating the thought from the feeling can help us get out of the loop of defending, explaining, and arguing about what someone meant, and instead talk about what’s actually happening emotionally.

It might feel a little unnatural at first. But when a conversation feels stuck, slowing it down can create more room to actually understand each other.

What’s a “feeling” you’ve caught yourself saying that might actually be a thought?

09/09/2026

“Therapy shouldn’t just look like two friends talking or catching up,” is a critique a lot of therapists will make. But it can, as long as the normal conversation is allowing something new to happen for the patient. If someone has never been treated kindly before, the “normal” conversation must front-load kindness. If someone has never been allowed to be competitive before, the “normal” conversation must allow and celebrate competition. If someone believes they always must be productive, a “normal” conversation that allows joking a playfulness can be tremendously useful.

And this isn’t just vibes! It’s based on decades of research into psychotherapy and advances in neuroscience around predictive processing.

Li, E., McCollum, J., Krieger, J., Winter, S. E., Duane, D., &
Silberschatz, G. (2026). Predict to control, test to master: Integrating
predictive processing and control–mastery theory in understanding how
psychotherapy works.*Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 36*(2), 195–210. https://doi.org/10.1037/int0000386

09/08/2026

“Don’t believe your thoughts” has been good therapy advice coming out of the CBT/ACT/DBT camp for a long time (and, of course, wasn’t invented there.) But it’s also good practice to not believe your beliefs. See them all as temporary things that help you get from A to B, but allow them to fall away if they don’t help you get from B to C. Also, we’re wrong. Like, a lot. So don’t go thinking your beliefs are all that, they’ll probably need to change.

This fall, SF Therapy Group is launching three new group therapy programs, offering space for connection, reflection, an...
09/03/2026

This fall, SF Therapy Group is launching three new group therapy programs, offering space for connection, reflection, and meaningful therapeutic work. All three groups are 8-week programs beginning in October, with limited space available.

Living Fully with Imperfect Health: A virtual support group for adults living with chronic pain or illness.
Virtual, open to participants anywhere in California.

Works in Progress: A quilting therapy group for teens ages 13–17.
In person in San Francisco.

Relating to Anger: An anger management group for adults who want to better understand their anger and develop new ways of responding to conflict.
In person in San Francisco.

Learn more about each group and complete our interest form through the link in our bio or here: https://www.sftherapygroup.com/group-therapy-programs/.

Know someone who might be a good fit for one of these groups? Feel free to share this post with them.

Questions? Email [email protected]

09/02/2026

I’m deep in the pro-science wing of thinking about therapy. But I’m also equally committed to the idea that lab science will likely never be able to model therapy completely, and that it will always need to remain an art and make room for at least concessional weirdness to be effective.

09/01/2026

When I was a baby therapist, I was so sure therapy training would give me incredible powers of deduction to understand other people’s motives and inner world with very little information. Sometimes, that’s true, but I found that a much more useful therapeutic skill was developing the muscle to suspend judgment, to allow not-knowing, and work more at discovery, exploration, and testing ideas. And the skills of being a therapist, which operate in a contrived, artificial (but still useful) environment, don’t always translate to other human relationships because they aren’t therapy. So it’s not as useful or skillful to analyze people in your life the way you might in therapy. In fact, it’s often uncomfortable.

What is expertise in psychotherapy? How do you develop it?Studies show most therapists don’t improve over time while at ...
08/30/2026

What is expertise in psychotherapy? How do you develop it?

Studies show most therapists don’t improve over time while at the same time believing they are above average performers. What are we missing as a field and how do we make psychotherapy and psychotherapists better?

Join us for a course on psychotherapy expertise on September 14. We’ll share what we’ve discovered from decades of studying this research. CE + CME available.

Sign up at the link in our bio.

References
Goldberg et al., 2016: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26751152/
Germer et al., 2022: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35266791/
Clement, 1994: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1994-35016-001
Zumbul & Kivlighan, 2026: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2027-10100-001

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3368 Sacramento Street
San Francisco, CA
94117

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