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A first date shouldn’t feel like a therapy intake, but if you work in mental health, it can go there fast. We’re joined by guest host Lettie (MSW, mental health clinician) to get real about what dating looks like when your day job is empathy, boundaries, and emotional containment and how that skill set can attract the exact kind of chaos you’re trying to avoid.

We talk about the classic traps: trauma dumping way too early, people fishing for a diagnosis (“What do you think I have?”), and the sneaky shift where you become someone’s problem-solver or “mom role” before there’s even a relationship. We also dig into the other side of the stereotype, like dates who fear being psychoanalyzed, and why courtesy and active listening do not equal attraction. Along the way, we share nightmare dating stories that highlight consent red flags, entitlement, and the awkward reality that therapists can know the right advice and still freeze in the moment.

You’ll walk away with practical language for protecting your privacy (“I work with kids” is a great middle ground), strategies for keeping work from bleeding into romance, and a clear reminder we swear by: don’t date for potential, date what’s real and consistent right now. If you’ve ever dated a therapist or are one yourself, hit play, then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review. What’s the fastest dating red flag you’ve learned to trust?

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The DSM sits on so many office shelves like a permanent authority, but its history tells a different story: mental health diagnosis is a living document shaped by culture, politics, research, and plain old human error. We start with the DSM’s roots in 1952, originally designed for shared language in military and psychiatric hospital settings, and talk about how that origin still influences the myth that therapy is only for people in crisis instead of something you can use preventatively during big life transitions.

From there we track the huge pivot that comes with DSM-III in 1980, when psychoanalytic interpretation gives way to criteria and checklists. That structure can help clinicians communicate clearly and document responsibly, but it also raises hard questions about who gets defined by a label and what gets missed. We also name one of the most important corrections in DSM history: homosexuality being removed as a diagnosis in 1973, and why activism outside the therapy room changes what happens inside it.

We then fast-forward to DSM-5 (2013) and get into what’s shifted since then, including autism spectrum disorder and the lingering confusion around Asperger’s. We also unpack the weird, messy space where TikTok pop psychology collides with clinical reality: caffeine use disorder, internet gaming disorder, complex PTSD (CPTSD), rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) with ADHD, and what it means when clients come in using terms that feel real even when they aren’t officially recognized. Finally, we talk about newer updates like prolonged grief disorder (added in 2022) and the controversy around disruptive mood dysregulation disorder in kids.

If you like thoughtful therapist conversations with a little chaos and a lot of honesty, hit subscribe, share this with a friend or cohort, and leave a review so more people can find us. What DSM change do you think needs to happen next?

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Burnout gets treated like a trophy in mental health care, and we are done pretending that is normal. We are Tara and Ericka, and we are pulling back the curtain on what it really looked like for us in high-pressure clinical jobs where “being the one who can handle anything” earned praise while quietly draining our energy, boundaries, and sense of self. We talk about why burnout is not a badge of honor, how weak or inexperienced supervision can make it worse, and what we wish someone had told us much earlier about sustainable therapist work.

From there, we shift into the real-life experience of grad school for clinical mental health counseling. We unpack the gap between what people expect training to be and what it actually is when you are working full time, taking accelerated online classes, posting on discussion boards, and trying to keep up with internship requirements. We share what it is like to complete an unpaid internship, how quickly stress turns into a domino effect, and why you should start searching for internship sites sooner than your program suggests, especially if you do not have strong local networking yet.

We also get honest about imposter syndrome, the pressure to always have the “right thing” to say, and the skill that matters more than scripted responses: holding space. We even touch on why AI can generate endless advice but cannot replace human presence in a therapy room. If you are in grad school, preparing for internship, or newly licensed and overwhelmed, you will leave with language for what you are feeling and practical ways to stay grounded. Subscribe, share this with a future therapist friend, and leave a review telling us what part of training challenged you the most.

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