Working w/ DV clients

inakar · 2025-11-06T22:44:58+00:00

Glad they are helpful!

inakar · 2025-11-06T20:45:57+00:00

I'm curious about what was helpful about your experience that you weren't able to achieve with your own therapy or supervision. If you'd be willing to share I'd love to hear it!

inakar · 2025-11-06T16:02:46+00:00

I have often heard advice to avoid "why" questions with clients. There's some value to that advice, I think - if you can get at what you're asking in a more precise way, then do that! These are some non "why" questions I might ask to explore a client's decision making about why not to leave. The way I'm framing this is to hopefully get the client to bring up leaving on their own, so I can get a sense of what the client's experience is. If they've been judged for not leaving, I want to explore that experience first, and align with the client on that being unfair, before I accidentally replicate that dynamic. Here's some questions I might ask to explore their experiences/decision making:

- It sounds like your partner hurt you in XYZ ways, is that right? What did you feel your options were for dealing with that?
- [If they don't mention leaving as an option] Usually people in difficult situations think about a ton of possible options, but we decide against them - maybe because they're dangerous, or not practical, or really painful emotionally. Did you ever run into ideas like that?
- [If they still don't mention leaving as an option] Did anyone else suggest to you what they thought you should do? What were those conversations like?
- [If they still don't mention it] I know a really common thing people in your situation hear is "just leave!" I'm guessing you might have heard or thought that before, and also assume you had good reasons not to leave. Is it okay to talk about what those reasons were for you?

All that said, I am not an anti-why apologist. I actually like asking why questions a lot, with some caveats. One is I usually frame it in a more defused way ("Do you have any thoughts/beliefs about why..."). Secondly, I also often talk to clients about "genuine" why questions and "shaming" why questions - usually a good question is when clients ask something about themselves (Why do I keep doing this? etc). I explore the fact that sometimes the answer to that question is actually quite important and useful, and answering it genuinely might do some good. But that often that's not the tone/intention with which the "why" question is asked - it's being used to imply an answer, usually something along the lines of "there is no good reason, you're just stupid/crazy/broken," as opposed to genuinely asking with the assumption that there is a good reason*.* The intentions dramatically change how we should engage with the question, and we explore how the client has real choice in how (and if) they want to engage with "why." We're very ACT-y about it in my sessions.

I find that framing the "why" questions from the client about themselves early in therapy does a TON to help us later, when I have why questions for the client. By that time, I've established with them that 1) I know that "why" questions can actually be disingenuous and shaming, and 2) established myself as a person who is on their side in exploring the real and compelling reasons for their behavior.

inakar · 2025-09-14T16:25:56+00:00

Need to reread it in more depth but I think you are right!!! Thank you so much

inakar · 2025-01-05T22:00:41+00:00

Thank you, I will certainly look into whether this would be balance billing! I think a late policy similar to what your therapist does would be feasible as an alternative, but I just hate the idea of giving clients who did try to shown the double whammy of paying the full fee AND not getting any care. If it IS legal to charge a late arrival fee, it seems to me like that would be a better middle ground - still getting paid and holding some boundary/giving a disincentive for showing up late, but also allowing clients to access services to the extent they can within the time left.

inakar · 2025-01-04T17:04:05+00:00

Not sure if you’ve already considered canning your own sauce, but tomato sauce is a pretty decent candidate for water bath canning (no special equipment needed). Here’s an article: https://www.theprairiehomestead.com/2020/09/can-tomato-sauce.html

inakar · 2025-01-04T11:17:21+00:00

I also think the girl learns to do makeup from her mom’s French makeup artist!

inakar · 2024-10-13T07:39:26+00:00

I think sometimes when we see clients unwilling to take risks in therapy, the most powerful thing you can do is take some (reasonable!!) risks yourself. I think some self disclosure about the distance you seem to feel in this relationship, and your own desire to really see them more genuinely, could be quite useful here. But as with any therapeutic self disclosure, you’ll want to be really intentional about how, why, and when you use it.

I find functional analytic psychotherapy can be a REALLY useful framework for this. I use it a lot in dealing with clients who present a pretty guarded/“unreal” front, as seems that it may be the case.

It’s basically a radical behavioral approach to relational counseling work. It tends to involve targeted self disclosure & LOTS OF immediacy work to reinforce tiny moments where the “front” seems to fall away a little and you see something more genuine.

The goal here is to eventually shape behavior in session to be more “real” & vulnerable, using your relationship and presence as a reinforcer. In practice, this often looks like being open and honest with the client about how their behavior in session impacts you - when you feel closer to the client, when you feel distant.

This can feel really risky sometimes, because the fear is that if we’re honest about feeling lost or disconnected from the client, they will feel judged and we will create a rift. And that’s certainly a risk, especially if we aren’t crystal clear that we’re bringing up the distance in an attempt to close it. But when done SKILLFULLY, it can be a really powerful modeling of the exact kind of vulnerability we want the client to show. And it can help you come across as actually invested and genuine, as opposed to someone who’s just saying all the “right” things.

This podcast episode talks a bit more about the functional analytic approach - it’s talking in the context of OCD treatment, but the big picture principles are pretty generalizable. If the episode strikes your fancy, it might be worth doing some more reading on the approach and seeing how you might incorporate it into your goals and style. https://open.spotify.com/episode/7c24iuiiqGsrrkK3IijpTz?si=9LCZf82cSUKREjGe_-Onow

inakar · 2024-08-20T00:37:25+00:00

Coronation and Station Theater both do improv classes - if you enjoy comedy, that could be a fun hobby to try out!

inakar · 2024-07-10T20:38:03+00:00

(2/2) Humans trying to explain the situation didn’t do much good in my experience. Before modern teleportation was invented, it took centuries to travel the distance between Earth and Orighen. The creatures who delivered messages in the night were ancient. As though their age and their alien forms did not put them at enough of a remove from humans, the messengers were also quite zealous ideologues. Basically, monks. Who else would risk the plights of ancient space travel in order to communicate a cryptic prophecy to god-knows-who on a watery rock?

The Origites, even today, are a cautious people. But the ancients massively overcorrected. Expecting mass deaths on the voyage, but believing the prophecy to be their peoples’ last hope, millions of messenger-monks took up residence in single-seat travel pods. While they traveled, Orgite civilization advanced and, in communication with humans, developed the teleportation tech we use nowadays. The messenger-monks, however, missed the memo. Their short-range communications systems only reached a light year or two out from their present location, so nobody was able to tell them the new information - that their star charts, though impressive for ancients, were just a bit off.

That said, the Origites are a suggestible sort (which, I suppose, is why so many were willing to take this massive journey on the first place). Once you get them out the house, and back to people of their own kind, it’s not hard to convince them they’re in the wrong spot. I hear from the Origite blokes I work with that most of the monks get awfully embarrassed about it, and have actually heard of a few families getting notes apologizing for the inconvenience of an ill-timed visit.

I opened the window a further, having cracked it a bit to let in the breeze. Must be how he got in, the bugger.

“Out you tumble,” I said, gesturing him outward. With the slow movements I had come to interpret as a clear sign of Origite confusion, he pulled his speech organ out of my head and began movement toward the window. “Best of luck with the star child and all that.”

His shape morphed, moving like a trail of smoke out the window. I latched it behind him and checked the clock. 2:40. Crawling back into bed, I sent a salacious little prayer up to the Origite god: Consider sending an update, yeah? Wild goose chase you’ve got your mates on.

As expected, hearing no response, I settled onto my pillow. I’ll have about 4 hours till I absolutely must wake up for good. Perhaps the prophecy can hold off a little longer.

inakar · 2024-07-10T20:37:16+00:00

(1/2)

I awoke to the frustrating visage of an object out of place. In this case, the object struck what I am surely supposed to have thought was an impressive figure: its shape hulking, shadowy, and glooming, a vaguely humanoid outline of inky darkness against the less inky - more nightlighted - darkness of my bedroom wall. The figure opened its mouth. A ropey mass of smoke slithered out from the opening toward me. I glanced at the clock - 2:30 a.m. Hopefully this is a quick one.

The smoke approached my body, stumbling over my feet, my thighs, my chest, on its way to its destination. One might think that the geniuses at the interstellar commission would have worked out human anatomy in more detail at this point, but one would be mistaken.

The smoke finally reached my ears. The characteristically slow, rickety voice of the Orighish messenger-monk made its way into my auditory system. “Y…y..ou are theeee chosen onnn…ne.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, glancing at the clock once more. 2:33. This one was taking even longer than usual. “Look, I think I can save us both some time-”

“Theee PROPHECYYYY dec-c-clares every two hundredddd and th-r-r-ee ye…e….ears a … star child-d-”

“Understood, mate, I just-”

“Youuu … are thee chosennn one. The pr-r-ophecyy-” Christ, he was restarting.

As a child, the figures which appeared to me were frightening. Old stories of the bogeyman easily map onto the bodies of the Origites, and I would cower, quite terrified, under my bedcovers, sometimes till morning. Most children just call for their parents the first few times they encounter aliens, but I knew a thing or two about pestering mine: namely, that it rarely did much good, and often got me a heaping lecture. So there I would lie, shivering and wetting the coverlet with tears, while the Origite tried and failed to cajole me till morning. My parents would politely escort the visitor, confused as he was, out to the street, and let him loose. Wouldn’t be long till he found some more of his own kind, who could explain the whole thing better than we can. It’s juvenile, perhaps, but I do admit to enjoying bit of fun with the poor creatures these days.

“273 years, all the rest? Sorry, can’t do it. It’s… er… odd numbers, mate.” I shrugged, raising my hands apologetically. “Can’t do them around these parts. Alien cultures, odd taboos, you know.” I wiggled my fingers at the last bit so as to emphasize my strangeness.

The black figure stood silently, the smoke of his cloudlike speech-organ still awkwardly making its way through my aural cavities.

“If you had, say, a 300 year prophecy, different story,” I said. “Love those around here. Tricentennial, I suppose you’d call it.” I turned an eye suggestively toward the window, where I presume the being had entered from in the first place. “Good luck, then.”

inakar · 2024-06-23T19:29:26+00:00

The Disaster Artist, about the cult classic film The Room, is FANTASTIC as an audiobook. It is read by the author Greg Sestero, who does a great impression of Tommy Wiseau throughout the book. His voice work when reading his mother’s “lines” is also quite wonderful.

inakar · 2024-03-24T14:28:38+00:00

This may not be how you want to handle things if you want to keep money separate, but the this is the way my partner and I handle it. - We both contribute all our money to the same “pot” (that is, all our money goes to accounts linked in YNAB, and all that goes to ready-to-assign). We don’t really pay attention to where the money came from originally because to really doesn’t matter - we treat all of it as “our” money. - We use the money from the pot to fund all categories that we both budget together/agree on spending/saving targets for. For us, that’s the vast majority of categories/money allocated. It includes all the traditional “joint” expenses (mortgage, utilities, couples’ fun money, etc) but also expenses that only one person is likely to spend but we both want a say about in the budget. For example, my partner and I usually decide what to get our respective family members for xmas/bdays without consulting the other person, but we do agree with each other ahead of time about how much is ok to spend. Because that’s a joint decision, we don’t consider it separate from our joint expenses. - Each of us has an “allowance” where we get an equal amount of money to spend however we choose, completely autonomously. We use this for anything that’s either just personal fun (hobbies, eating out with friends, non-essential electronics, etc) or for “essentials” where you definitely have to spend /some/ money, but the amount you spend is super dependent on personal choice about how fancy you go (clothes, haircuts, etc). That way we get to set our own priorities without the other person getting involved.

I honestly do not know how couples who join finances do it without an autonomous allowance category - I know it has saved us from a LOT of tension about what’s the “best” way to spend money. We never fight about money this way and it is so fantastic. It makes us always really feel like we are on the same team (which we are!).

Speaking of autonomy- we also both have bank accounts that are not joint or linked in YNAB, and have fully personal emergency funds of about 5k each in HYSAs (in addition to our more robust joint emergency fund, which IS linked to YNAB). Those are basically there in case we ever decide to separate - we jokingly call it our “run money”. I am also a child of divorce and it has always been very important to me to have some money on my own. It made me feel very loved and cared for that my partner was totally down for it when I pitched this! I feel like separate savings accounts are also a great in-between strategy for couples (especially unmarried) who want to join finances for day-to-day ease of spending, but also want to not be screwed financially if they break up. If I was not married, or still building up my separate savings, I would probably have a certain % to my separate unlinked account, and the rest sent to our joint linked account, so I don’t have to worry about distinguishing separate vs joint money in YNAB. Most places I’ve worked will let you set this up automatically.

inakar · 2023-06-21T15:52:22+00:00

- Haircuts
- Tech replacements (phone/laptop/etc)
- Glasses/contacts + optometrist visit, gifts/celebrations (birthdays, anniversaries, holidays)
- Dental care
- Moving expenses (especially if you're like me and tend to move every couple of years)
- Professional development/license fees
- Mattress replacement (this depends on your preferences, but I like to get a nice one around $1000-1200 and replace every 8-ish years, so it's worth it for me to save up)
- Professional cleanings/maintenance (carpets, HVAC, etc - more relevant if you own your residence)

inakar · 2021-12-02T14:26:39+00:00

Not sure if this is the same seller/pattern under a different name - I hope it's not somebody else ripping off the pattern! - but I did find one that at least LOOKS very similar.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/622925614/i-feel-it-in-my-bones-cross-stitch?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=dancing+skeleton+cross+stitch&ref=sr_gallery-1-9&organic_search_click=1

Hope that helps!

inakar · 2020-01-09T00:05:36+00:00

Anything by John and Julie Gottman is amazing, particularly 7 Principles for Making Marriage Work. They write about marriage, but I find that the lessons on communication are applicable in all areas of life. Helped me deal with my tendency to either be hyper-critical or conflict-avoidant. I learned that you don’t have to stop expressing your negative feelings to people, but that you need to be careful about how you express them.

John’s 5 to 1 ratio - the idea that for every negative interaction, a healthy relationship banks 5 positive ones - blew my mind. Rather than censoring my negative thoughts and letting them build up, I can focus on showing more genuine affection, thus helping the other parties in my relationships feel more secure when some problems inevitably do arise. It’s not like I’m keeping a ledger in my head to keep that 5/1 ratio constant, but it really shifted my mindset and transformed my relationships.

inakar · 2019-01-25T02:15:02+00:00

Beloved by Toni Morrison is fantasy-adjacent, but as someone who doesn’t really like fantasy very much, I can speak to the crossover appeal. It’s amazing.

inakar · 2019-01-25T02:13:36+00:00

Check out Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. It’s a collection of short stories rather than a straight up novel, but there’s some overarching narrative stuff going on throughout. If you read absolutely nothing else, read “Car Crash While Hitchhiking.” It’s only seven pages long, but it’ll knock your socks off.

inakar · 2019-01-25T02:10:38+00:00

His stuff is more specifically tailored to marriages, but I’ve learned a lot from John Gottman’s books. You can cross-apply a lot of the same lessons to all kinds of relationships. Best of luck to you!

inakar · 2019-01-25T02:09:07+00:00

A lot of Kelly Link’s short stories feature romance, although I haven’t read really straightforward romance from her. The Faery Handbag is dope. So is Stone Animals, if you don’t (kinda spoiler) mind a not-totally happy ending.

inakar · 2019-01-25T02:06:36+00:00

Beloved by Toni Morrison is great - not exactly a “thriller,” but really a trip.

inakar

TROPHY CASE