5 Reasons to Network With Other Therapists

As therapists, it’s easy to become isolated. We see our clients, fill out paperwork, perhaps read a book or two to brush up on certain skills, then go home. I certainly don’t mean to imply that the work of a clinical counselor is rote or is not stimulating, but as the nature of therapy is very private, it’s quite possible to get into a routine that greatly limits our interaction with other professionals.

Through my 13 years in private practice and 20+ years in the mental health field, I have come to understand the power of networking with like-minded professionals. Networking is cultivating relationships to facilitate the exchange of information (which may be related to the nature of the profession and/or to career and employment). For our purposes, it simply means being in frequent and meaningful contact with other therapists! This strategy has greatly benefited my practice and also me personally and professionally in numerous ways.

Here are 5 reasons to get out of your office and begin networking with other therapists:

1) Client Referrals        

Perhaps you've recently opened your practice and need to build your clientele. If you know others in the area and have begun to create those relationships, you have a valuable resource to draw upon. Introduce yourself to other practitioners in your area in case they know anyone seeking a therapist with your speciality (it's not self-serving; it's smart). Conversely, if you have a thriving practice and have the wonderful dilemma of having a higher demand for your services than you are able to provide, generously referring out is a way you can serve individuals even though you are not seeing them as clients. Network to learn of others you can contact if/ when this occurs.

2) Combat Loneliness 

We teach our clients about the importance of self-care, but are we tending to our own emotional needs as well? We understand from attachment theory that we innately need connection with others; isolation is quite literally a form of torture, and many therapists I've worked with feel a real sense of disconnection seeing only clients all day. Reach out to others in order to fight loneliness and feel emotionally supported (read more here about this idea).

3) Career Opportunities      

Beyond your work as a clinician, you can use your skills and talents to serve your community in other ways (such as through writing or consulting), and many of these opportunities present themselves through your relationships with others. Perhaps a colleague has suggested or inspired you to expand your activities. Networking has brought me personally many opportunities that I wouldn't have otherwise had. It's quite amazing the possibilities that can open up to you if you devote time and energy to cultivating those professional connections.

4) Collaboration        

Going along with the previous point, finding ways to apply your skills other than by seeing clients is often best done in collaborative efforts. Combining your knowledge and experience with others in the mental health field is a great way to enrich and contribute to the professional community while simultaneously expanding your outreach. This very blog is infinitely more valuable because it contains not only my experiences, but those of others with whom I've networked and created relationships. Reaching out and working with others in the field can enhance your career accomplishments.

5) Communicate About What's New      

If you're sitting in your office all day with only minimal contact with the outside world, it's unlikely that you'll hear about new developments in the field. But through continual networking and staying in touch with other clinicians, you can become aware of and familiar with new therapies and strategies that may enhance your practice. Regular contact with others can help you keep abreast of these new ideas, and you as well can offer your feedback on current topics and controversies relating to therapy.

What are reasons YOU network with others?

How has networking benefitted you?

Stay tuned for an upcoming post about therapist-friendly strategies to effectively network.  

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Therapist Roll Call: Join The Private Practice Pinterest List

Do you use Pinterest? I do and I have found some amazing relationship and emotional health resources for my clients and practice building resources. I've also found that it's a great way to direct visitors to my website and learn about my services.

In the past, I've featured a roll call for therapists so we could connect on Twitter and Facebook, and it was very well received. I'd like to continue that tradition so we can get to know each other more on social media.

I recently wrote about how Pinterest can benefit your practice. So let's all add our Pinterest information and see what kinds of things we're pinning on our boards. Connect with me on Pinterest here

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Post a comment below and include:

1. your name
2. a link to your Pinterest page or board
3. your city and state
4. specialty area

Benefits Of Blogging For Your Private Therapy Practice

I recently had a delightful chat with Australian counselor and consultant Clinton Powers via Skype about my evolution as a blogger. We talked about the many benefits of blogging as a marketing strategy, unexpected benefits that I've experienced through blogging, how to find your blogging voice, and how to address ethical concerns. I hope you enjoy the interview. Below, I've summarize the main points of our lively discussion.

What are the benefits of blogging as a practice marketing strategy?

• Grow your practice by making it easier for clients to find you
• Build your brand online
• Fresh content improves SEO for your practice website
• Establishes you as a credible expert in your field
• Online networking with other mental health professionals
• Positive impact on readers all over the world

What are your tips for developing your blogging voice?

• Start where you are
• Reject perfectionistic tendencies
• Remember that you can edit
• Re-purpose previously written content (papers, presentations, other media interviews)
• Read and model after other therapists blogs

Where do you find inspiration for blog post topics?

• Share your philosophical background
• Write about themes you're seeing in therapy
• Write about related news and current events
• Summarize new research and add your take on it
• Share other experts' content, including videos

How do you make time to write?

• Write about the things that energize you and sound fun
• Schedule time to blog once a week

How do you avoid ethical concerns?

• Don't share client information
• Don't share personal information

This interview first appeared on AustraliaCounseling.com.au

Private Practice Marketing Made Easy

Last week I spoke to group of local therapists on "Marketing Your Private Practice" and a record number of people attended the presentation. Why? Because therapists in private practice feel ill-equipped and uncomfortable with the business aspects of private practice. It's rare that a marketing course is included in a mental health graduate school curriculum, and few internships and practicums offer marketing mentorship. In my graduate program in social work, just the words "private practice" were treated as "bad words," as if making money while helping people was somehow morally wrong.

For some therapists  the word marketing brings up feelings of anxiety, even dread. "I am not comfortable with self-promoting," I've heard many therapists say.  "I'm not in this for the money so I hate to think that I have to market my services."

Over nearly 10 years in private practice I've learned that marketing isn't as difficult or scary as it sounds. Most therapists already have the relationship skills that make marketing effective. You're already good at building relationships and communicating. You just need to apply your skills differently.

 Build relationships of trust

You already know how to market, because marketing is simply building relationships of trust in a different way. Marketing requires reaching outside of your therapy office, and often beyond your comfort zone. Whatever strategy you use: talking to strangers, talking to friends and colleagues, meeting with physicians or schools, or finally getting a website, it's all about building relationships of trust.

Let 2 simple questions guide all of your marketing

• Who is your ideal client? Identifying your ideal client is  not just getting clear on the demographic and diagnoses that you like to work with, but also the characteristics, values, and traits that you look for in a client.
• What is your basic practice message? This is a simple message that focuses on one aspect of your work and emphasizes the benefits of your services in layman's terms.

Talk to everyone and anyone about what you do

In graduate school you learned how to communicate, build rapport, and put people at ease. Building relationships of trust isn't just limited to talking with your clients. Effective marketing is simply applying all of the skills you know to a broader group of people. Talk about who you want to work with what you do with strangers in the grocery store, neighbors, extended family members, or online communities, media contacts, or other professionals.

Remember you're promoting your passions, not yourself

Effective marketing isn't about pushing yourself on others, but about letting the things that you're passionate about shine through in every conversation, every blog post, every interview, an every page of your website.

It only takes three

According to private practice guru Lynn Grodski, it only takes a few "practice angels" to have a full practice-three people who will consistently refer your ideal clients to you. You probably already have three referral sources ready to refer to you. All you need to do is warm the connections you already have.

How do you feel about marketing your practice? What works and what doesn't? Share your comments below

photo credit: Hen3k Hen3k

Adventures in Private Practice: Psychotherapist Diane Spear, LCSW

Get to know New York City licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist Diane Spear, LCSW-R.

Tell us a little about your practice...

I’m a licensed clinical social worker in private practice over sixteen years. I treat people from older adolescents to senior citizens, in individual and couples sessions.  My practice approach can be described as psychodynamic, interactive, and reality-based, so I’m dealing with how a patient’s formative years affect his/her current conscious and unconscious attitudes about love, work, and play, so that they can build on what works and rethink what doesn’t in order to have a more satisfying life going forward.

Why did you decide to open a private practice?

I decided to open a private practice because I like the flexibility and autonomy of working when I want, setting my own fees, working with a theoretical orientation I find helpful, and choosing a supervisor whose way of working is compatible with mine.

What have you learned from your toughest clients?

What I’ve learned from my toughest patients—and my wonderful supervisor, Dr. Ed Campbell—is that they get to be crazy till they’re ready to listen, and that my responsibility is to “put it out there” consistently and to work hard at doing that, but that I’m not responsible for whether or not they are willing to take it in and use it consistently or at all.  That was enormously freeing!  And a great way to avoid burnout.

Some of my toughest patients are what my supervisor calls “help-rejecting complainers.”  Realizing that they have every right to reject my help, and learning to not take that personally—“You’re not listening to the great Diane Spear????!!!!”—has been really important!

What's your biggest pet peeve about private practice?

My biggest pet peeve (and it’s not very big at all, frankly) about private practice is that I don’t get paid sick days and vacation days.  But it’s a small trade-off for the autonomy I value.  Actually the worst deal is having to pay for my own health insurance.

How did you discover or develop your practice "niche"?

In terms of a niche, I originally worked with a lot of actors, artists, and writers, probably because I had an arts background.  Now I have patients from all walks of life, and I enjoy that variety.  My practice is a general one, and I enjoy that.

What resource (book, website, person) helped you the most when setting up your private practice?

The resources that have helped me the most in setting up my private practice have been my wonderful therapist, Nancy Becker, LCSW-R, and my tough-love supervisor, Ed Campbell, Ph.D., because they told me and modeled for me that if you want to have a successful practice, you have to treat it like a business and market it, and set it up in a way that’s fair to me.  This was a very different approach than what I learned in social work school, where it was politically incorrect to mention aspirations for a private practice.

What has surprised you most about being in private practice?

What has surprised me most about being in private practice was that my therapist and supervisor were right:  with hard work, a business attitude, and a commitment to learning theory and technique I could have a successful business, as they do.  In other words, their success wasn’t based on luck; if I wanted their results, I needed to put in the hard work they did and I could have a great business that I enjoy.

Has your private practice helped you grow professionally? How so?

My private practice has helped me grow professionally because there can be room for laziness at some agencies, without too many repercussions.   But if I’m lazy about learning theory and/or technique, or marketing, I will see the results in a failing practice, so having to be responsible to myself has forced me to have a better work ethic.

Has it helped you grow personally, too? How so?

Private practice has helped me grow personally, too, because I’m forced to confront my own narcissism on a daily basis with my patients, to know the limits of what I can do—I can’t change anyone except myself, though I can work with someone and help them change if they want to change.  And let’s face it:  anything that makes us confront our narcissism on a daily basis is going to help in every aspect of our lives!

Being a therapist can be emotionally exhausting. What do you do to care for your own emotional and psychological health?

I avoid burnout by getting lots of treatment from my long-time therapist, and participating in a weekly supervision/study group.  What also helps is, once again, knowing that I can’t change anyone—all I can do is put it out there, and the patient is responsible for using it or not.

How do you cope with the inevitable stressors involved with being your own boss?

I cope with the stresses of being my own boss by setting up my business in a way that is fair to me, so that I don’t resent my patients.  When I started out, I paid $12 an hour for office space and my first patient paid me $20 per session.  I built from there, but had not learned to set it up yet in a way that was fair to me.  So when a patient cancelled on me, I rescheduled sessions, which meant that I had to pay $24 for office rent ($12 for the cancelled session and $12 for the make-up session), but just get paid $20 for the session.  No small surprise that I wound up resenting my patients!  My supervisor helped me set it up to be fair to myself with time and money.

What personal strengths have helped you succeed in private practice?

Creativity and a good sense of humor have worked well for me in private practice.  I enjoy coming up with analogies that will fit a particular patient’s situation or to explain a complex concept.  I’ve also found that humor can be a great way past a patient’s defenses.

To learn more about Diane Spear, LCSW-R visit her website