The words for when a client discloses (free guide)
Hello Reader, A client mentions, fifteen minutes before the hour is up, that they took psilocybin at a friend's place a few weeks ago. What are your first words? Most of us were never trained for that moment, and it matters more than almost anything that follows. How you receive a disclosure determines whether the conversation continues at all, and what it contains. Get the first thirty seconds wrong and the client learns to stop talking. That's the gap I keep running into, in my own practice and in the consultation groups I sit in: competent clinicians with no script for the one conversation their clients are most likely to bring them. An estimated eight million Americans used psilocybin in the past year, and most never tell the clinician they're already seeing. The ones who stay quiet aren't failing to communicate. They're protecting themselves from a reaction they expect. So I built the thing I wish I'd had. It's a two-sided First-Contact Clinical Language Guide: the actual words for the three phases of a disclosure conversation (reception, basic history, and a targeted safety screen), plus a short "what not to say" list and a documentation note on charting the disclosure itself. It's free. No form, no funnel. Download it, use it with a real client, then do me a favor and hit reply to tell me what landed and what you'd change. I'm finishing the course it comes from, and your read on this page will make the whole thing better. Download the First-Contact Language Guide → Where it's from: the guide is one piece of Psychedelics and the Therapeutic Frame: Foundations for Licensed Clinicians, a 3-CE-hour introductory course for licensed professionals who want a grounded foundation in psychedelic-informed practice without committing to a year-long facilitation training. It's evidence-forward and ethics-first, not a recruitment pitch for becoming a psychedelic therapist. More on that when it launches. For now, take the guide. Tell me what you think. — Peter P.S. The part I most want your eyes on is the "what not to say" column. If one of those lines is something you'd actually say, I want to know why. |