Why don’t my clients change the way they’re “supposed to”?
Early in my career, I had lots of questions about how clients change. Why didn’t my clients change as rapidly or as profoundly as my grad school texts seemed to […]
How clinicians end up with the right clients
I believe that we end up with the clients we are meant to have at every stage of our development as a clinician. Somehow the therapist fit is surprisingly good […]
The invisible library behind me
When doing therapy I sometimes imagine this massive invisible library behind my chair. It is full of theories, models, and ideas about helping my clients. And the bookshelves are stuffed […]
Daily business demand #2: Providing therapy
When we meet with a client, i.e., when we are providing therapy, we are offering a service. And clients are purchasing that service. There is a commercial transaction that is […]
Authenticity: The real me vs the office me
Authenticity requires that I bring my real self to the therapy office. And yet, we can be tempted by those clients who think you are just the most wonderful person […]
Running out of tricks: Middle therapy
One of the frequent conversations that comes up in supervision is on middle therapy. Usually middle therapy is defined as the period after 20 sessions when things seem to find […]
Client Retention Part I: Is it good for clients to stay longer in therapy?
Several good things come from the ability of clinicians to retain existing clients, i.e. the art of client retention. From a business standpoint, clients staying in a clinician’s schedule helps […]
Client retention Part II: Beyond the therapist’s control
There are many factors that contribute to client retention. Many of the most powerful are not related to anything the therapist can do or not do. I am referring to […]
Client retention Part III: How to retain clients
In 2011 Centennial, the organization I managed, began tracking client retention numbers for our therapists. We then compared them to the practice as a whole. As we shared those numbers, […]
Why would anyone want to be a therapist?
Taking in the whole of what mental health practice is today can easily leave one despairing. Newcomers looking at the situation are right to ask, “Is it worth it?” I […]
It’s a marathon and not a sprint: Burnout prevention
I am a burnout survivor. After 4 years of emotionally depleting myself as a youth pastor I was certain I could never work with people again. I crawled off to […]