Work Harder Than Your Clients

Work Harder Than Your Clients

Curt and Katie chat about why and when you should ignore the advice to “not work harder than your clients.” We look at bias in goal-setting, managing risk, focusing on the client’s needs, and the importance of continuing education as well as on-going work outside of session.

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 adage that you shouldn’t work harder than your clients
• The concern that it gives permission to be lazy.
• The importance of working hard as a therapist
• Simplification of the concept of being more invested in the outcome than the client
• Bad therapy practices – bias, lack of client determination, focusing on traditional treatment outcomes, investment in a specific outcome that may or may not align with clients’ values
• Be present with your client on purpose, working hard
• Deliberate practice versus complacency
• Preparing for the situations that may come up, not just one specific concern
• The “how” of therapy – looking at language, understanding, and relationship with the client
• Consultation, self-assessment, case formulation
• Better understanding of what the true workload is compared to your caseload
• What you shouldn’t be doing to work harder within session
• The business implications of working harder
• Dismantling the truisms and oversimplified statements that get passed around
• Clinical situations that require you to work harder than the clients
• Working harder than a check box (clinical implications rather than liability check box)
• Self-management – understanding why you’re doing what you’re doing
• Questions to consider when looking at your efforts
• Collaborative treatment planning (both overt and covert)
• The impact of doing anti-racist work with clients who are not ready for it
• The importance of identifying whose goal is being pursued in the room
• The benefits of supervision and consultation
• How to set covert goals, looking at work outside of session and timing
• Dismantling assumptions and meeting clients where they are
• The harder work we have to do is the work we need to do on ourselves
• Responding to clients with curiosity, professionality, comfort, and authenticity