Before You Take That Course, Ask THIS Question!

Here’s a question we wish more people asked before signing up for that shiny new workshop or certification….

“Do you still actually see clients?”

And if they say yes, the follow-up is just as important: “How many hours a week?”

Therapy is a living, breathing craft. It’s one thing to teach it. It’s another thing entirely to be in the room, week after week, navigating the messiness of real people’s lives. When a trainer is still actively practicing, they’re in touch with the nuance, the curveballs, the unexpected stuck points. They’re troubleshooting in real time and refining their tools in the wild. If they’ve stepped away from the work, they may be relying on old muscle memory.

And while experience doesn’t evaporate overnight, practice without practice can slowly become theory without reality.

If a trainer promises a quick, tidy solution for complex client challenges, take a beat. Of course it feels “simple” for them– they’re not in the trenches anymore. They’re not managing the moment-to-moment unpredictability that comes with live therapy. Teaching from a safe removed place can make everything seem cleaner, easier, more certain that it actually is when you’re face to face with someone’s pain.

There’s nothing wrong with learning from someone who’s stepped out of clinical work. Many have wisdom worth hearing, but transparency matters.

So beore you hand over your time and money, find out: is this person speaking from lived current experience or from a curated highlight reel of their past work? Neither is automatically bad. But they’re very different products. And you deserve to know which one you’re buying. 

All of us at IRIS are practicing therapists with full caseloads of clients with complex trauma and dissociation. We teach from our real experiences.

That makes us different and gives us more depth to our content. 

Because we get it. We’re doing it. Day in and day out. Right there with you!

Written by Cassie Krajewski