Post-US-election season and approaching the New Year and NY resolutions, there is natural upward trend in people looking for therapy. Depending on who you ask, which directions your algorithms follow, and what the latest TikTok and IG trends are, potential clients have all kinds of ways of approaching this, many of which lead those of us in the know to exclaim, "OMG, that's not it!" Conventional wisdom surrounding finding therapists, including that which is accidentally or intentionally propagated by the mental health industry and that necessarily has a certain logic, still often fails to consider or reveal what research suggests is the single biggest predictor of therapeutic success. Nicole and Ryan deconstruct the conventional wisdom with incisive mental health veteran insider knowledge, and then turn the tables to pose the questions they ask in searching for a therapist.

Discussed: good therapist vs. therapist fit, on being a therapist, Dr. Jeffrey Kottler, understanding mental health specialization, mental health vs. organic-medical terminology, the role of social media in developing ego props, questions to ask to find a therapist, single-modality therapists, personality fit with therapists, therapeutic bond/alliance/rapport as the single biggest predictor of success in counseling, and more.

In this special mini-bonus episode (under 10 minutes), Nicole recalls a wedding to visit Julie & Tyler, a couple very close to their hearts. Julie & Tyler asked Ryan to riff on love and marriage and life during the ceremony, and Ryan presents those poignant remarks here for the first time publicly. Special thanks to Julie & Tyler for permission to share them and their gift.

Discussed: unresolvable issues in relationships, vulnerability, relationships, compassion, authenticity, empathy, deepening relational dialogue, wisdom, life and marriage, Wendell Berry, Rainer Maria Rilke, Handel's Messiah, individuality and coupling, sameness and difference, distance and closeness, and more.

In therapy, process talk occurs when the therapist and client stop conversational back and forth, and move into a posture of evaluation -- specifically, they might examine what's happening in that back and forth between them. They notice how things are feeling, what emotions are coming up and when, what reactions they have to the contents of the conversation. In so doing, it is very common that the observations made in process talk end up having a transformative and illuminating power about the contents -- whatever the client came in to talk about, process talk ends up being as important or more important, because it reveals things about the presenting problem that are not obvious by staring at it so directly. Taking a cue from that, Ryan & Nicole engage in process talk of their own about how things are going between them as it relates to the podcast, and also reveal that immediately before doing so, they encountered a fight in their relationship which shaped the conversation.

Discussed: content and process in therapy, process talk, vulnerability, self-criticism, shame, judgment, tension, harshness in communication, process talk as central in understanding broader relationship implications, and more.