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In Each Issue
Logged In: Because “I’ll figure the tech out later” isn’t a strategy.
Meme of the Week
Cut the Fluff: Reflections on how we hold it all: our clients, our questions, and ourselves.
Tool of the Week: A quick, practical tool for your clinical bag of tricks.
Off the Clock: What we’re reading, watching, and listening to out of session.
Fresh Findings: What’s new in the research world? We skimmed the abstracts so you don’t have to.
Stories from the Community: Real moments from real therapists
Logged In:
Algorithmic Bias in AI
Bias doesn’t disappear just because the decision-maker is a machine. In a thoughtful and grounded piece, Dr. Marina Badillo-Diaz, DSW, LCSW, and Taneasha E. Evans, LCSW, outline three ways algorithmic bias shows up in AI used in mental health and social services:
Historical bias: when tools inherit systemic inequities from past data
Representation bias: when certain communities are missing or misrepresented in the data used to train, validate, or apply an algorithm
Measurement bias: when flawed stand-ins like zip code or welfare status are used as risk indicators
These are not abstract concerns.
Predictive analytics in child welfare have disproportionately flagged Black and low-income families for investigation.
Eligibility tools for housing and services have quietly excluded people based on biased assumptions embedded in data.
AI-powered chatbots often miss key indicators of distress or risk, an area where context, culture, or trauma history matters most.
As the article goes on to say, for clinicians, this isn’t just a heads-up; it’s a call to engagement. We need to be part of shaping how these tools are developed, evaluated, and used.
To read the full article, click here.
Meme of the Week - This one’s for the philosophy nerds.
Marianne’s Cut the Fluff:
“I’ll Throw Your Phone In The Sea”
This week I tried to switch off. I was on holiday. But honestly? It was hard work not to work.
Part of that was unavoidable. I had to keep access to my work email because there were research deadlines for my doctorate that could only be signed off through that account. After more than a year of wrestling to get ethical approval, finally getting it over the line was non-negotiable. Still, it meant I carried my work with me.
Since the pandemic, the way we work has shifted. We are online, all the time. Boundaries between work and everything else are thinner than ever. I have a little motto: If I see it, I have to action it, which no doubt comes from my days in an NHS CAMHS outreach team where, whatever the day or the hour, we were basically on call 24/7.
So even though I tried to “stay in my lane” and only deal with research emails, ignoring the other crises dropping into my inbox, including from my own caseload, was almost unbearable. I even had the urge to call my boss and ask, “Is everything alright?” Part of that I would not change for the world. I have never worked in a team that shows up for and prioritises wellbeing more. But the rest, the compulsion, the need to check, the itch to act, that is my stuff.
Thankfully, my brilliant Psychologist colleague was covering, so I knew everyone was safe. But still, the niggle lingered: what did I miss in the formulation, should I have done something differently? The truth we know is that plastic brains are unpredictable. They cannot and nor should they be neat and tidy, and no amount of me checking my inbox from a beach was ever going to change that.
For me, rest has to be intentional. Not “if there is time” rest. But I must, I need, I deserve rest. Because when I do not take it, I turn into someone who is not particularly helpful, not especially patient, and certainly not as available as I want to be for my family.
What I did learn this week is that when you really are in the middle of nowhere and there truly is nothing you can do, all you can do is radically accept the opportunity to rest. This helped me realise my previous version of radical acceptance had room for improvement.
Maybe that is the bit we do not say enough: that it is not just difficult to switch off, it feels almost impossible. But if we do not take rest for ourselves, the cost shows up anyway, in the way we work and in the way we live.
My husband threatening to throw my phone in the sea might have catalysed this. Sometimes radical acceptance means letting go — or at least putting the phone down long enough to remember the sea is bigger than your inbox.
Ann’s Tool of the Week
Congruence
Congruence is one of the simplest tools we have as therapists. And maybe because it’s so simple, it’s also one of the easiest to forget.
Rooted in person-centered therapy, congruence is the alignment between our inner experience and our outward expression. It’s the antidote to that frantic feeling of searching for the “right” intervention or the perfectly polished response. As much as my mind insists that other therapists would know exactly what to say in any given situation, what a difficult moment often calls for is honesty. Some of the most complicated situations, the ones where words feel impossible, are best met with a simple, authentic response: “I don’t know how to respond right now.” Or even: “My heart is hurting for you and the pain you are carrying. I’m grateful you shared this with me, so you don’t have to hold it alone.”
I’ve found that even journaling in this way has been helpful. Writing down what I’m actually thinking or feeling has been helping me notice the gaps between my inner world and my outward expression. That practice also makes it easier to bring congruence into session, not as a perfect skill, but as a habit I can keep returning to.
Off the Clock
Ann’s Pick: Back to the Frontier (HBO Max)
This one might be an acquired taste. Back to the Frontier follows three modern families trying their hand at homesteading, with all the challenges and dynamics that come with it. It’s rare to find a show that all of my kids (ages 9, 13, and 15) want to watch together, but thanks to their quasi–history-nerd status, this one fits the bill.
The show has sparked some great conversations among us about convenience, kids pulling their weight at home (I’m pro), and historical and present-day racism and discrimination. Watching the families on the show adapt, bond, find new parts of themselves, and renegotiate their roles is pretty compelling, especially if you’re into family systems.
Marianne’s Pick: Pomalo.
This week in Croatia, I discovered Pomalo – a way of being that means “take it slow, step by step, don’t rush.” Literally ‘being’ off the clock!
A local restaurateur on Vis told me how this is rooted in the island’s history of colonisation and resilience. It’s not just about rest, it’s cultural.
Leaning into it, my screen time dropped from 12 hours to 2.
I felt calmer, lighter, happier.
So this week, my pick is simple: Pomalo.
Fresh Findings
New Research for Curious Clinicians
What Happens After Quitting SSRIs?
A new meta-analysis of 50 trials and nearly 18,000 participants offers clarity on SSRI discontinuation. Within the first week of stopping, people experienced about one extra symptom compared to those who stayed on medication or placebo. This is well below the threshold for a clinically significant withdrawal syndrome. The most common complaints were dizziness, nausea, vertigo, and nervousness.
Importantly, depressive symptoms didn’t spike after discontinuation, suggesting that mood changes are more likely signs of relapse than withdrawal. The authors argue for shifting the language from “withdrawal” to “discontinuation symptoms,” to avoid conflating antidepressants with addiction.
Clinical takeaway: This evidence is reassuring; most clients will experience only mild, short-lived effects. But the takeaway isn’t to dismiss symptoms - it’s to frame them accurately, encourage the client to follow their tapering plan from their prescriber carefully, and use the process as a moment for shared decision-making with clients.
GLP-1 Agonists and Suicide Risk
With the rise in prescriptions for GLP-1 receptor agonists (Ozempic, Wegovy, semaglutide) for diabetes and weight management, questions about psychiatric safety have gained urgency. A meta-analysis of 144 randomized, placebo-controlled trials (more than 100,000 participants) offers the most comprehensive look to date, and the findings are reassuring. Researchers found no increase in suicide-related adverse events (ideation, attempts, or completed suicides) among people taking GLP-1 medications compared with placebo.
The strength of this study lies in its size and rigor. Pooling high-quality RCTs provides far stronger evidence than earlier case reports or small case series that raised alarms. Still, the authors note that rare adverse events could occur, and suicidality was not the primary outcome in most of the included trials, so clinician vigilance remains important, especially for patients with a psychiatric history.
Clinical takeaway: At the population level, GLP-1 agonists do not appear to increase the risk of suicidality. For individual clients, thoughtful monitoring remains essential, particularly when supporting those managing both mental health concerns and metabolic or weight-related conditions.
Stories from the community
Last week’s question was:
What’s one small thing that reliably makes your day better (coffee, music, a walk, etc.)?
Community Responses:
One thing that reliably makes my day better is taking time to lie on the carpet with my dog so he can cuddle up against me.
Doing the Wordle.
Getting enough sleep. Which usually means going to bed early the night before.
This week’s question:
What’s something you loved doing as a kid that you’d still enjoy today if you made time for it?
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