Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Bethany Gee, MA

A key component of helping a client overcome a specific phobia is encouraging the individual to face the fear directly. The first step is to work with the client to develop an exposure hierarchy. This is a list of the client's feared situations, with the most anxiety-provoking ones at the top and the least anxiety-provoking ones at the bottom. The hierarchy serves as a roadmap to guide the client through a series of exposure practices involving confronting the feared situations. The client should start with easier items, and work up to more difficult situations.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhD, author of 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD, 2nd edition

It is imperative that therapists practice good self-care in order to protect themselves from absorbing too much suffering. This includes admitting that while being sensitive, caring people can make us good therapists, it can also result in taking on too much pain.

by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC, author of The Anger Workbook for Teens

Do you counsel parents who are at their wit's end with a child who throws tantrums, destroys things, or is defiant? If so, here's some information for parents that can help.

Children are constantly soaking in what's going on around them. Studies are showing that even when parents don't think that their kids listen, they do. Parents are one of the strongest influences in a child's life. They set the bar. So be sure that parents are modeling appropriate anger management skills. Besides being the model of behavior, parents should teach children specific skills to manage anger.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Jenny Rogojanski, MA

Changing behavior can be extremely challenging for clients, and finding ways to reinforce progress between sessions can be critical for successful therapy. In particular, the client's environment, culture, or social context may act as a barrier to making changes outside of the therapy session. One strategy that may be helpful for overcoming this is to include a supportive family member or close friend as a "helper" who can motivate the client to make changes between sessions. At times, a client's partner may not support the client's efforts to change, which can interfere with progress. In these cases, it is particularly important to get the client's partner on board.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Randy J. Paterson, PhD, author of Private Practice Made Simple

It's sometimes difficult to get hardworking clients to contemplate the value of life outside work. One option is simply to recite the old maxim, "No one reaches the end of their life and says 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office.'" Based on my experiences sitting by a lot of deathbeds in my time, this seems to be true. I've never seen a shred of regret about not working harder.

Another option is to lead the client into the discussion like this:

Quick Tip for Therapists by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhD, NCC, LMHC, author of 10 Simple Solutions to Adult ADD, 2nd ed.

A therapist can determine if a client's relationship is healthy by looking at the levels of control within a relationship. A healthy relationship is one that is interdependent: the partners are emotionally intimate and rely on each other, but also have their own interests and abilities. One partner does not try to control the other.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Heather Hood, MA

Although exposure-based treatments can be highly effective for helping clients overcome problems with anxiety, you can enhance treatment outcomes by paying attention to the way that you conduct exposure therapy. Successful exposure therapy follows these guidelines:

Quick Tip for Therapists by Martin M. Antony, PhD, author of Overcoming Health Anxiety and Valerie Vorstenbosch, MA

There are many reasons why clients are often noncompliant with homework assignments in therapy. They may face competing demands for their time, believe the assignments to be overly challenging or irrelevant, assume that the assignment will not be helpful, misunderstand what is expected for the assignment, or simply have limited motivation for change. Strategies for improving compliance depend on the reasons for noncompliance, so a first step to investigate factors that may be getting in the way of homework completion.

Quick Tip for Therapists by Sheri Van Dijk, MSW, co-author of DBT Skills Workbook for Bipolar Disorder

So what do we do with these unhelpful yes-buts? When the yes-but has become a pattern or habit, the clients need to become aware of it, and the most effective way to begin to increase awareness is for you to bring it to their attention (they can also use mindfulness to help with this if you've already gone over this skill). Gradually, they'll start to notice it themselves

by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC, author of The Anger Workbook for Teens

Cyberbullies are like monsters in the closet. They seem to lurk in the corners and under the bed, and their victims fear they will appear at any time. Just like a child who fears the dark, the victim of a cyberbully may be scared of what hides behind the screen. In today’s world, clicks and keystrokes have the power to destroy and alter lives. Bullies use many different forms of cyberbullying to engage their victims in a game of cat and mouse.

Here are twelve types of cyberbullying that exist: