Blogs and Free Resources
Here at PESI, our mission is to provide professionals like you with FREE practical and valuable tools, strategies,
and resources to assist with the great work you do. Find expert tips, helpful worksheets, demonstration videos, CE, news,
and more here. Happy learning!
When Positive Affirmations Become Weapons
Helping clients to challenge negative self-talk with their own values
Positive affirmations are a popular tool for battling negative self-talk, but they can be weaponized and misused. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) emphasizes acknowledging negative thoughts and focusing on taking action in line with one's values rather than trying to suppress negative thoughts with positive affirmations. By intentionally using positive affirmations, and not weaponizing them, clients can find relief from negative self-talk and pursue their values instead.
Ask the Expert: Q&A with Colleen West, LMFT
Interview with IFS Flip Chart author Colleen West, LMFT
Colleen West, LMFT, shares her most frequently asked questions for IFS therapy, insight into her IFS Flip Chart and more.
Why Self-Love Is Hard for Women
How to guide female clients past their “shoulds” and toward self-acceptance
Self-love is a challenge to define and develop, particularly for women. Taking unique contexts into consideration, clinicians can help women identify "shoulds" and empower them to choose what self-love means to them.
What to Do When Clients Dissociate
Learn five effective techniques for orienting your client back to the present moment
Taking advanced trainings and consultations in parts work can help take your therapy to the next level, but you can also use these strategies right now for clients who are dissociating.
9 Easy Practices to Boost Energy and Get Out of a Funk
Free Download from the Undepressed Deck
If depression is weighing you down, this inspiring new card deck by seasoned author and mindfulness expert Brian Leaf can help lift you out of your rut.
Using Drawing Interventions in Play Therapy
Free worksheet download to help you and young clients increase mindfulness
Tracy Turner-Bumberry, LPC, shares the benefits of art-based therapy interventions for young clients and drawing interventions you can download for FREE to use in your next session.
IFS for Addictions: Creating a Context for Collaboration and Hope
Develop and enhance the therapeutic experience with these FREE worksheets
The importance of a first session is that it leads to a second session, which is why creating a safe, collaborative context is key. Use the free exercises provided here to help you empathize with the fear and reluctance clients often feel when working through addictive or problematic behaviors.
6 Resilience-Building & Inclusive Children’s Books for National Read Across America Day
Celebrate diverse experiences with these children's books
To celebrate National Read Across America Day on March 2, we’ve selected six of our favorite children’s books that teach kids resilience-building skills and celebrate diverse experiences.
The Superpower of Psychological Flexibility
Tips to defuse from unhelpful, narrow ways of thinking that limit what’s possible for you
Research shows that higher levels of psychological flexibility provide a wide range of benefits, including higher levels of mental health and lower stress levels. Dr. Aprilia West offers some insight and an exercise to improve psychological flexibility.
Highly Sensitive People & Gaslighting
Free worksheet download to help you and clients decide when gaslighting is happening
Highly sensitive people can be more susceptible to gaslighting and manipulation. Authors of the new book, The Clinician’s Guide to Treating Adult Children of Narcissists, describe why this is the case, and offer a free worksheet to help clients and therapists differentiate between gaslighting or simply experiencing a variance between how two or more people perceive something.