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
Perfectionism Explained: Individual And Group Psychotherapy Interventions
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What if perfectionism has nothing to do with wanting things done well? Dr. Paul L. Hewitt, Full Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, researcher, and co-author of Perfectionism: A Relational Approach to Conceptualization, Assessment, and Treatment, joins the podcast to reframe perfectionism as a deeply relational personality style born out of unmet attachment needs. This conversation covers the development of perfectionism through early relational asynchrony, how it functions differently from conscientiousness or high standards, what Dynamic-Relational Therapy for Perfectionism looks like in practice, and what clinicians should know about the depth of pain underneath a high-functioning exterior. The episode also covers new research on how perfectionism in therapists affects the therapeutic alliance.
0:00 - Intro and Dr. Hewitt's background
0:54 - How a dentist's waiting room started a research career
2:30 - Personal connection to perfectionism through classical music training
3:17 - Defining perfectionism as a personality style rather than a set of attitudes
4:03 - The unmet relational and esteem needs underneath perfectionism
8:18 - Whether perfectionism concentrates in one area or crosses all life domains
11:55 - Why achievement fails to correct the core wound (case example)
14:06 - Links to attachment theory and early developmental asynchrony
22:51 - Perfectionism in high-achieving professionals and entrepreneurs
27:20 - The wrong tool: an elegant but ultimately childlike solution to deep pain
28:21 - How treatment parallels the challenge of exposure work in OCD
30:56 - Distinguishing clinical perfectionism from conscientiousness and high standards
32:20 - The vulnerability piece: procrastination and never getting started
33:35 - Dr. Hewitt's concerns about symptom-based classification systems
36:14 - What typically brings someone to therapy for perfectionism
38:29 - The tenets of Dynamic-Relational Therapy for Perfectionism
40:54 - How the therapeutic relationship becomes the vehicle for change
42:37 - Treatment length and the 30-session research benchmark
43:46 - The clinician workshop training model explained
54:24 - The perfectionism book and the new paperback edition
57:38 - The depth of pain underneath high-functioning clients
59:44 - Concealment, imposter syndrome, and the hidden self
1:01:00 - Research on perfectionism in therapists and its impact on the alliance
Episode Highlights:
Perfectionism is a layered, complex personality style rooted in unmet needs for love, acceptance, and personal worth, not a drive for high standards.
The core dynamic is a deeply human need to feel acceptable to others and worthy as a self, which perfectionism attempts to solve through a strategy that can never deliver what it promises.
Perfectionism develops through early attachment asynchrony, where the child's needs are not adeq
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!