Dr. Jeremy Sharp (00:00)
Hey folks, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome to the final episode of 2025. And today we’re talking about the best episodes of 2025. All right. As the year winds down, I’ve been reflecting on how much of 2025 was about, at least for me, it was about refinement rather than expansion. So the testing psychologists, the podcast and the Facebook group really
I think stayed true to what it’s always been for me. It’s been a place for honest conversations about assessment and business and the realities of this work that we do. The podcast did hit a meaningful milestone of 500 episodes. I got to spend with my lovely and talented wife, Carrie. Crafted Practice was once again one of the highlights of my year and just continues to prove that small, close-knit spaces
beat big, noisy ones any day, at least for me. And the community around this work just continues to grow in a way that felt grounded and really sustainable, I think. A lot of you know too that much of my energy this year also went into Reverb, our AI-powered report writing platform, which stretched me in ways that I did not fully anticipate, honestly. Building something new.
alongside my existing business ventures was, you know, tough. It really forced me to slow down and get very clear about what I’m actually doing and how to prioritize things. There were plenty of decisions that didn’t make for exciting updates on the software side, but I think did make the product better. And I’m excited about what is to come in mid January of 2026 as we release a new version of the software. So what feels solid now is
the why behind the company, which is testing folks spend less time wrestling with reports and more time doing the parts of the job that I think are most meaningful and require a human brain. So that focus has guided every tough call with software along the way. Let’s see, personally, 2025 pushed me to just pay closer attention to my own limits, as I alluded to with the software and balancing.
time and energy that extended personally as well as it always does. So I had heart surgery on January 3rd, 2025, way back at the beginning of the year. And that just forced me to slow down and be very intentional and think about my capabilities. So I ended up working fewer hours. I think I protected my unstructured time or protected more unstructured time.
And I noticed how much better everything runs when I’m not operating it like a constant low grade sprint. So I think I’m ending the year clearer, steadier, and more confident about what I want to carry forward and what I don’t. Some of you have probably seen the announcements around the upcoming membership experience that I’m designing called Craft. This is also launching in mid-January.
I am super excited about transferring some of this discussion and connection into a different venue for those of you who really want to be a part of something like that. Before transitioning to the episode, and we’re gonna talk about all the best episodes of 2025, I wanna give a few shout outs to folks who are just integral to the testing psychologist team. First, my Facebook group moderators, Chris Mulcahy, Laura Sanders,
and Andres Chow. They really helped me keep the group on the rails so that we can continue to have a safe, stable place to talk about testing and everything that comes up around that. Y’all really do not see them much by design, but they are doing so much work behind the scenes to moderate the content, approve posts, remove posts and everything in between. So huge thanks to them. Also, of course, I have to thank my assistant, Laura.
who does everything from podcast editing to researching spots for my next in-person retreat. I definitely could not do this without her. And speaking of which, I of course have to thank my sponsors as well, TherapyNotes and PAR continued to support the podcast this year and just made all of this possible from a financial standpoint, which I am so grateful for. And unfortunately we are saying goodbye to PAR for 2026.
super excited to get some fresh sponsorship on the books. And of course, I have to thank all of you. If you have listened to the podcast, come to an event, sent a note, or maybe just quietly following along, thank you, thank you. I do not take that support lightly and I’m really looking forward to what comes next in 2026. So thanks for joining me.
One last time here in 2025 to discuss the top five most downloaded testing psychologist podcast episodes of the year.
Dr. Jeremy Sharp (04:53)
All right, everybody, we are diving right into it, talking about the top five most downloaded episodes of 2025. So there were some surprising episodes on here. I’ll be honest, a little bit of a spoiler. This is the first year I think that I have two solo episodes on the list. And then of course, we have a few interview episodes as well. So we will start at number five. This is the number five most downloaded episode.
of 2025. If you haven’t checked it out, go check it out. This is a solo episode called the ADIR and ADAS 2 as the gold standards, quote unquote gold standards. this episode is when I did a research review and dove into an article about these two measures that many of us use or have used over the years. This is an article written by co-authors of
these measures, Kathy Lord and others, and it talks about how these measures should not necessarily be considered the gold standards in and of themselves. We talk about how, yes, they are part of a comprehensive battery, but you cannot count on just the ADIR or the ADOS2 to solely diagnose autism spectrum disorder. So this is a topic that came up a lot. So when I found the article,
I could not pass it up and was happy to see that a lot of folks enjoyed this episode and downloaded it. Well, I don’t know if they enjoyed it. They did download it though. So if you have not listened to that episode, go check it out. Number 497, ADIR and ADOS2 as quote unquote gold standards. All right, the fourth most downloaded episode of 2025 was number 509, quote that.
New York Times article on ADHD, challenging our beliefs. I really enjoyed this episode. So this is another solo episode where I did a research review and dove into, started with this New York Times article on ADHD and what it is and how we diagnose it and what it looks like. Then that kind of led me down rabbit hole looking at the source material for that article.
And it was fascinating. It was fascinating. I’ve brought this content up many times since then, just in my clinical practice and talking with our team day to day. So the general premise of the article and some of the source material is that ADHD symptoms wax and wane to a pretty great degree over time. So some of the content talked about how individuals diagnosed with ADHD as kids
go through somewhat lengthy periods over the course of their lives where they would not meet the criteria for ADHD. I think, if I’m remembering correctly, these time periods spanned maybe even up to three to four years where these individuals would not reach the threshold for a clinical diagnosis. So it just spoke to me in terms of the work that we do. And the longer I do this work, the more I consider assessment as a snapshot more than
written on a stone tablet. And it’s just reinforced that we’re just doing the best that we can at any moment in time. And it validated my experience having been doing this for a long time now. think I’m, don’t tell anybody, I think I’m going on over 20 years of testing at this point. You know, that…
I’ve seen kids multiple times, two, three, four times over the course of their lives, and they look very different from time to time. So it was validating in that regard. So if that feels interesting to you, or if you’re just interested in ADHD, you can go back and check this episode out, number 509, that New York Times article, and ADHD, challenging our beliefs. Okay, folks, we are inching closer to the number one episode. But first we have the
third most downloaded episode. This is episode number 512, that’s 512, Better Feedback for Parents, Dr. Liz Angoff. So Liz is a return guest. I think this is maybe the third time that she’s been on the podcast. And as always, she brought some fantastic content. This episode dovetailed with the launch of her latest book, which you should definitely go check out. It’s linked in the show notes along with the episode.
But this episode, Better Feedback for Parents. So we talk through how Liz approaches feedback with parents. So her previous episodes, we have tackled feedback with kids. But this time, we’re talking about feedback with parents and how she approaches that. So great discussion, as always. It’s hard to capture the full content of the episode here in summary, but suffice it to say, Liz walks us through her process for doing feedback with parents.
The idea that feedback starts at intake we talk about difficult parents quote unquote and how to approach them and bridge the gap between where they might be and where we are in the evaluation process and and results so tons of good stuff as always it’s very actionable and It’s a bridge. I think or you know open door to the rest of Liz’s content, which is also fantastic so
Go back and check it out, even if you listen to it, this is one of those where there’s a ton to take away and multiple listens will be your friend. So, episode 512, Better Feedback for Parents with Dr. Engolf.
Okay, marching toward number one, we’re gonna make a stop at number two. This is not gonna be a surprise for those of you who’ve been long time listeners of the podcast. I’ve got episode 521, Pathological Demand Avoidance with Dr. Donna Henderson. Donna is another return guest. Her original episode, first episode on the podcast, Autism in Girls and Women, I think remains the most downloaded episode out of 550 now.
So Donna’s a fantastic guest, much like Dr. Liz, Dr. Donna comes on with some real life examples to pull from. She tells stories, she brings these concepts to life, and it was super important to do that with something like pathological demand avoidance. So this is a topic again that comes up a lot. I’ve been waiting to do an episode on PDA until I could find the right person, and I was so grateful when Donna reached out and was willing to.
put an episode together. this goes through the basics of PDA. And then like I said, it really comes to life with a couple of cases and stories. So if you are in this world, I’m sure you have seen kids or even adults that you suspect to have PDA, pathological demand avoidance. again, go back, listen to this one or check it out for the first time if you did not catch it when it came out. Episode 521.
Pathological Demand Avoidance with Dr. Donna Henderson. And finally, we have gotten to our top episode of 2025. This was a little bit of a sleeper for me, to be honest. I I love the guests. You will see that as soon as I reveal their identity. Another return guest. you know, looking back, it makes sense given the topic, AI. It’s hot. It’s very hot. It has been hot for a while.
But with all the clinical content, was pretty interesting for me to see that a non-clinical episode actually took the top spot. So without further ado, I will reveal the top most downloaded episode of 2025 was episode number 515, AI Admin and the Future of Private Practice with Uriah Guilford from The Productive Therapist.
Uriah has been on the podcast a number of times. I love chatting with Uriah. Our relationship started professionally and we just connected. We both have this love of tech and new things and software and now AI. And we’ve had a lot of conversations over the years about outsourcing and delegating and virtual assistance and efficiency and software. But this episode really
brought all that together and put the capstone of AI across the whole thing. So we talk about, as the title suggests, AI’s role in private practice and where Uriah thinks we are headed, at least from an administrative side. So this is more tackling the admin work, systems, processes, workflows, things like that. And we focus specifically on his
growing interest, now pretty full-fledged interest in AI for admin support and intake support. So AI voice agents and chatbots and things like that. I think going back and looking at this episode, it just reinforced how quickly the technology is moving. So this episode came out probably six to eight months ago. And at this time of recording, Uriah has taken this technology and
built out a operable AI intake assistant. So if you haven’t checked that out, you should definitely go check that out at theproductivetherapist.com. But this episode is great. As usual, we meander around. We talk about a lot of different topics related to AI and administrative support and where the field is headed. And Uriah is just a super engaging speaker. And I actually had the privilege of
spending some time with him one-on-one over the summer when I headed out to California to run a race and he picked me up from the airport. We got to hang out all day, talk about business, talk about our lives and felt super grateful just to have that extra layer of relationship and connection with him. So he’s a great guy, doing great things, very passionate about this work and passionate about doing good work with these tools that we have. So if you haven’t checked it out or if you want to go,
Listen to it again. There’s plenty to take away. Episode number 515, AI Admin and the Future of Private Practice with Uriah Guilford.
All right, folks, that is it. That is it. curious to hear if there were any surprises for you in this list. Send me a note. I’m always happy to get notes from folks. Jeremy at the testingpsychologist.com. This should come out on New Year’s Eve, so sliding in right in the nick of time before we hit 2026. And like I said in the intro, I’m really excited about what’s coming in 2026.
Many of you have probably seen the email announcements about Kraft, my membership experience. If you are not on the wait list to get notified for Kraft, go ahead and jump on that list. You’ll get emailed first when the door is open. You can go to thetestingpsychologist.com slash Kraft and put your name on that list and get information and notifications as they come along. I’m excited about that. I’m excited about
Crafted practice coming up. That’s the in-person retreat in the summer once again big things happening with reverb as well and then of course just personally as I mentioned in the intro I had heart surgery about a year ago to correct exercise induced atrial fibrillation and This is something that kept me from doing what I love at the level that I like to do it and that is running I’ve been an avid runner for many years, but I’ve had to really dial it back over the past
four or five years and couldn’t train as hard as I wanted to because I had this arrhythmia that would pop up when I was training hard. And so I just gave it up for a while. But since then, the surgery or procedure appears to have worked. I was able to train at a high level again over the last six to eight months. And I’m just feeling super grateful and excited to be able to continue to do that in 2026. Also looking forward to.
you know, just watching my kids do what they do. I’ve got a 12 year old and a 14 year old now and a joke that our vacations these days are basically just following them around, watching them play sports and do their things. And I really will not spend it any other way. So a lot of family stuff coming up. Good, good things developing with our practice. We’re at a very stable place. So I feel super lucky to be where I’m at and
have the people in my life that are part of my life, both professionally and personally. And even though things are admittedly pretty chaotic right now on a grand level, as far as the economy and politically and the worldwide stage and so forth, I’m just trying to take a moment and appreciate what I’ve got going on and recognize there’s some privilege in that, of course, to not be concerned about some of those things as
many others are or have to be as concerned. But there’s a place for gratitude as well. And that’s where I’ll end this episode and end 2025. Again, thanks to all of you for being part of the audience and following along and being part of this experience. And I hope that you’ll stick around and be there for 2026 as well.
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