20 Common Mistakes Most Therapists Make And What You Should Do Instead
Tokens may not be used with webinars
2025
Psychotherapy with individuals or couples is extremely difficult—more difficult, in fact, than any one of us can completely understand.
In this webinar, Marty distills 44 years of clinical experience—some 50,000 sessions—into a practical, challenging program about common mistakes that therapists of all orientations make. Those mistakes involve the structure of the therapeutic relationship; the routine ways in which therapists practice; and vulnerabilities in the person of the therapist.
With compassion, wisdom, and his well-known humor, Marty will address issues including:
~ Self-disclosure: Too much? Too little?
~ Ethical dilemmas our field generally ignores
~ Power dynamics between therapist and patient
~ Consulting with physicians, therapists, lawyers, and other providers
~ Facing our difficulty tolerating patients’ discomfort
~ Homework that can undermine therapy
~ Asking about medication, pain, and other health issues
~ Why it’s important to understand just how difficult this work is
Valuable for mid-career clinicians as well as less-experienced professionals, this just may be the most practical Dr. Klein webinar we’ve ever offered.
Target audience: This course is appropriate for all mental health professionals
Content level: Introductory/Intermediate
Educational Objectives
After attending this webinar, participants will be able to
- Identify common mistakes made in psychotherapy and couples counseling, and their impact
- Examine the structure of the therapeutic relationship, and how this unintentionally can (and how it intentionally should) shape our interventions
- Assess the impact of clinical assumptions we’re not aware of having made, and how they can shape our decisions later in a case
Syllabus
What constitutes a therapeutic “mistake”?
Why are therapeutic mistakes inevitable?
Common clinical mistakes:
* the structure of the therapeutic relationship
* the routine ways in which therapists practice
* vulnerabilities in the person of the therapist
How do we reduce therapeutic mistakes?
What to do when we recognize we’ve made a therapeutic mistake
Ethical dilemmas our field rarely discusses
