CEI essays and public writing develop clinical ideas in a more conversational and applied form than the Institute’s formal position papers. Many of these pieces belong to recurring series that examine common problems in psychotherapy, clinical reasoning, and day-to-day practice.
The Client Who…This is an essay series built around recognizable clinical situations that examine what the therapist is being asked to understand, what assumptions may be shaping the work, and where the clinical problem actually lies.
The Client Who Makes You Feel Like A Bad Therapist
The Client Who Asked You to Be More Directive
The Client Who Talked for the Entire Session
The Client Who Wanted Reassurance
The Client Who Thought She Was a Bad Person
The Client Who Had Nothing to Say
The Client Who Didn't Have a Problem
The Client Who Told You Everything
The Client Who Has Been With You Five Years
The Client You Are Calling Stuck Who Isn't
The Client Who Makes You Dissociate
The Client You Found on Facebook
Ideas for the Therapy Room: This is a series of short clinical essays that introduce a concept, distinction, or theoretical idea and consider how it may sharpen what a therapist notices, understands, or follows in practice
When Only One Person Can Be A Subject (Benjamin)
Can We Play With It? (Winnicott)
When the Client Knows More Than Can Be Thought (Bollas)
When the Therapist Needs to Know Too Soon (Bion)
When The Problem is an Adaptation (McWilliams)
When Being the Problem Protects the Relationship (Fairbairn)
Other Essays & Public Writing: Standalone essays and public writing on psychotherapy, clinical reasoning, professional practice, and the broader conditions that shape effective clinical work.
You Were Never Taught to Understand Your Client
An Anxious Client Gets a Prescription for Meditation
Credential Collectors, Brand Hunters, and the Clients Whose Discovery They Foreclosed