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Yes. It was a brand new client I’d never seen before, and he wanted me to see more of him than I was ready for!I knew from his intake form that he was Australian, and had come to Virginia for an IT job. He was tall and lanky and wore a baseball cap and Hawaiian shirt.As he sat down on my slightly scuffed cream leather sofa, he started to quickly unbutton his shirt, and was reaching for his belt. Seconds passed before I was able to come up with the following highly empathic, brilliantly therapeutic intervention, expressing profound and unconditional positive regard:What are you doing!!! You can’t take your clothes off in here!I admit it. That’s what I said. Later I thought of all the things I could have said, but Carl Rogers would have congratulated me for concreteness and genuineness, I like to think. Probably not, but I like to think that.Anyhow, the client said calmly, “Would it be OK if I just took my shirt off? I’d feel more comfortable if I took my shirt off.”Still in full empathy mode, I blurted, “No!”Subdued, he ventured “Shoes?”Normally I’d be OK with shoes, but I just shook my head no.I would like to tell you that I quickly figured out what the disrobing was about, and what it meant, but I still have no clue. Neither did my peer supervisor, though he did remind me of the nude psychotherapy movement, and guessed the guy might have been involved in that earlier and made assumptions. I thought that was a huge stretch. (Yes, it was a thing: Nude psychotherapy - Wikipedia.)There’s no doubt in my mind that another therapist, someone a lot more talented than I am, could have handled that situation creatively and brilliantly and made it a powerful therapeutic event.

Not sure what type of law your practice but there are a few out there.Client Intake: Lexicata is in beta but is supposed to be really easy for sending electronic client intake formsCase/Practice Management: Clio is a great software for about $70/user/mo or my company Litigo (in beta) but we are a free, bare-bones alternative if you're price sensitiveFastcase and Westlaw are great for legal research as well as a new, up and coming data visualization powered search called Ravel Law which is pretty coolEssentials: Dropbox, Box, Evernote are all web-based options for note taking and document storage though a good case management software (Clio, Litigo) will do this as welleDiscovery: EverLaw has some amazing algorithms that can cut through tons of data very quicklyThat's about all I can think of off the top of my head....hope that helps!

I’d never waste time doing that. It’s a diagnositic and statistical manual, not particularly scientific, used as a convenience for clinicians, researchers, and insurance companies to shoehorn humans into various categories. Going for that level of false precision would just make things worse.The only people who take the DSM very seriously are students and some clients, and Lucy. We have to use it in some settings (or the ICD-10), but we are not treating diagnoses (even medical doctors don’t do that exclusively, and the good ones take the whole person into account). We are focused on function.I daresay that many clinicians including those who know their clients very well, may have forgotten what they wrote in the “diagnosis” section of the intake form on the first day, but are doing effective therapy.A medical specialist may be treating “Type 2 Diabetes,” and be fully aware of it. A psychologist could be treating “Adjustment Disorder” or “Uncomplicated Bereavement” or “Dysthymic Disorder” or “Dependent Personality Disorder, Mild” and not care much which one it is: The therapy is tuned to this patient, at this time in their lives, with these emotional resources and this level of commitment to change and insight, and a lot more. DSM diagnostic categories capture little of what is important.