This Business of Therapy

Tag: Counselling

  • Supporting Our Growth

    We all need support to help us grow. A plant needs sunlight, water and food. A child needs a safe home, food, love, encouragement, stimulation and space to explore. A therapy practice also needs support, and by extension, since we are the product or service we provide, we too need support in order to grow…

  • It’s The Eurovision…Again!

    It’s the Eurovision song contest, again. I’m old enough to remember when it was a huge event, the highlight of television viewing. We would be allowed to stay up late to see it, and there was excitement for weeks in advance about the Irish entry and its potential. The scoring was particularly exciting, and “Nul…

  • Stuck on a roundabout in your practice and can’t get off?

    Sometimes when growing our practices, it’s like being stuck on a roundabout from which we can’t exit. How might your beliefs or perceptions be blocking your path?

  • The Importance of Intention

    “Nature abhors a vacuum” I was taught in one of my first science classes. Whether you’re talking about air rushing in to fill the empty space, or how other people’s goals and intentions can fill up the space in our lives, it’s true. Nothing gets done without there first being an intention. My big indulgence…

  • Minding Your Business of Therapy

    Over the last week, I’ve been making suggestions about how you might use the Therapy Practice Business Assessment as the basis for making some changes to your therapy or counselling practice in 2016. So far, we’ve looked at three areas: Knowing Your Practice, Growing Your Practice and Valuing Your Practice. (You can read the blog…

  • Cancellations

    A reader asked me how he could engage with people who regularly cancel their sessions. Cancellations can be a pain in the neck. You need your income and also want to work in a satisfactory way with clients. Cancellations can interrupt both. I won’t go into all the issues that could be giving rise 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.…

  • 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…