Amanda Whitehurst: On Social Work Grad School, Personal Reflections, and AI (Part 1)

Amanda walks us through her path to becoming a therapist and reflects on her current work. She also shares some thoughts on how AI may (or may not) change therapy.

Apr 23, 2025

“Before becoming a therapist, I think I had this image that therapists learn how to do a skill and then teach someone else that skill. I was surprised at how central the relational work is; it’s really the bread-and-butter of therapy.”

Hi everyone!

We have Amanda Whitehurst, LICSW, SEP joining us today! Amanda is a private practice therapist based in Cambridge, MA, and is licensed in (wait for it…) Tennessee, California, New York, Utah, Massachusetts, and Washington, DC. She specializes in abuse and trauma and uses EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, and IFS in her practice, grounding everything in a relational, psychodynamic approach. We had an amazing multi-hour conversation that wound in a bunch of different directions, and I'm excited to share it with you (across a few different posts)! Today is the first part of our conversation.

You can find Amanda on Psychology Today and her website. Let’s get into it!

Amanda’s path to becoming a therapist

Sean McQuillan: Thanks for being with us today, Amanda! Tell everyone a little about yourself.

Amanda Whitehurst: Of course! I’m Amanda and I’m a therapist.

Let’s see – I grew up in Northern Virginia as an only child. I moved Central Virginia to do undergrad where I studied English and Sociology. Before I found my way to a Sociology major, I took an intro to sociology class and I was like, “Wow, I didn't know that you could think about social problems like that.” That class piqued my interest in wanting to do something connected to social issues in some way, but I really didn’t know what it was going to look like.

I was in my first adult therapy experience while I was in college and during my last session, my therapist said, “You should think about becoming a therapist.” So, I went to Columbia for social work school, lived in New York for a couple of years, and then bounced around a few different cities. I lived in Denver for a year, Nashville for five years, and now I'm in Boston (but I'll probably end up moving this summer again).

What else about me… I like to run, hang out with my cats. I like to travel. That's it!

Sean: Awesome. Had you ever considered becoming a therapist before your college therapist mentioned it?

Amanda: No, it had never crossed my mind before that. I actually thought I was going to do journalism.

I remember she mentioned it in our last session. Looking back now, I always joke that she was probably having a lot of countertransference. But at the time, I didn't know what that was and it really spurred my curiosity around what becoming a therapist could look like.

I think about her frequently. I should find her and tell her, but she probably doesn't remember me. Anyway, that's how it all happened.

Sean: I don’t know – maybe she’ll remember you! It was only 10ish years ago and you clearly made an impression on her.

Amanda: Maybe! It was a very short relationship. But it’s crazy how she made such an impact on me in such a short amount of time.

Sean: That’s really cool.

So, becoming a therapist was clearly on your mind while applying to social work school, but you also mentioned that you were generally interested in other social problems from your sociology class. How sure were you that grad school would lead you to therapy as opposed to somewhere else in social work?

Amanda: Despite having the idea of becoming a therapist floating around in my head, I wasn’t exactly sure where school would lead me. Honestly, I was really nervous because I didn't know any therapists (other than my college therapist) and I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. I was afraid of boxing myself into this one thing (therapy) and spending all this money on school, all to not really love it.

Social work school felt like the best option for me because if I didn’t like being a therapist, I could do other things with it. I was also drawn to social work because it’s a little broader than other degrees and is socially oriented, which I’ve always been passionate about. Thankfully, I love being a therapist, so it all worked out.

Sean: Very interesting. It sounds like getting an MSW was a bit of an insurance policy of sorts.

Amanda: 100%. I remember thinking, “Hopefully I like therapy, but it will be okay if I don’t.”

Sean: I get that.

That's honestly very similar to how I'm thinking about my career change now, especially as a 32 year old. Most career pivots are big bets, but becoming a therapist is a particularly interesting one. You need a grad degree and a license before you can independently practice, so it makes it harder to effectively test the waters before taking the plunge.

Amanda: Exactly. That’s why an MSW and its array of career options can be a good hedge for anyone, but especially a career changer.

Graduate school and early career experiences

Sean: Alright – so you enrolled in grad school right after college. What internships did you have in school?

(Side bar: Most MSW programs, including Columbia, have two internships where grad students work in a social work setting and apply their learnings to real-world environments.)

Amanda: My internship experience at Columbia was really interesting. I don't know if it's the same where you're going to school, but you don't get to pick what your placement is for your first year.

Before Columbia places you, they send you this preferences sheet in advance that asks you for all this information about yourself. One of the things that they ask is, “ What do you not see yourself doing, and what kind of population do you not see yourself working with?” And the rumor is that they will purposefully place you with that population.

I wrote that I didn’t see myself working in geriatrics and (surprise, surprise) they put me with Holocaust survivors, who were all older adults. But I ended up loving that work and learned a lot.

Sean: Ah, so the rumors are true!

Amanda: Maybe, who’s to say! It was very unexpected, but I’m so grateful for that time. It wasn’t even a position where I was doing therapy; I was in case management, but I still loved it. I treasured my time with the clients I had in that role and everything they taught me. I think about them a lot.

I was still really curious about doing therapy going into my second year of school, so I angled hard for a therapy position as my second internship. Thankfully, I got placed at an outpatient clinic that was working with folks experiencing psychosis, which I loved. Working with folks with active psychosis was an experience I’d never had before; it helped me become very attuned to what it means to really listen and enter into somebody else’s world. That’s applicable everywhere in therapy, and it’s especially important for folks with psychosis, who often get dismissed. This role eventually expanded into working with people with personality disorders, which I also found really rewarding.

*Amanda and her co-intern on their last day of internship in grad school. They grow up so fast! :’)*

Sean: Where did these internships and your interest lead you to post-grad school?

Amanda: After grad school, I hard-pivoted and worked in pediatric hospice. I really enjoyed this experience, too, but it wasn’t particularly therapy-focused. So, I moved to Nashville and got another job working with teens who were coming off of a hospitalization for suicide or homicide (mostly suicide) in a PHP/IOP environment.

Sean: I know a PHP is a partial hospitalization program, but what’s an IOP?

Amanda: It stands for intensive outpatient program. It’s like a step down from a PHP.

It was actually this kind of therapy work that finalized my interest in being a therapist (as opposed to another type of social worker).

Sean: That’s very cool. But wow, it really sounds like you’ve worked across the spectrum in terms of work environments and populations you’ve served.

I’m curious – What parts of your personality jived well (and maybe not so well) with the different kinds of people and settings you’ve worked with over the years?

Amanda: It's a really good question.

I once had a supervisor say that it's hard to know what your strengths are when you wake up with yourself every day. To me, this means that I can’t perfectly know what specifically about my personality works or doesn’t in various settings.

But with teens, I think I can really drop into a playful relational dynamic that teens can connect with. I don’t come into work with teens as just another adult who's going to tell them what to do and give them behavioral adjustments. I try and come in on their level while still holding boundaries and creating a secure place for them, and this opens up the space to get deep when they’re ready. I think that part of my personality worked well when I was in the PHP/IOP setting.

More broadly, I think my personality style allows me to deeply listen and connect with people. That’s probably what a lot of therapists would say about themselves, too. I don’t know – I like to think I can connect with anyone. I can always find something. If an emotion or an urge lives in one of my clients, that very same thing usually lives in a part of me, too.

Sean: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. All you need is one thread that runs between you.

I want to go back to something you said a bit earlier about working with folks experiencing psychosis and how it was an exercise in active listening. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean by that.

Amanda: Hm, yeah. When I first started working with folks in active psychosis, I assumed communication might feel disorganized or hard to follow. And at times, it was challenging to make immediate sense of what was being shared. But I learned that all it really takes is curiosity and a deep desire to listen and understand.

In doing that, I began to see that there was emotional truth and meaning in everything being expressed. When we lean in to understand someone's inner world, we often find the same pain, fear, loneliness, joy, and longing that live in ourselves. That is where deeper connection becomes possible, even when the words themselves don’t seem to make sense at first. That process taught me so much about holding space for someone whose reality might look very different from my own and how transformative it can be when we feel truly seen and not dismissed.

Does that answer your question?

Sean: It definitely does.

I imagine listening to someone in active psychosis must require you to be especially attuned because you can't make assumptions about their reality, because it’s a reality that you can’t experience firsthand. Your only lens into your patient’s experience is through their words and their words alone, right? It must have really pushed your listening skills to another level.

Amanda: Totally.

The things some of my clients said to me often weren’t grounded in anything I could directly relate to in my physical, material reality. But I’ve found that this is true in many therapeutic relationships, whether someone is experiencing psychosis or not, in the sense that we’re often working across very different internal worlds. What allows us to connect is the shared emotional landscape: pain, shame, fear, joy. Finding those throughlines is such an important part of therapy, especially when someone’s reality feels unfamiliar or hard to grasp at first. A willingness to listen closely and try to understand can help open up the relationship and help someone feel truly heard, sometimes for the first time. That was one of the most meaningful parts of the work for me.

Sean: That's really cool. I also got a little taste of that when I worked in a psych hospital. It was very eye-opening because you often don’t encounter people in active psychosis on a day-to-day basis.

Personal reflections on being a therapist

Sean: Okay, I want to shift gears and get into some of your personal experiences being a therapist.

Let’s start with: What's your favorite part of being a therapist?

Amanda: I was actually just talking about this with a colleague the other day! I feel really lucky to have found a job that I think is meaningful.

I imagine this may be partially behind your career pivot, too. For me, it feels so lucky that I get to wake up every day and do something that I find makes a real difference. I know I can go to bed at the end of the day or reflect at the end of my life and feel good about the work I’ve done. It feels really important and brings me purpose.

It's also really cool to watch people grow and have a front seat to their resilience and personal change. That’s really special to me.

Sean: I love that. And you’re right – that has a lot to do with my career pivot.

What would you say is the most challenging part of your job?

Amanda: I would say… well, there are a bunch of things I could say. (big laugh!)

Sean: You can say all of them!

Amanda: Second-guessing choices can be hard. Like, making a clinical decision and wondering whether I made the right choice.

I think I can be a bit of a perfectionist so that's something that I talk about in consultation a lot.

(Side bar: Generally, new therapists are required to receive supervision from more experienced clinicians before they’re able to get independently licensed. Consultation is effectively just supervision after it’s no longer legally required, and many therapists seek consultation for much of their careers for professional growth and support.)

A few years ago, I would have said burnout. I’ve now structured my practice in a way where that doesn’t happen so much, but this was a big issue for me before.

Sean: What do you think was the turning point that made you less susceptible to burnout?

Amanda: Hm, that’s the million-dollar question.

After the PHP/IOP work I was doing, I worked in residential and inpatient environments. Those are tough settings. I’m sure you know from your psych hospital experience that there's a lot being asked of you and not a lot of support.

Another one of the challenges in that work was how short-term the relationships were. I didn’t often get the chance to walk alongside someone through the full arc of their healing. I would come to know a person’s story, hold space for what might be their biggest moment of crisis or vulnerability, and then they would move on. Each story mattered deeply to me, but the constant turnover and the lack of resolution began to take a toll. It felt like I was carrying so many tender, unfinished narratives, and over time, that started to weigh heavily.

Stepping away from those settings was a key part of reducing my burnout. Being able to build longer-term relationships has allowed me to slow down, deepen my understanding of each person, and witness not just the pain, but the resilience that emerges afterward. It’s been incredibly grounding and restorative.

Personal agency and autonomy has also been key for me in preventing burnout, which is why I feel very lucky to work in private practice. I take on only as many clients as I can or want to. I don't work when I can't or when I need a break. Seemingly-simple things like this can really help.

*Amanda’s “favorite de-stressing tools” - her two cats! I mean, burnout doesn’t stand a chance when you come home to these two fluffs.*

Sean: Another one of these “quick hits” questions for you. What has surprised you about being a therapist?

Amanda: That's a good question. Maybe how therapy works.

Before becoming a therapist, I think I had this image that therapists learn how to do a skill and then teach someone else that skill. I was surprised at how central the relational work is; it’s really the bread-and-butter of therapy. Now, the relational component is very much the cornerstone of my work, but I didn’t know how important that was going into it.

Sean: Do you think your impression was shaped by that first therapy experience you had in college? Or do you think it was more from the cultural and social connotations of what therapy is like?

Amanda: I think the latter.

I only remember like three things that my college therapist said to me all these years later. But I still remember how she made me feel. I remember that she was accepting of me and my experience, and that felt very affirming during a time when I really needed it. Not to say that she also didn't challenge me at times, but the warmth of our relationship was ultimately the most helpful part of my experience with her.

Back then, I had these preconceived ideas of what therapy was because of the media. Even now people are like, “I want to ask you for advice because you’re a therapist.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what you should do! I don’t have any (good) advice for you.” (big laugh!) But I think that’s still the prevailing impression of what therapy is.

Sean: I mean, that was definitely my impression before experiencing real psychotherapy.

I don’t think I’d want to become a therapist if it were simply advice-giving. How boring and unhelpful is that?

Amanda: For sure. It excited me to find out how complex and multifaceted the deeper work was, which is ultimately what made me feel so passionately about this career.

How AI may (or may not) change psychotherapy

Sean: This actually reminds me of something I’ve been really curious about lately, which is AI and therapy. I know we hear about AI everywhere these days – AI this! AI that! – probably especially for me because of my tech background. But a friend of mine the other day was like, “How do you think AI will impact therapy?”

I’m not even a therapist yet, but naturally, I have a few theories. And I’m curious what yours are.

Amanda: Oh my gosh – I want to hear yours, too.

I feel like we don't know yet. Everybody's super nervous about AI and venture capital; those are the two things that people in the therapy world seem to be talking about right now.

I mean, I've had clients come to session and be like, “I asked ChatGPT about my problem and this is what it said.” And sometimes it’s been useful.

I was just talking with another therapist friend and we were saying that we think ChatGPT or AI more broadly could probably provide some support around certain things. But being so relational myself, I don’t think there’s any replacement for the relational component of therapy.

Maybe that’s just me being super biased and not wanting my job to disappear, but my thought is that the relational component is irreplaceable by a robot because human connection is at the heart of healing. Tools like ChatGPT can offer information and moments of reflection, but they can’t replicate the healing that happens in relationship with another person. Working through trauma, shame, and other deeply felt emotions often requires a corrective relational experience, one built on attunement and genuine human connection. AI can’t do that.

That’s my thought, but maybe that's wishful thinking. I don't know. I'm curious what you think about that, especially with your tech background and what you know about that world.

Sean: I think that makes a lot of sense. My views are somewhat similar.

As we talked about, many of us think therapy is being told what to do by an expert who knows what you should do. If that's what therapy was, there's no reason why ChatGPT couldn’t give you high-quality recommendations based on your articulated problems.

And don’t get me wrong: I love a good set of recommendations and a thoughtful analysis. I often find these kinds of things helpful to reflect on. But it’s also primarily an intellectual exercise.

When I think back on my life, the things that have really changed me as a person have been deeply emotional experiences, not intellectual exercises. And those experiences have had two things in common: people and relationships. I don’t think good therapy is any different.

In fact, the therapy relationship is one of many reasons why I’m interested in studying psychodynamic and psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

I have a lot more thoughts, but yeah, I don’t think any of us can say how it will change mental healthcare with certainty.

Amanda: I’m also very psychoanalytically- and psychodynamically-oriented, and you're totally right.

In the cases where therapy is teaching concrete skills, which sometimes it is, then maybe ChatGPT will take that over. And maybe it can say, “I’m so sorry you’re going through that,” but it can’t give me the kind of authentic relationship that I experienced with my college therapist or that I experience with my therapist now because it’s not a human.

I don't know – maybe this is just two therapists (well, one future therapist!) just hoping it will be okay.

Sean: You may be right! Who knows. Multiple people have asked me about this so this was fun to talk about.

Amanda: I'm sure your overlap between tech and therapy makes you a prime target for that question.

Sean: Which is funny because I’m neither an AI expert nor a therapy expert, so I’m actually not qualified to answer from either position. But doesn’t mean I can’t spin out an opinion!

Amanda: I mean, I'm right there with you…

That’s it for today! Thanks again for reading. We’ll pick up our conversation with Amanda in a couple of weeks!

Before we go:

#1 — A share, comment, or like goes a long way in the World of Substack (especially for a publication as new as therapisting). Any engagement is appreciated!