The Doorknob Canon
There's a phrase therapists use for when a client is about to leave and drops a significant piece of intel on their way out: doorknob confession. I've always loved the term, a charming, illustrative buoy in a sea of medicalized jargon. When my clients are walking out the door, they often ask for references: books, podcasts, films they can sink into between sessions to build on relevant themes. This space will be a hopefully ongoing and certainly incomplete list of those references.
Not all of what I share here will be overtly therapy related (in fact I hope most of it won’t be). I have never been of the mind that the most valuable content lies directly in the field itself. Sure, there is research, analysis and modalities that I can get very excited about but it’s a little inside baseball. What I tend to share with clients is what directly moves me without any academic reaching. This is more likely to be a film, poem, essay, even a brilliantly crafted segment of stand-up. Psychology is often trying to understand, quantify or prove what art already knows so well- that how we connect to others and to ourselves is how we heal.
It should be noted that some of the content I will highlight here may not be appropriate or healing for you. Consider this a blanket trigger warning, art is meant to evoke feeling and this content may do so in ways that are uncomfortable or outright painful. This is simply a collection of what moves me. I whole-heartedly encourage you to go out in avid pursuit of your own library of inspiration.