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Thanks to Rhett Smith, LMFT of Auxano Counseling in Plano, Texas for submitting this fun virtual office tour. I am definitely stealing the idea to mount Lexan plastic on the wall for genograms and illustrations – brilliant! Also, love the symbolic tree painting and that chunky rug. Very clean, light and inviting office space.
Do therapists really need to care about search engine optimization (SEO)? If you’re in private practice the answer is YES!
So, what is SEO? SEO is the process of improving your website’s visibility in search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Before you starting thinking about SEO, you first need a practice website. Even a single page site with your photo, practice description and contact information is better than nothing! I predict that in the near future it will be nearly impossible to build a successful private practice with clients who pay your full fee unless you have a website and strong professional online presence. If you don’t have a website, stop reading here, and get busy creating a site. If you already have a site and you want to make it easier for potential clients to find your practice on the web, read on!
I felt calmer just watching this office tour by Ashley Eder, LPC. Ashley does a great job conveying a serene setting and amazing mountain view. Angel, Ashley’s therapy dog makes an appearance in this video too. Watch for the darling accent pillow on the therapy couch. I want those. Thank you Ashley for sharing your office with us.
What impressed me most about this video tour is Shannon P Overland’s amazing play therapy room.
I think it would be difficult to get child therapy clients to actually leave the session! I bet a lot of play therapists will envy Shannon’s set up at her private practice Overland Child and Family Services in PA. Thank you Shannon for sharing your beautiful presence and amazing office with us.
Learn more about Shannon Overland MA, NCPC, FGDMF practice at OverlandCFS.com
If you’re interested in submitting a YouTube virtual office tour video get details here.
Specializing in vocational rehabilitation and work/life issues, Australian social worker Dawn Vincent has been in the mental health field for 25 years. Like many therapists, she considered opening a private practice, but says she lacked the confidence to actually do it.
Read how one private practice course helped her muster up the courage to open her private practice in Camberwell, Victoria, Australia where she helps clients work toward mental health and well-being and navigate changes and choices in life and in work.
Why did you decide to open a private practice?
I had thought about it for about 10 years, but lacked the confidence to go ahead. After spending over 20 years in vocational rehabilitation I decided to take my long service leave and think about my options. After an overseas trip I came home and enrolled in an Introduction to Private Practice course run by the Australian Association of Social Workers. At that time there were only a small number of Social Workers in private practice and it was still somewhat controversial here in Australia.
The profession has a very strong welfare orientation where most Social Workers are employed by the Commonwealth or State governments or work in hospitals and community based settings. Having worked for a large government bureaucracy myself, I liked the idea of the independence and autonomy private practice seemed to offer. I had been a bit of a workaholic and I wanted to move to a better work/life balance and be able to work my own hours. The course helped me to decide that private practice was what I wanted and I committed to this goal.
Do you have a Twitter account for your practice but you’re not sure how to get more followers? Do you feel like your tweeting into thin air and no one is “listening”?
Here are a few tricks I’ve learned that have help me grow my Twitter following and promote your private mental health practice online and build your professional identity.
1) Search and follow
Use the search box at the right top of your Twitter homepage to search your specialty areas and interests. Follow people who are tweeting helpful and relevant info relating to your practice areas and let them know that you like what they’re sharing online.
One of the most difficult challenges of private practice is finding consistent referral sources. Come up with a marketing plan and secure a few referral sources before you hang up your “shingle.” (Read Private Practice Marketing Made Easy)
2) My only overhead expense will be leasing office space
Not so. Plan on buying software for billing and record keeping, malpractice insurance, business license, incorporation fees, professional consultation, website costs, paper goods, furnishings, marketing materials…
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. Read more
If you’re a graduate student in the mental health field planning on going into private practice, here are a few things that you won’t learn during your program. Most of what I learned about psychotherapy and private practice came after I graduated.
After 17 years of practice, here are a few things I wish I’d known earlier:
1) Clients don’t care about your degree
I’m rarely asked what degree I hold or what school I attended. I’ve found that very few clients know the difference between an MSW, MFT, PhD, MFCC, PsyD or any other degree. What clients really want to know is that you’re qualified to do therapy, and if you can help them.
Meet Ashley Eder, LPC and her therapy dog “Angel.” While I know therapists who’ve brought their dog into the therapy office occasionally (it wasn’t necessarily “therapeutic” for colleagues or clients) Ashley is the first therapist I’ve met who uses a therapy dog as a purposeful tool in clinical practice.
It makes sense that certain clients would feel at ease and find contact with a dog to be calming during therapy sessions. In her Boulder, CO private practice, Ashley specializes in body-centered psychotherapy and mindfulness interventions to treat somatic complaints, such as body image, self-harm, chronic pain, abuse recovery, and eating disorders in young adults in their teens and twenties.
In addition to her clinical practice Ashley provides counselor education, training, community building and supervises other counselors toward licensure. See how Ashley spends her day balancing family (she’s a mom of one) and her clinical practice.
A Day In The Life
January 23, 2012
6:50AM
Wake up to the sound of my 15 month old son chattering to himself in his bedroom. He is currently my alarm clock, and this is excellent arrangement when he sleeps past 6AM. I listen to him babble and do a quick first check of email to see if there is anything I need to know heading into my day. Read more
