April 19, 2021

Partners of Therapists

33 minutes

Curt and Katie chat about how our job and training can impact our partners. We look at the benefits like emotional intelligence, resilience, and perspective. We also look at the challenges therapists and their partners face when trying to navigate being in relationship while one partner is navigating this career. Suggestions about how to navigate conversations and confidentiality as well as possibilities for improving relationships are discussed.

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 impact of being a therapist on long-term relationships/partnerships

The insight into people and relationships that can be a benefit of partnering with a therapist

Expecting that the therapist will be the expert or do the emotional lifting

The concern that therapists overanalyze their relationships (don’t therapize me!)

Therapists breaking down characters in movies and books and ruining things for our partners

Positive communication and being able to navigate challenging conversations

The desire to talk about the relationship more frequently than our partners

The potential of differences when you start a relationship as a therapist or whether you start prior to becoming a therapist

Using our training to do what “successful couples” do

What might be different if one were to approach dating or starting relationships later

The challenge of not being able to talk about work at the end of the day (confidentiality)

Specific parameters around how to talk about one’s day (process versus content)

When partners aren’t part of our field, they don’t understand how our field works or what our job entails

The difficulty of processing trauma, countertransference, empathy fatigue

Gaps in the relationships with our partners related to partners not being able to process and handle challenging material

The challenge of leaving work at work, being able to relate to other people at the end of the day

The impact of the pandemic on childcare and balance of parenting and coparenting

Therapist dissociation and self-care

When our profession is overtaxed and we are overtaxed, our partners and kids can get pushed to the side

What therapists’ partners might need to be successful in these relationships

The lack of resources and resilience during the pandemic

The difficulty those who are in relationships with therapists understanding that they are human and that we are not always able to cope.

How our knowledge and resourcefulness can help with us taking care of ourselves and meeting the needs of our partners

The gratitude and love that we can share with our partners when we see how things go wrong

Our capacity to have challenging conversations to improve relationships

Emotional intelligence and perspective, self-awareness

Resources mentioned:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

Our Facebook Group

Relevant Episodes:

Dating as a Therapist

Therapy with an Audience

Off Duty Therapist

Connect with us!

Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group

Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined 2021

Our consultation services:

The Fifty-Minute Hour

Credits:

Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/

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By Curt Widhalm, LMFT and Katie Vernoy, LMFT

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