Rage and Client Self-Harm

An interview with Angela Caldwell, LMFT on cutting and non-suicidal self-injury. Curt and Katie talk with Angela about the causes of self-harm, the mistakes therapists make in addressing self-harm as well as how to identify reasons behind this harmful coping mechanism and how to identify when suicidality is a risk. We also look at how rage within nice families can lead to self-injury.

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.

Interview with Angela Caldwell, LMFT

Angela Caldwell is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Family Coach. She is the Founder and Director of the Self-Injury Institute, where her practice focuses on the treatment of self-injury from a family systems perspective, as well as the Caldwell Family Institute, where she offers out-of-the-box coaching for families that are looking for something other than therapy to help them reach their growth potential.

Angela is currently on the adjunct faculty for the MFT graduate program at California State University Northridge, where she teaches family systems theories and couples therapy. She has been teaching graduate students for over a decade at four different universities, and previously taught assessment for a large majority of her teaching career. She was selected by Antioch University to design a curriculum for a new Counselor Assessment class, and has offered consultation on assessments for the last eight years.

Angela has served in MFT leadership for much of her career, including holding executive offices in CAMFT and AAMFT. She has worked side by side with Ben Caldwell and other leaders on various advocacy efforts in California, most notably on the passage of SB 1172, which banned reparative therapy for minors in 2012.

In this episode we talk about: