Ep. 202: Seth & Joel — What Gives Psychotherapy the Power to Make Life Better?

My guest once again this week is Dr. Joel Minden. This time we discussed psychotherapy, drawing on the years that each of us has been a therapist. Good therapy has the power to improve thinking patterns, relationships, habits, and even personality, so we explored the unique aspects of the therapy relationship that facilitate these changes. This conversation is the second in a series of several episodes with Joel, with more to come.

Topics we touched on included:

• A Washington Post piece that inspired our discussion, “Why I Fired My Therapists” by Foster Kamer
• Whether it’s productive to “call out” clients in therapy
• The problem of always being told one is right as a therapy client
• Trying to match therapists to clients
• The dialectic of supporting and challenging in therapy
• Possible developmental shifts across one’s career as a therapist
• My experience with a supervisor who berated my client
• Whether there’s a place for telling clients what they need or ought to do
• Addressing unhelpful patterns of reinforcement
• Why telling people what to do generally doesn't work
• Creating different dynamics in therapy from what people tend to experience elsewhere
• The uniqueness of the therapy relationship among all other relationships
• The value in just talking through an issue in order to arrive at a solution
• The actual self vs. idealized self
• The risk in being one’s authentic self

Joel Minden, PhD, is a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and related disorders.

He is the author of Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss, founder of the Chico Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, diplomate of The Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Chico.

Find Joel online at his website, follow him on Twitter, and read his blog on Psychology Today.