05/13/2026
I get this may be true for some people, but not all of us - you can be eclectic if you have a plan in advance. “If the client gives me this, then I respond with that.”
I introduce myself as an ACT therapist who also does narrative therapy and MI. I know of things like EMDR and IFS, but honestly, I don’t have the energy to learn anything new, especially if I’m not sure I’ll like it. I’ve got way too many things going on to learn a whole new approach. I chose to stick with what I know and build on that, get better with what I know already.
Everyone in grad school learns CBT. You want to feel better, you have to change your feelings, thoughts and behaviors. It’s easiest to change your thoughts, so we teach you how to do that and then you will feel better and behave better. That is the extremely simplified concepts behind CBT. I graduated thinking that was enough, but it wasn’t. Try applying CBT to someone who has to cope with generational, poverty, America’s immigration system, and so on. CBT does have an ending point where changing your thoughts isn’t possible or helpful. Neither is telling people they just have to live with these unchangeable things – so when I was younger, that was when I discovered a whole approach designed to support acceptance – ACT. And it was then, over 15 years ago, that I had the time, interest, and energy to learn more about ACT. And as I worked with people with substance abuse, I learned about MI and I realize this is a good way to talk to anyone about anything while you’re incorporating a whole different approach at the same time. Where does narrative therapy fit in? I was a born writer, and I love the concept of storytelling. That’s a huge, personal interest of mine and writing is also a way that I cope with and process my own life. Narrative therapy encourages me to separate the client from the problem and to treat the client like they are the subject matter expert of their own life. I feel like that shows a lot more respect and empowerment to the client. Narrative therapy isn’t just changing the story of a person’s life, it is also helping them find control over their life again, helping them externalize problems so that they no longer feel defined by their problems. I think it’s really powerful, I’ve seen how it has worked in my own life and I love being able to share this with clients when their situation is appropriate for it.
Being eclectic means that you know some different approaches, but you also know how they can fit together and you can go back-and-forth in a planned and coordinated way that makes sense. There’s times I’ve watched myself ping-pong between ACT, MI, and some narrative therapy concepts all within the same session. And again when it’s appropriate, I do bring in CBT. I can’t tell you how many times I talk to clients about reframing and redirecting. That comes up pretty often for almost everyone.
But to this guy’s point, I do get it. I think there are a lot of therapists out there who are just winging it and hoping they don’t screw up. The way you prevent this is by making lifelong learning a meaningful part of your postgraduate life. Yes, you can watch a webinar during your lunch break and get a CEU for it, but I think that therapists should go a step further and find interesting books about therapy concepts that they can learn from. Don’t pay attention only what gets you CEUs, look at some of the videos on YouTube that the big names in therapy are putting out. There’s a lot of content that you can read or watch that will show you how to better understand and put different therapy approaches into action. I don’t think lifelong learning is encouraged in our field as much as it should be – we definitely encourage getting the CEUs, but we don’t collectively talk about how fun it is to learn about therapy concepts throughout our career. We don’t treat learning as something we want to do, we treat learning as something that we have to do because the licensing board says so. That’s the wrong attitude to have, and it really does take the joy out of growing as a therapist. I think if we adopt a better perspective towards learning, then we’ll find ourselves actually wanting to do it more often – and that’s what makes us better therapists.
