Early Career Clinicians Group

Mondays, 5:30-7:00 p.m. PST, Telehealth
Up to $50 / session (rate determined collaboratively)

The years immediately following graduate school are often the most pivotal and precedent setting for clinicians, as is the transition from community mental health settings to the very different world of private practice.

At their best, clinical supervision and consultation are invaluable sources of support. They offer collegiality, resources for self-examination and for minding the therapeutic frame, and strategies for effectively channeling countertransference back into our relationships with patients. But they are not really designed to address a perennial challenge for clinicians, particularly those who rely on a full-time caseload for their livelihood: over-identification with the professional role.

We are taught how to be therapists—thoughtful, skilled, deeply committed therapists. But as time wears on, some of us may notice that we struggle with how to be not-therapists. This can especially be true for those who bring into their professional roles backgrounds of childhood parentification and histories with addicted or otherwise dysfunctional family systems. It becomes difficult to live the other selves that aren’t hyper-observing egos because that is the vigilance that was once necessary.

And so it is important to lay the groundwork early in our careers for supports and outlets for the more vulnerable parts of us that are at risk of marginalization and/or have not yet found the healing they have needed.

Such is the purpose of this group. I welcome your interest. To inquire use my Contact page or email geoff.ashmun@gmail.com.

Open to members of all genders and neurotypes residing in California, Washington, Arizona, and Utah.

A general description of my groups is available on my Services page.