Hey Reader,

Being a therapist is such weirdly personal work.

It's intimate, but differently so for the therapist and client.

It's mutual, but that doesn't mean the patient and therapist share about ourselves mutually.

It's a relationship, but yes, there's a financial element to it as well.

Because it's a strange mix of the deeply personal with boundaried professionalism, I think it's important to regularly seek out consultation from other psychologists about the work we do.

Even with 17 years as a therapist under my belt, I know I have blind spots and that my own past pulls at me, and sharing my thinking and interventions with other experienced clinicians is a way of ensuring I'm keeping an eye on that.

While I usually seek consultation from peers or in issue-specific groups, I also get consultation from my own therapist, and it's incredibly helpful.

But I have noticed there are certain things we actually just seem disagree about.

The big one is that he thinks people either are capable of vulnerability, or they're not. When push comes to shove he'll add some nuance in, but he often starts out with this either/or view.

I think he's wrong about that.

I believe even when people really struggle with being honest and open about their inner worlds, it's not that "they aren't capable" of it.

They may not know HOW to do it yet, and there may be huge emotional obstacles to it, but I have a deeply held belief that people have an innate ability to be vulnerable.

Sometimes that ability is punished by the families we grow up in and so we learn to avoid it.

Sometimes that pain clips the wings of our vulnerability.

But I believe we have this capacity from the start. We may lose connection with it, or we may have never really learned how to use it skillfully, but I don't think it's ever really gone.

This is one of the reasons that I'm putting together a short course called Building Intimacy: A Guide for Deeper, Stronger Relationships.

If you're somebody who wants more intimacy but feel like you're just not sure how actually make that happen, this guide is for you.

I'll share more details as I get closer to making the offering public. For now, I just wanted to let you know it's coming. I'm excited about it, and I hope you will be too.

Until next week,

-Nick