Self Careapist Therapist Podcast
How do you actually use EMDR, CBT, or IFS in session, not the textbook version, but with a real client sitting across from you? Self Careapist Therapist is a therapist-to-therapist podcast where licensed clinicians break down the
clinical skills, modalities, and hard conversations that training programs skim over.
Hosted by Lorain Moorehead, LCSW, PMH-C, EMDR Certified Approved Consultant, Clinical Supervisor, and graduate school faculty associate. Each week features expert guests, including researchers, authors, and practicing clinicians, sharing
evidence-based interventions you can take straight into your next session.
Topics include:
• EMDR therapy, trauma processing, and advanced EMDR applications
• Internal Family Systems (IFS), parts work, and integrative trauma approaches
• CBT, DBT, RO-DBT, ACT, and third-wave cognitive behavioral therapies
• Clinical supervision, therapist training, and professional development
• Trauma, complex trauma, PTSD, CPTSD, and nervous system regulation
• ADHD, autism, neurodiversity-affirming assessment and treatment
• Therapist burnout, perfectionism, compassion fatigue, and sustainable self-care
• Couples therapy, attachment theory, and relational wounds
• Anxiety, OCD, and exposure-based interventions
• Grief, prolonged grief disorder, and meaning-making
• Suicide risk assessment, CAMS, and crisis intervention
• Parent-child therapy, adolescent anxiety, and family systems
• Perinatal mental health
• Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and emerging modalities
• Clinical ethics, risk management, and culturally responsive practice
• Private practice development, insurance, and building a sustainable career
Questions we answer:
• How do I use EMDR, CBT, DBT, or ACT in real-life sessions, not just textbook examples?
• How do I choose which therapy modality to learn next?
• How do other therapists handle burnout and compassion fatigue?
• How do I integrate different modalities instead of feeling like I'm doing them wrong?
• When should I use IFS parts work versus EMDR reprocessing?
• How do I grow as a therapist after grad school or licensure?
• How do I make my practice more trauma-informed and culturally responsive?
• How do I find my niche or specialty as a clinician?
• What does evidence-based therapy actually look like in practice?
• How do therapists cope with imposter syndrome and self-doubt?
• How do I explain complex therapy concepts to clients in simple language?
• What is the best podcast by therapists, for therapists?
Whether you are a seasoned clinician or a graduate student, every episode is designed to sharpen your clinical thinking and reconnect you with the curiosity that makes therapy meaningful. Conference-level education and psych journal-quality conversations delivered while you drive, walk, or decompress between sessions.
Many episodes offer a free CEU for licensure in Arizona through the Board of Behavioral Health Examiners. Content is relevant for continuing education across LCSW, LMHC, LPC, LMFT, NCC, NBCC, and psychology licensure.
Subscribe and leave a review. It helps other therapists find the show.
Self Careapist Therapist Podcast
Healing Through ACT: A Trauma Journey with Dr. Darrah Westrup and Dr. Robyn Walser
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You Are Not Your Trauma: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Healing
In this episode, I'm joined by two remarkable clinicians who together have over 60 years of combined experience working with trauma: Dr. Darrah Westrup and Dr. Robin Walser. These two have been collaborating for nearly two decades and three books. Their latest book, "You Are Not Your Trauma" published by Guilford Press, offers something different from traditional trauma treatments.
While many approaches focus primarily on symptom reduction, Darrah and Robin take us further—into the territory of meaning, values, and vitality. They're not just asking "How do we make the pain go away?" but rather "How do you want to live your life, even while carrying a difficult history?"
In this conversation, we explore:
- What Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is and why it's so effective for trauma work
- The three pillars of ACT: Open, Aware, and Engaged
- The paradox of avoidance—how our natural instinct to run from pain can actually keep us stuck in it
- Why battling trauma is like swatting at a bee—you might survive if you let it pass, but once you engage in battle, things escalate
- The distinction between the self that experiences trauma and the experiences themselves
- How values don't compete and don't depend on history
- Why trauma survivors don't need to wait until symptoms disappear to start living meaningful lives
Powerful stories from this conversation:
- A client who spent 30 years stuck in a trauma story, believing they couldn't move forward until the trauma was "resolved"—and the breakthrough that came from accepting that history only goes in one direction
- A survivor of childhood sexual trauma who discovered that new memories surfacing no longer frightened her because she realized: "I'm larger than that"
- A veteran who learned his values were still available to him, regardless of what he'd seen or done
- Darrah's personal experience with a visualization exercise that changed everything for her
About our guests:
Dr. Darrah Westrup began her career at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, where she was director of a 90-day residential treatment program for military women with trauma and severe PTSD. She has been working with ACT since her dissertation work and brought ACT into residential treatment for the first time in 2000.
Dr. Robin Walser worked at the National Center for PTSD and studied under Dr. Steve Hayes, the developer of ACT, at the University of Washington. She was part of Dr. Marsha Linehan's DBT team during graduate school and has been practicing ACT since 1991.
Resources mentioned:
- You Are Not Your Trauma by Dr. Darrah Westrup and Dr. Robin Walser (Guilford Press)
- Learning ACT, Second Edition by Dr. Robin Walser
- Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS)
- Online mindfulness meditations accompanying the book
Continuing Education: Many episodes offer a free CEU for licensure in Arizona through the Board of Behavioral Health Examiners. Content is relevant for continuing education across LC
The Self Careapist Therapist Podcast is a biweekly conversation with Lorain Moorehead, LCSW a therapist in private practice. With guests ranging from expert psychologists, therapists, researchers and authors, each episode offers a deep dive and keeps listeners from intern to advanced supervisor in mind while dropping gems and aha moments for everyone who loves to learn! If you love learning and want to keep track of some future learning opportunities, grab your personal curriculum here!
If you liked this episode, feel free to subscribe and leave a review! Your support helps us be a top mental health podcast and resource. See you next week!