Stuck Clients?
Been There. Done That.
You Need This.
Masterclass in Advanced Psychotherapy Skills
Volume 3: Working with Stuck Clients
with Victor Yalom, PhD and Orah Krug, PhD
New online course — only $119
Includes 5 hrs of video featuring sessions with real clients, 5 CE Credits, bonus resources & more
We know that clients don’t seek therapy lightly—they come to us in distress, looking for meaningful change and relief from suffering. Many engage openly and benefit from the skills we offer as clinicians, but inevitably we all encounter clients who, despite regular attendance and readiness to talk, remain stuck in therapy and in their lives. They may fill sessions with compelling stories, yet growth remains elusive. Why is progress so hard to come by for these clients, and how can we as therapists respond in ways that re-engage them and move them forward?
In Volume 3 of our Masterclass in Advanced Psychotherapy Skills, we focus on these particularly challenging cases. Through real-life clinical demonstrations, you’ll see how steadfastly focusing on the underlying protective patterns that clients habitually cling onto opens up the possibility for more flexbility.
Work through the clinical roadblocks that often stall therapy
Start Anytime. Study at Your Own Pace.
Includes 5 CE Credits — Only $119
For individual use only; not intended for shared use, teaching or training. Are you an educator or clinical director? Learn how to incorporate our resources into your courses and trainings. Contact [email protected] or call 800-577-4762.
See how you can gently disrupt the stuckness that often makes sessions feel repetitive and keep clients from growing.
You'll learn how to...
- Recognize the paradox of protective patterns and how they both help and hinder clients
- Help clients connect in-session experiences to outside relationships and struggles
- Use techniques like “tagging,” role-plays, and here-and-now interventions to gently disrupt a client’s rigid defenses
- Maintain empathy while confronting avoidance, intellectualization, and resistance
- Cultivate relational safety that invites vulnerability, agency, and lasting change
By integrating these techniques, therapists can address recurring frustrations and clinical roadblocks that often stall therapy.
Inside This Course...
Identify Protective Patterns That Keep Clients Stuck
When you shift the focus from surface-level issues to underlying defenses, it's easier to see how how pervasive and limiting protective patterns can be. By using imagery or metaphor to explore these patterns, clients can recognize how they experience themselves and shine a light on how these patterns may suppress their sense of vitality, connection, and authentic expression.
Explore How These Defenses Serve Clients
These protective patterns—developed as adaptive and functional survival strategies—can become rigid and impede emotional growth. They're employed to protect a person's sense of safety, identity, or emotional balance. Identifying patterns with compassion and curiosity, using techniques like process comments, role play, and metaphor, can help clients explore more flexible, empowering ways to respond to life’s challenges.
Create Opportunity for Growth
As clients recognize the paradox—that their defenses both shield and isolate them—new possibilities emerge for deeper connection, emotional risk-taking, and a more authentic sense of self. Being flexible and fostering an opportunity for growth helps move clients forward in therapy and in their lives.
You'll Learn How to...
Challenge rigid ways of being and thinking to facilitate growth
“Tag” protective patterns to increase client awareness
Engage stuck clients with empathy and curiosity
Identify clients' protective patterns and apply tailored interventions
Help clients explore and articulate their barriers to intra- and interpersonal connection
Learn How to Re-Engage Stuck Clients and Move Them Forward
Get Started Today — Only $119
5 hours of video featuring sessions with real clients • 5 CE Credits • Supplemental Resources
For individual use only; not intended for shared use, teaching or training. Are you an educator or clinical director? Learn how to incorporate our resources into your courses and trainings. Contact [email protected] or call 800-577-4762.
Denita Hudson
Clinical Associate Professor and Department Chair, The College of William & Mary
“Masterclass in Advanced Therapy Skills, Volume 3 shows how the gentle exploration of protective patterns when working with stuck clients can guide them toward deeper insights. Dr. Yalom and Dr. Krug’s discussions between footage from real therapy sessions provide valuable guidance for advancing skills and creating a transformational therapeutic experience.”
Carlos Del Rio
Associate Professor, Grand Canyon University
“This video provides a clear use of questions (for identifying protective patterns that lie beneath presenting problems), confrontation (for processing the paradox of protection and inclusion, not amputation), and supervision (for managing and preventing countertransference) to help us return to the heart of therapy: a systematic healing process that requires conscientious engagement from clinicians and clients.”
Kathleen McCleskey
Associate Professor of Counselor Education, Longwood University
“In this course, Yalom and Krug use a non-blaming and non-shaming framework to conceptualize and help clients who are stuck -- a topic that is often overlooked in training materials. These insightful discussions, demonstrations, and debriefings will illustrate this approach to therapists at all levels, from students to seasoned clinicians. I am excited to share this content with my students!”
Lorraine Gordon
Associate Professor, Concordia University Irvine
“Working with Stuck Clients will be beneficial to therapists, clients, and students as it explores the concept of protection patterns from the patient's perspective, highlighting their feelings and experiences. The common therapeutic addressed in this video was a client's issue of "worthiness." As demonstrated, everyone's personal issues are relevant enough to discuss in therapy. Well done!”
Michelle Santiago
Associate Professor of Clinical Practice, Moravian University
“This course provides powerful insight for supervision and training, including naming and normalizing emotional defenses, cultivating curiosity out of gentle confrontation and modeling emotional flexibility. Specifically addressing that repetition isn’t failure, persistence can be different from pushing, and how countertransference —when used appropriately — can model authenticity in the relationship. The client sessions and discussions demonstrates how trauma recovery can involve rigid control for safety; asking therapists to respect that what saves the client, might also limit the client. Yalom and Krug invite overall reflection and teach us different ways to go about our work!”
“It creates a collaboration and and eliminates the kind of hierarchical nature of therapy where the therapist is the expert and the client is the one who comes to be helped.”
—Orah Krug, PhD
What You Get in This Course
- 5 hours of videos featuring clinical sessions with real clients
- Voiceover commentaries and discussions for behind-the-scenes insight
- Supplemental resources to consolidate learning and promote lateral thinking
- Downloadable transcripts of all videos
- 5 CE credits available for licensed professionals
- Instant access to all course materials
Foster Meaningful Growth and Change
5 hours of video featuring sessions with clients • 5 CE credits • Supplemental resources
Buy Now for Only $119
For individual use only; not intended for shared use, teaching or training. Are you an educator or clinical director? Learn how to incorporate our resources into your courses and trainings. Contact [email protected] or call 800-577-4762.
“It's not just asking the client, how do they feel about you, but if we want them to be vulnerable, I think it's imperative that we're willing to be vulnerable too.”
~Victor Yalom, PhD
About the Experts
Victor Yalom, PhD is the founder and resident cartoonist of Psychotherapy.net. He has produced over 100 psychotherapy videos featuring many of the luminaries of our field, including Sue Johnson, Marsha Linehan, William Miller, Reid Wilson, and his father Irvin Yalom. He is a licensed psychologist with over 35 years of clinical experience and has conducted workshops in the US, China, Mexico and online. More info on Victor and his artwork and metal sculpture at sfpsychologist.com.
Orah T. Krug, PhD, is recognized in her field as a master clinician, supervisor and author. Her dedication to training the next generation of therapists led her to create Krug Counseling, Inc., where she trains and supervises the group’s clinicians, provides experiential therapy for individuals and couples, and leads consultation groups for licensed therapists. For further information about Orah Krug, Krug Counseling and the consultation groups visit krugcounseling.com.
The Psychotherapy.net Experience
- Instant access to course materials. After you enroll, you will receive a confirmation email with log-in information.
- On-demand access to course materials. Learn at your own pace, whenever it fits your schedule.
- Complete your CE tests online and print your certificate when you pass. Click here for list of CE Accreditations.
- Discounts available for organizations with multiple users. Email [email protected] for more information.
100% Satisfaction Guarantee
For 30 years, we have been the leader in quality video training in our field. We are committed to ensuring that our customers are fully satisfied.
Help Your Clients Get Unstuck
New Online Course - Only $119
Includes 5 hrs of video featuring clinical sessions, 5 CE credits and more
For individual use only; not intended for shared use, teaching or training. Are you an educator or clinical director? Learn how to incorporate our resources into your courses and trainings. Contact [email protected] or call 800-577-4762.
