Love, Happiness, and Success For Therapists

“What If I’m Doing It Wrong?” Untangling Therapist Performance Anxiety | LHSFT Classic

Ever walk out of a session thinking, “Was that okay? Did I do it right? Did I help enough?” If so, you are so not alone.  In this episode of Love, Happiness, and Success For Therapists, I’m diving deep into ⁠therapist performance anxiety⁠ [https://www.growingself.com/therapist-performance-anxiety] — the kind of internal pressure that doesn’t just keep us up at night, but can actually interfere with the quality of our clinical work.  From subtle fears about being "good enough" to the quiet panic that creeps in when clients stall out, I’m unpacking how this anxiety shows up, what it does to our clinical judgment, and why it's a hidden threat to both our clients and our own well-being. Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction: Therapist Performance Anxiety 01:04 – When Caring Becomes a Liability 06:13 – The Story of Sarah 14:52 – Financial Anxiety in Private Practice 31:19 – Strategies to Manage Performance Anxiety 39:35 – CEU Trainings for Therapists If performance anxiety is making you second-guess whether you’re “doing it right,” you’re not alone. This is particularly true for therapists who are in or headed into the realm of coaching. The waters between therapy and coaching can get murky which creates ethical dilemmas that most of us aren’t trained to identify.  My free CEU training ⁠ Think You’re Coaching? 8 Red Flags You’re Actually Doing Therapy⁠ [https://growingself.mykajabi.com/2025-CE-Training-8-Red-Flags?preview_theme_id=2160860031] is designed to clear that uncertainty. When you're not sure where the line is between coaching and therapy — or you're worried you’ve already crossed it — anxiety starts calling the shots. This training will help you get crystal clear on what’s what, so you can show up grounded, ethical, and effective in your work. Even better? When you complete the training and pass the quick quiz, you’ll earn 1 CEU and a certificate — totally free. ⁠ Check out the training here.⁠ [https://growingself.mykajabi.com/2025-CE-Training-8-Red-Flags?preview_theme_id=2160860031]  And hey, let’s stay connected. If this topic resonated with you, I would love to continue the conversation and support your growth. Join our amazing community of growth-minded clinicians by ⁠connecting with me on LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlisabobby/]. I share insights, free CEU trainings, and sometimes a little healthy debate. Come say hi — I’m always cheering you on. 💛 Xoxo ⁠Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby⁠ [https://www.growingself.com/therapists/] ⁠ www.growingself.com [https://courses.growingself.com/coaching-certification-for-therapists]

Coaching Psychology: The Rigorous Coaching Most US Therapists Don’t Know Exists | Christina Theo | E100

Have you ever heard the term coaching psychologist? Probably not. In the United States, it barely exists as a concept. In the United Kingdom, it is a recognized specialty of the British Psychological Society, with peer-reviewed journals, formal credentials, and university-level standards. So the next time someone tells you coaching can’t be a serious discipline, the honest answer is that it already is. We just have to import it. In this episode, I sit down with Christina Theo, a UK-based Coaching Psychologist with twenty-five years across the NHS, the voluntary sector, and international private practice. Christina holds credentials from both the British Psychological Society and the International Coaching Federation, and she practices the kind of integrated, evidence-based work I have spent the better part of two decades arguing for from the US side. She joined me to explain what coaching psychology actually is, what is breaking in the global coaching industry right now, and what every licensed clinician should know about the field before they engage with it, whether or not they ever plan to become a coach themselves. In this episode: * The plain-English definition of coaching psychology, and why the UK has a credential for it while the US still does not * The moment-to-moment difference between doing coaching and doing psychology, inside a single session * How Christina integrates EMDR, IFS, and Pain Reprocessing Therapy inside a coaching framework without crossing the therapy line * The four myths therapists believe about coaching, and what is actually true about ethics, supervision, evidence, and triage * The biggest mistake therapists make when they add coaching to their practice (and why the financial reasoning behind it usually fails) * Why “I healed myself, now I will heal you” coaching is doing measurable harm to trauma survivors who needed treatment instead * What rigorous coaching credentials require, and the specific red flags to run from when a program advertises itself * Where coaching psychology is headed in the next five years, and the role US clinicians could play in building a domestic version Why This Matters This episode is for any clinician who has watched the coaching industry from the sidelines with one eyebrow raised, and quietly wondered whether there is a serious version of this discipline anywhere. There is. It has a name, a credential, a body of research, and a small group of practitioners who have been doing it well for decades. You do not have to want to become a coach to find this conversation useful. You only have to want to understand the field your clients are increasingly being pulled toward, and to know the difference between the work Christina is describing and the work most of TikTok is calling by the same name. Episode Breakdown 00:00 Why "Coaching Psychologist" Isn't a Term Most US Therapists Know 04:35 How Christina Became a Coaching Psychologist 09:30 What Is Coaching Psychology? The Definition US Therapists Are Missing 13:00 Coaching Psychology vs. Therapy in a Single Session 24:30 The Myths Therapists Believe About Coaching 30:30 What Therapists Should Look For in a Coaching Credential 40:30 What's Actually Wrong With the Coaching Industry in 2026 56:30 What This Means for US Clinicians, and Where Coaching Psychology Goes Next Resources * Full blog post [www.growingself.com/coaching-psychology%E2%81%A0] for this episode * Growing Self Coaching Certification for Therapists [https://courses.growingself.com/coaching-certification-for-therapists] * Therapist Growth Collective [https://www.growingself.com/therapist-growth-collective/] If this conversation cracked something open for you about coaching, I want to keep it going. There is a real, rigorous version of this work, and the people I trust most to do it well are the ones who started as licensed clinicians and added the credentials on top. That is exactly what our Coaching Certification for Therapists is built to support. The link is in the show notes. Come find me, and come find us. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self [www.growingself.com]

Solution-Focused Couples Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide | Elliott Connie | E99

Elliott Connie thinks most of what we were trained to do in couples therapy is, in his words, ridiculous. The way he explains it: if you get shot with an arrow, does it help you to know who shot you, or do you just want the arrow out? That’s the question that anchors solution-focused couples therapy [http://www.growingself.com/solution-focused-couples-therapy/]. And it’s the question that’s been quietly changing how a generation of clinicians thinks about the work. In this episode, I sit down with Elliott Connie, founder of The Solution Focused Universe, co-author of The Solution Focused Brief Therapy Diamond with Adam Froerer, and one of the clinicians I most respect in our field. Elliott and I did a consumer-facing conversation last year. This one is the clinician’s cut, and the question I most wanted him to answer: what has to change in the therapist before the technique can land? You’ll hear: * Why the entire premise of “understanding the client’s problem” might be what’s keeping them stuck, and Elliott’s arrow analogy that reframes the work in one minute flat * The two clinical realizations that almost made Elliott quit graduate school, and the professor who changed everything * What “practicing from a solution-focused stance” actually means in the room, and why grafting SFBT techniques onto a problem-focused practice usually doesn’t work * Why being a good therapist has more in common with being a good spouse than a good employee, and Elliott’s “relationship, not occupation” reframe * The truth about CBT’s research dominance, including the story of the statistics professor who admitted why CBT keeps winning the citation game * Why Elliott calls it unethical to graduate from a counseling program and never pick up another research article, and the simple fix if you’ve been guilty of this * Where to start if you want to learn SFBT well, including Elliott’s books, his training organization, and the unexpected place his career has taken him This episode is for any clinician who has finished a couples session feeling more depleted than the couple in the room. It’s also for anyone who has wondered, quietly, whether the way you were trained to do this work is the way you actually believe in. Elliott’s argument is that the answer to clinician exhaustion isn’t a new technique. It’s a stance shift. And if you’ve been carrying questions about your own clinical orientation, this conversation will ask you to look at them honestly. Episode Breakdown 0:00 Why understanding the problem might be what’s keeping your clients stuck 05:00 How therapists got indoctrinated into problem-focused work 11:00 From the graduate school Elliott almost quit to the work that found him 27:00 Therapy as a relationship, not an occupation 35:00 What solution-focused brief therapy actually is 37:00 A session that didn’t address the problem (and what happened instead) 47:00 Inside the Solution Focused Universe and Elliott’s mission to train better therapists 52:00 The research, the bias, and the obligation to keep learning 01:03:00 The skeptic’s question and the surprising next chapter of Elliott’s career Resources * Read the full article [https://www.growingself.com/solution-focused-couples-therapy/%E2%81%A0] * The Therapist Growth Collective [https://www.growingself.com/therapist-growth-collective/%E2%81%A0] for ongoing professional development and peer community If this conversation gave you something to chew on, or made you want to argue with your screen, I’d love for you to share it with a colleague. That’s how this show finds the clinicians it’s meant to find. And if you want to keep having these kinds of conversations week after week, come find us in the Therapist Growth Collective. The link is below. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self [https://www.growingself.com]

Attachment-Based Therapy: Why Insight Alone Doesn't Change Clients | Dr. Amir Levine | E98

You've been recommending Attached for years. Your client has read it twice. They can name their attachment style, walk you through the childhood wound, and articulate exactly why they do what they do. And they are still, every few months, processing another version of the same painful cycle in their relationship [www.growingself.com/attachment-based-therapy/]. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Amir Levine, the Columbia psychiatrist and molecular neuroscientist whose first book Attached has now sold over three million copies in 42 languages and become a permanent fixture on every therapist's clinical shelf. His follow-up, Secure, just came out from Penguin Random House, and it answers the question therapists keep asking after handing Attached to a client: how do clients actually change their attachment style? In This Episode: * Why naming a client's attachment style is not enough to change it, and what the neuroscience actually says about pattern change * The Cyberball paradigm and what it tells us about why our clients' brains react so powerfully to small moments of disconnection * Why a 50-minute therapy hour can't compete with the thousand social interactions a client encounters before next week's session * CARP, the five pillars of secure mode, and how Levine teaches clients to recognize them in others * The CARP intervention script you can teach an anxious client to invite secure recruits into their life * Wall Tennis With Love, the technique for right-sizing the relationships that keep pulling anxious clients off-center * Why most avoidant clients are accidentally creating the very neediness they resent in others, and the Strange Situation parallel that finally helps them see it * What to do when your own attachment style is showing up in the therapy room, including the framework that works for therapists with ADHD or non-traditional rhythms Why This Matters This episode is for any clinician who has ever sat across from a self-aware, hard-working client and quietly thought: I am not sure what I am supposed to do with this. The ones who have read every book, named every pattern, and still cannot move. What Amir is offering is a clinical reframe that does not ask you to throw out what you already know, but adds something most of us were never explicitly trained to do. If you have been sitting with a stuck client lately wondering whether your method is the problem or your client is the problem, this conversation is going to land somewhere specific. Resources * Therapist Growth Collective [growingself.com/therapist-growth-collective], our free professional community for clinicians * Practice support and consulting for therapists [growingself.com] If this conversation opened something up for you clinically, please share it with the colleague you were thinking about as you were listening. The work we do matters, and so does the way we do it together. XO, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby Growing Self [www.GrowingSelf.com]

Have Them at ‘Hello’ - Secrets to New Client Engagement | LHSFT Classic

You had a first meeting with a prospective therapy client that YOU thought went great… but the client never came back. Here’s why: Therapists don’t know how to communicate their value. Why do amazing therapists struggle with ⁠therapy client engagement⁠ [https://www.growingself.com/therapy-client-engagement]? Spoiler alert: It’s not about your clinical skills, it's about how you connect. Engaging therapy clients isn’t just about being good at what you do; it’s about helping prospective clients see the unique value you bring. In this episode of Love Happiness and Success for Therapists, I’ll walk you through actionable steps to engage therapy clients, communicate your unique value, and grow a thriving private practice. You’ll learn how to structure consultations that naturally build trust and connection, how to address common concerns around cost, time, and readiness, and how to effectively communicate your process and unique approach to therapy. Chapters: 00:00 Introduction: Why Client Engagement Matters 00:45 The Common Struggles of Private Practice Therapists 01:47 Overcoming the Fear of Self-Promotion 03:33 Connect with Clients Before They Meet You 11:57 Helping Clients Define Their Goals 15:14 Explaining Your Therapy Process with Clarity 23:59 Tackling Client Objections Gracefully 28:18 Highlighting Your Unique Value Proposition 31:13 Mastering Post-Consultation Follow-Ups 34:12 Reflect, Refine, and Grow Your Practice 38:17 More Resources to Support You Your clients need more than what conventional therapy alone can offer. The reality? “Coaches” without formal training are scooping up the opportunities you’re missing, because they have a structured framework of change that they can communicate - and clients love it. You can learn how to do this too! In my free ⁠ “What Every Therapist Must Know About Coaching” Masterclass⁠ [https://courses.growingself.com/4-things-therapists-must-know-about-coaching-in-2025-masterclass], you’ll discover how to integrate evidence-based coaching techniques to stand out in a crowded field and enhance your therapy practice. Coaching tools can help you empower clients to achieve goals faster, deepen their engagement, and create lasting change—all while staying true to your professional integrity. 👉 ⁠ Join the Masterclass Now⁠ [https://courses.growingself.com/4-things-therapists-must-know-about-coaching-in-2025-masterclass] and take your practice to the next level! Let’s make 2025 your breakthrough year.  If you found this helpful, check out some of my other episodes for more tips and strategies to elevate your private practice! And hey, share this with your professional community—let’s help each other grow. 🌱 Xoxo ⁠Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby⁠ [https://www.growingself.com/about-growing-self/] ⁠ www.growingself.com⁠ [https://courses.growingself.com/coaching-certification-for-therapists] P.S. Let’s Connect! I’d love to hear your thoughts and be part of your professional journey. ⁠Connect with me on LinkedIn⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlisabobby/] to join an amazing community of therapists growing and thriving together.