This Business of Therapy

Month: October 2013

  • Stretching Our World

    I suggested in a previous post (you can read it here) that trying something different on a regular basis can be good for your practice. This one suggestion has made a huge difference to my work, and to my life, in ways I couldn’t have begun to imagine. One of the ways we deal with…

  • Blackberries and the Power of Decisions

    I really love blackberry jam. I love the taste, the texture, the smell, the memories it evokes, and I love the way it spills onto my fingers as I eat and makes them sticky. I love everything about it. But it’s hard to find in the shops, and the commercial varieties bear little resemblance to…

  • Handling Criticism

    They say that we find comfort among those who agree with us, and growth among those who don’t.[1] Yesterday, someone close to me criticised me unjustly for something I hadn’t done. I hate that! When the dust had settled, I asked them to acknowledge that I was right and they were wrong. They were unrepentant.…

  • Fearful of Putting Yourself Out There?

    Many therapists shy away from the idea of promoting themselves. At one of our “Attract More Clients” workshops, my friend and colleague Wei Sim Ho led the group in a discussion of the fears and blocks that come up for them around marketing, and guess what came up? Fears of being judged, of not being good…

  • The Support We Don’t See

    On Thursday, I couldn’t access one of my email accounts. Friday, I couldn’t make payments online. It could be what a former mentor of mine calls “Mercury Retrograde” which (I think) implies, “Don’t rely on technology today, the Gods are playing.” After trying all the usual work-arounds (I am persistent!), another machine, another web browser,…

  • The Big Drop – Have You Thought About A Pension?

    Some years ago, one of the financial institutions ran an ad that asked, “Are you ready for the big drop?” The big drop was, of course, the gap between our income before retirement and after retirement. The point being made was that some people have insufficiently provided for their pension. Are you one of those?…

  • Need to Attract More Clients? Just Ask

    I was in the bank some time ago and a woman who was trying to encourage me to buy a pension gave me a box of mints with “Just Ask” written on it. It reminded me of how complicated we can make the whole looking- for-clients thing. Earlier this week, a friend who was thinking…

  • A Time to Act

    A couple of years ago, I was visiting some family members whose barge was moored on the canal near my home. It was a wet, rainy afternoon. The barge was tied up to a mooring post in the grass bank, and to get on and off, we had to walk across a gang plank, four…

  • Help! I Need A Room, Fast

    Help! I have no where to see my client. I need a room, and fast! This was the dilemma my friend found herself in when first started her practice. She had a willing client, but no therapy room. Here are a couple of ideas we came up with:

  • The Buck Stops Here

    Many therapists setting out in practice for the first time have closed their doors and gone back to working for someone else within three years. Not because they’re not good therapists, not because they aren’t helping their clients, but because they had no idea what it takes to run a business. I learnt this lesson…