About us
Becoming a therapist doesn’t end when graduate school does.
In many ways, that’s when the real learning begins.
Graduate programs do an incredible amount of work in a limited amount of time. They introduce theory, ethics, diagnosis, assessment, human development, treatment approaches, and the foundations of clinical practice.
But no academic program can fully prepare a clinician for every conversation, every client, every ethical gray area, or every moment when they find themselves thinking:
“I know I learned this somewhere…but how do I actually do it?”
That gap is why Turning Stone Learning Collective exists.
Turning Stone Learning Collective grew out of the day-to-day experience of running Turning Stone Counseling, a small group mental health practice in Maryland.
Over the years, we noticed something important.
Our clinicians were talented, thoughtful, compassionate, and well-trained—and they still needed opportunities to keep learning.
New clinicians needed help translating what they learned in school into the realities of clinical work.
Experienced clinicians sometimes needed space to revisit foundational skills they had not intentionally thought about in years.
Clinicians at every stage needed opportunities to ask questions, talk through difficult cases, strengthen their clinical reasoning, and learn practical ways to approach the work. And we realized that needing more education was not a reflection of inadequacy.It was part of being a clinician.
Therapists are asked to do incredibly complex work.
We are expected to walk into an initial session and begin building trust while simultaneously gathering history, assessing risk, understanding symptoms, identifying patterns, considering diagnoses, evaluating functioning, developing a treatment direction, and determining what might matter most to the person sitting across from us.
Knowing what a biopsychosocial assessment is and knowing how to thoughtfully conduct one in a real clinical hour are two different things.
Knowing the diagnostic criteria for a disorder and knowing how to recognize those patterns inside a complicated human story are different things.
Knowing an ethical standard and knowing how to navigate it when relationships, systems, families, documentation, insurance requirements, boundaries, and clinical judgment collide is different too.
Those skills develop over time. They develop through education, supervision, practice, reflection, consultation, mistakes, curiosity, and the willingness to return to the basics again and again. We wanted to create more opportunities for that kind of learning.
There are plenty of ways to earn continuing education credits.
We want to create something more.
Turning Stone Learning Collective is designed around the idea that continuing education should actually help clinicians continue their education. Our trainings are meant to leave clinicians with something they can carry back into their work—a clearer framework, a different way of thinking, a practical tool, a stronger clinical question, or simply greater confidence in something that previously felt uncertain.
Sometimes that means learning something new.
Sometimes it means revisiting something we learned years ago with more experience behind us.
And sometimes the most valuable professional development is realizing that returning to the basics is not moving backward. It is often how we become better.
