Therapy Progress Notes: Templates, Examples, and What to Include
A practical guide to writing therapy progress notes — including SOAP format, DAP format, what to include, and common mistakes to avoid.
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When Clients Ask Personal Questions: A Therapist’s Guide to Self-Disclosure
When clients ask personal questions — about your family, your life, your own therapy — a clinical framework for when to answer, when to explore, and exactly what to say.
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Treatment Planning for Therapists: A Practical Guide
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com Treatment planning has a reputation problem. For most therapists, it’s the clinical task that feels most disconnected from actual clinical work — a checkbox for insurance, a form to fill out, a requirement that generates boilerplate language disconnected from what actually happens in the room. It doesn’t have…
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When to Refer a Client: A Clinical Decision Framework
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com Referral is one of the most clinically and ethically significant decisions you make — and one of the least explicitly taught. Most therapists develop referral instincts through experience, through supervision, through the uncomfortable moment of realizing something is beyond what they can provide. But “beyond what I can…
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When a Client Is Angry in Session: Scripts and Clinical Response
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com Anger is one of the most activated and most mishandled presentations in outpatient therapy. Therapists tend toward one of two errors when anger shows up in session: moving past it too fast (soothing it, pathologizing it, or redirecting to “what’s underneath”) before the client feels received — or…
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DBT Skills for Therapists: A Quick-Reference Clinical Guide
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com You don’t have to be a fully certified DBT therapist to use DBT skills clinically. But you do need to know which skills to reach for, when, and how to introduce them in a way that doesn’t feel like a worksheet assignment. This post is a working reference…
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When a Client Has a Panic Attack in Session: What to Do and What Not to Say
Panic attacks are not dangerous, but therapists often respond in ways that make them worse. A clinical guide to what happens during panic, what to do in the room, and how to use the moment clinically.
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Working with Shame in Therapy: Scripts and Clinical Approach
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com Shame is the silent driver behind most of what people bring to therapy. It’s in the self-criticism. In the “I know this is stupid, but—”. In the elaborate way your client minimizes their pain because other people have it worse. In the apology for crying. In the “I…
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OCD in Therapy: What to Say and How to Work With It
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com OCD is one of the most misdiagnosed, most misunderstood, and — when treated correctly — most treatable conditions in outpatient therapy. It’s also one where well-meaning therapists accidentally make things significantly worse. If you’ve ever reassured a client with OCD, explored their obsessional content in depth, or helped…
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Grief Therapy: Scripts, Techniques, and What Therapists Need to Know
By Kristen McClure, MSW, LCSW | TherapistWorksheet.com Grief is one of the most common things people bring to therapy — and one of the presentations therapists feel least equipped for. Not because the skills are so complicated, but because grief asks something of you before it asks anything of your technique: it asks you to…
