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The Value of Peer Support
It can be a lonely enough profession, this business of therapy, can’t it? Where friends who work for banks, or semi state organisations, or the corner shop can moan and groan about their work, we can’t reciprocate can we? And even if we did, there’s that sense that nobody except another therapist really gets it,…
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Looking Forward
Therapy training for me was full of metaphors about gardening and farming. In our work with clients, we were told, it takes time for seeds to grow. Don’t pull them out of the pot to see their roots, the shoots will appear above the ground in due course. The law of the harvest says it…
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The Art of Projection
Dear Reader I’m finding it hard today to make sense of my world, and that makes it hard to write. It’s not an unfamiliar feeling for me. Self-doubt, confusion and unease around other people’s certainty are old bed fellows. I’ve long been interested in the phenomenon of projection, that trick of the mind that takes…
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More About Contracts with Clients
recently, I wrote about contracts with clients, and the value of committing them to writing. I was talking there about the explicit contract, the practical issues of how the structure of the work will look. While the terms of the explicit contract are discussed and agreed, there is another level at which the contract is…
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Contracting with a Therapy Client
One of the first things we are taught in training to be a counsellor or therapist, is about contracting. One of the tasks of the first session with a client is to set out and agree the terms of the contract. Do you commit your contract to writing? It’s not essential, but certainly something you…
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A Balanced Portfolio
I’ve talked on several occasions about finding a niche or target market for your practice, and the advantages and disadvantages of having one. An argument that is often put forward against such a concept for therapy practices is that it pigeon holes you into dealing exclusively with one issue or client area. This does not…
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Getting Inquiries but not Clients?
A therapist told me recently about her challenge of converting inquiries from potential clients into actual clients. “Lots of people ring me and ask about my fees and my availability, but no one wants to make an appointment. What am I doing wrong?” You’ve probably experienced it yourself, someone rings and asks for information, but when…
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Price War
There used to be an old joke about a man selling eggs. One morning he put a sign outside his door saying “One dozen large eggs, €2.50.” An hour later, he looked out the door of his shop to see another shopkeeper on the other side of the road had put a sign out saying,…
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Help! I Need an Elevator Pitch!
A therapist client recently asked me for help in writing an elevator pitch. You’ve probably heard how it goes…you get into an elevator, there’s a potential client there, perfect for you, needing what you have to offer, what do you say? You have between 30 and 60 seconds to deliver your message before the doors…
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In your Therapy Practice: Don’t Confuse Cost Savings with Cost Effectiveness
One way to sabotage your practice is to confuse cost savings with cost effectiveness. Some costs have to be incurred in order to run your practice. Some are optional. Some costs will generate income for you down the road, others will not. Some costs will bring other benefits, such as developing your skill base, or…