Historically, August was the month when psychotherapists vacationed. In that spirit, this evening I find myself at a retreat center just south of Santa Fe. Rita and I are celebrating our 40^th wedding anniversary with a four-day poetry retreat.

Our retreat is with Pádraig Ó Tuama. I would have said “the amazing Pádraig Ó Tuama,” but this evening he let us know in no uncertain terms that he’s what might be called an adjective- and adverb-slayer. Meaning, he doesn’t like them and he’s inclined to kill them. He also doesn’t like repetition, which could spell trouble for me, being an academic type who likes to foreshadow what’s coming and then summarize what happened.

You can learn more about Pádraig Ó Tuama at: https://www.padraigotuama.com/

My favorite line from Pádraig’s opening comments this evening was (paraphrasing here):

If you’re projecting your resentment on me, you’re wasting your resentment.

He also said something about diagnosis and not putting lots of stock in it and suggested he didn’t much trust the solidity of identity anyway.

Tomorrow, we start at 7am. We also got a mini-lecture on punctuality. Oh my. I had no idea poetry was so disciplined. Although I’m inclined to preface the 7am start time with an adjective or two, I’ll keep this sparse, which allows you to formulate your own phenomenological projections of what my adjectives about a 7am poetry start time might have been.

It might be that this week I will also try to weave in some counseling and psychotherapy theories content into the poetry experience (and vice versa). For tonight, my thoughts turn to Chapter 1 in the brand-new 4^th edition of Counseling and Psychotherapy Theories in Context and Practice. Here’s a section on “A Plan for Maximizing Positive Outcomes” in counseling/psychotherapy. How does that relate to the beginning of a 4-day poetry retreat? It seems obvious to me, but you should let me know what you think. Here’s the excerpt:

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Below, we’ve listed six ideas for maximizing positive outcomes.

1. Emphasize the therapy relationship (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2024). Intentionally try to be genuine, accept clients for who they are, and show empathy (see Chapter 6 for more details). Consistent with Bordin’s (1979) tripartite working alliance, you should (a) establish an emotional connection with clients; (b) set mutual goals; and (c) collaborate on therapy tasks linked to therapy goals (Budge et al., 2023; J. Sommers-Flanagan, 2015; Zagorscak et al., 2020).
2. Use flexible and culturally sensitive assessment approaches to tailor treatment to clients and their problems. As you read each chapter, you’ll see that each theory includes recommended assessment strategies. Regardless of theory, therapeutic assessment should be collaborative, empathic, and practiced with cultural humility (Finn et al., 2012; Summers & Nelson, 2023).s.
3. Engage clients in role induction. Role induction “involves educating clients about their role and what to expect in the assessment and treatment process. When implemented well, role induction not only educates clients but also facilitates an interactive discussion about client expectation” (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan, 2024, p. 91). Clients will do better when you discuss therapy process openly and transparently, offer them a chance to ask questions, and explain the pros and cons of specific therapy techniques.
4. Keep up with research. Educate yourself on evidence-based relationships (Parrow, 2023), empirically supported treatments (ESTs; Harrer et al., 2025), and research-supported skills and methods (Hill & Norcross, 2023). Given the multitude of ESTs, you should learn a few for working with specific populations (e.g., if you want to work with individuals suffering from trauma, learning trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and/or eye movement desensitization reprocessing would be useful).
5. To avoid negative outcomes, you should (a) continually work on self-awareness using individual supervision and peer supervision; (b) individualize therapy approaches to fit clients—rather than expecting all clients to benefit from one approach; and (c) avoid using PHTs (Lilienfeld, 2007).
6. Use practice-based evidence or progress monitoring (PM) to track therapy process and outcomes. Practice-based evidence (aka PM) involves collecting data, sometimes every session, pertaining to client symptoms and/or client satisfaction (Meier, 2015; Sun et al., 2021). This will allow you to make modifications in your approach as needed (Lambert, 2010).