What Is Better Left Said? Chicago Therapist's Journal on Modern Therapy

About Better Left Said

Better Left Said is where we think out loud about what it means to be human — in relationships, at work, and within ourselves.

This is the journal of Modern Therapy Alliance, a Chicago-based practice built around authenticity, directness, and connection. But this isn’t a company blog or a stream of therapy tips. It’s a space where the ideas that show up in real sessions — shame, avoidance, accountability, longing, the slow work of change — get written down, unpacked, and shared in a way that anyone can recognize themselves in.

Our writers are therapists, but we don’t write like therapists. We write like people who spend their days thinking about emotion and behavior in all their messy context — who believe good therapy is a conversation, not a lecture. The goal here isn’t to sound wise or “get it right.” It’s to explore how relational and self-focused therapy actually feels when you live it out in the real world.

In every piece, we try to bridge the best of psychodynamic thought — the part that understands how our histories shape us — with the more modern skills of mindfulness, communication, and self-accountability. We draw from our own sessions, our own lives, and sometimes from the same awkward, funny, or painful experiences our clients talk about. It’s therapy-adjacent writing that’s meant to make you think, not to diagnose.

You’ll see essays that ask questions like:

We built Better Left Said because the best ideas in therapy are too important to stay in the therapy room. Our clients, friends, and colleagues all wrestle with the same questions, and we wanted a place to explore them without jargon or performance.

This is a place for people who are curious — about themselves, their relationships, and the world we’re all trying to make sense of.

If you’re into that kind of reflection — honest, imperfect, sometimes funny, sometimes uncomfortable — welcome. Pull up a chair. There’s plenty left to say.