I appreciate your feedback. Indeed, I was uncomfortable with the situation and did want a space to reflect on my choices so far and to gather feedback from some of my peers for the purpose of understanding myself and learning about how the choices I've made may have made an impact on myself, my practice, and my patient. I don't want to invoke the "Well, other people post details of their work here, too!" rule -- but in some ways I think it is valid. Still, I will consider how much I've shared here and the appropriateness of the sharing in this public space.

You are right, private practice can be an isolating place, although in my case I have a great group of co-located practitioners and we have good discussions every week about issues we're each facing, as needed. I also attend regular peer group and individual supervision even though I've been fully licensed for a while now. For me, supervision is a fundamental part of the overall work I do as a therapist. No supervision is required of me, of course, however I voluntarily get about 6 hours of supervision per month. I will probably end this when my supervisor retires later this year, however I have considered doing some individual supervision work with another supervisor in the area after my current supervisor retires.

As you likely know, in private practice we're more vulnerable to counter-transference and other issues and I find supervision keeps me connected to myself and to the psychotherapy community as a whole. I also find it helps me remember the humanity of my patients even when I am frustrated with them or have lost some of the empathy for them that I need to retain to do well with my cases.

If there is one thing I think miramis5 is missing it is that we share something with our patients: our humanity. Here I am, asking for feedback (a form of help) from my peers, much like how my patient came to therapy for some help. Miramis5 accuses me of shaming my patient at the moment when he was asking for help, but it seems miramis5 is perhaps the one guilty of shaming a person looking for a little bit of help.