A Day In The Life: Meet Relationship Expert Dr. Meredith Hansen

When I "met" Dr. Meredith Hansen on Facebook and Twitter recently I was struck by her cohesive online presence. Rarely have I come across such an impeccable private practice website and a therapist who has such clarity in her private practice message: "Helping individuals and couples find love, get love, and keep love."

If you want to see an example of a powerful practice website and clear practice message visit DrMeredithHansen.com. Dr. Hansen projects a nice blend of accessibility and professionalism that make me feel confident referring clients to her practice.

I'm not the only one who feels confident in Dr. Hansen's skills. Professional men and women in their late 20’s to early 40’s who are hoping to find love, coping with a relationship breakup, or want to improve their current love relationship are seeking her clinical services.

Dr. Hansen also offers pre-marital and newlywed counseling and enjoys helping couples adjust to married life. With a waiting list of new clients Dr. Hansen's plans to on bring on a psychological assistant to supervise who will see her overflow clients.  What does it take to build a relationship focused private practice? Look into "a day in the life" of relationship expert Dr. Hansen.

A Day In The Life

January 9, 2012

6:30AM – 8:00AM

Woke up early and headed out to the gym. I didn’t want to go today, my bed was warm and comfortable, but I knew it would make me feel energized and ready for the busy day ahead.

8:00AM – 8:30AM

Came home and made my favorite green smoothie for breakfast. Checked in with my husband before he left for work and responded to a few client emails requesting appointment changes during the week.

8:30AM – 9:30AM

Showered and got dressed.

9:45AM – 10:00AM

Drove to work and listened to my new website “opt-in” recording.

10:00AM – 11:00AM

Arrived at my office and reviewed my caseload for the day. Entered weekly sessions into www.officeally.com, entered billing information, paid a few private practice bills (Farmer’s office insurance and Sparkletts), completed unfinished progress notes, returned a phone call from a potential new patient requesting an appointment, updated my practice waiting list in Google Docs.

11:00AM – 12:00PM

Worked on new relationship improvement product that I will launch next month. Recorded 7 short audios and finalized the corresponding handouts. Sent an email to my friends who are “testing” the program in order to get their feedback on the content so far.

12:00PM – 1:00PM

Grabbed lunch from a little deli down the street and reviewed content from a business training program I am participating in. Ate my sandwich while listening to the training recordings and made a “To Do”/goal list for the week. Visited my Facebook Page to respond to any comments or posts by my followers and checked in on Twitter to build online relationships.

1:00PM – 7:00PM

Saw 6 therapy clients. Wrote progress notes between sessions in order to reduce my paperwork during the week. (This is always a goal. Some days I am better at this than others.)

7:00PM – 7:15PM

Drove home and listened to the rest of my new website opt-in recording.

7:15PM – 8:00PM

Arrived home and made dinner with my husband. Asked about his day, discussed our schedule for the month, and cleaned up the kitchen.

8:00PM – 9:15PM

Watched TV with my husband. Checked in on Facebook again to respond to any evening comments or posts. Reviewed schedule for tomorrow. Responded to a recent request for a guest blog post. Reviewed the website of the woman requesting the post in order to assess if it would be a good match. Brainstormed some ideas for this post and outlined my next blog post.

9:15PM – 10:15PM

Got ready for bed and read a book a psychology focused book (I can’t get away from them). Listened to a brief mediation by Melanie Roche (always relaxes me and helps clear my mind). Kissed my husband and went to sleep…

Find out more about Dr. Meredith Hansen visit her private practice website.

A Day In The Life: Meet Expatriate Relocation Specialist Jill Kristal, Ph.D

Have you ever known a psychologist who specializes in helping expatriates through relocation transitions? Me neither. Talk about an interesting niche! So, how does one develop this kind of specialization?

While living in London, England Clinical Psychologist Jill Kristal, Ph.D. of Transitional Learning was instrumental in transforming the US Embassy internal counseling center into The American Counseling Center, a community based organization hiring American trained and licensed therapists to work with the expatriate community. Since returning to the US, Dr. Kristal has continued to work with expatriates, served as Special Education Consultant to School Choice International and established a private practice in Larchmont, NY. With over 20 years in private practice, Dr. Kristal has worked with with children of all ages, adults and couples.

Peek into a day in Dr. Kristal's life.

A Day In The Life

December 20, 2011

6:30 – 8am 

Started my day, which included packing lunch, dinner and snacks for the entire day as I won’t leave my office once I am there unless there is an unanticipated break because of a last minute cancellation.

8am -8:30am

Drive to a monthly supervision meeting.  I use car time to listen to books on tape, currently Steve Jobs biography (fascinating) or think about patients I’m struggling with, listen to music (Bruce Springsteen, often) or talk on the phone with a friend (hands free!). Today I listened to Steve.

8:30 – 10:00am  

EMDR monthly peer supervision.  I am a trained EMDR provider and I really look forward to this group every month.  We take turns presenting cases and often discuss a particular aspect of theory or application.

10:00– 11:30am

Drive to my office and prep for the day.  I am pretty fastidious about organizing my caseload and case files, so I looked through file notes from previous sessions and thought about how to structure a few EMDR sessions.

11:30am – 12:20pm

patient session

12:20 – 12:30pm

lunch while walking around my office and stretching

12:30 – 1:3pm

phone meeting with marketing director who's helping me develop a social media presence

1:30 – 2:20pm

patient session

2:30 – 4:00pm

Meeting with a new potential referral source got cancelled, so I used the time to reply to emails and to write up some ideas for an upcoming meeting with a relocation specialist. I also spent some time chatting with one of my office mates.

4 – 8.30pm

Saw 4 patients, one of which was an intake for a new child referral, ate dinner in between patients.

9 – 11pm

Home: chatted with my husband and hung out with our daughter who is home from university.

11.00pm

Read in bed – did some down time with a novel.  Good night.

To learn more about Dr. Jill Kristal and her practice visit TransitionalLearning.com

A Day In The Life: Meet Professional Counselor Stephanie Adams

I've never actually met Stephanie Adams, LPC  face to face, but I like her a lot. I've connected with her on Twitter, exchanged emails, and visited her website so I feel confident that I can say that she's a "go getter" and like me, Stephanie loves to reach out to clients and professionals through technology.

She founded Beginnings Counseling & Consulting, a boutique E-Therapy practice based in College Station, TX, where she uses video conferencing, email, phone and real-time chat to meet with clients and coach beginning counselors. She's co-authoring a book "The Beginning Counselor’s Survival Guide" aimed at supporting new therapists in building their practice.

A Day In The Life

Thursday, November 17, 2011

6:15AM

Wake up and make coffee. Spend time with my husband before he leaves for medical school.

8AM

Check email and plan out the day.

9AM

Consult via email with representative from online therapy platform I will soon be working with. I had a question about the nature of their existing informed consent documents. Since they obtain contact information for emergencies and provide a detailed informed consent statement on the nature of online therapy, I decide I do not need to add my own informed consent forms when I work with clients on their site.

9:15-9:45AM

Attempt to resolve issues with a recent product I’ve listed on clickbank, called the Premarital Power Seminar. A representative from the site tells me my product cannot be approved unless the target URL shows my domain name, www.stephanieadamslpc.com. Since my website was originally a free site before I upgraded to hosting, it still shows an old URL using the free domain name. Email my website support to ask for help changing it.

9:45AM

Send email to affiliate who is planning on representing my product and update her on the progress…or lack therof.

9:45-10:30 AM

Shower and get ready for the day!

10:30AM

Return client email.

10:45AM

Submit interior material for my upcoming book, The Beginning Counselor’s Survival Guide and check for errors. Find 5 formatting errors, correct 4 and email co-author Dr. Carol Doss about getting a high-resolution photograph for her author bio for the last error resolution. Try to figure out whether I have a high-resolution photograph for my own picture! Decide to shelve that problem for late. Check pre-order form on my web store to see if it will allow a person to order the book successfully, as I am announcing the pre-order at the free webinar I am giving later tonight.

11:30AM

Consult with private practice mentor on recent claim payment received. Can it really pay so little?

12:30 PM

Return new client consultation email that just came in regarding carinig for an ADHD child. Inform client that while I cannot treat a child client over online therapy, I do have experience working with ADHD children and would be happy to provide her with consultation and behavioral strategies to help her work successfully with her child.

12:35 PM

Inform another new client via email that since she is of legal age, I cannot call her mother to ask about her insurance information, as it would be a breach of privacy. Provide form to be e-signed by client to allow me to call client’s insurance company about mental health benefits.

12:41PM

Finalize time for phone conference tomorrow morning with a different potential new online counseling platform. Jot down notes: Will this site allow me to restrict clients to only clients in Texas, where I am licensed? Will it be a concern for this site’s owner if I provide services through more than one platform?

1:00PM

Attend free webinar from TeleMental Health Institute, “How To Build A Thriving Mental Health Practice From Your Home.” During the presentation, write answers for the pre-submitted questions for my webinar and make last-minute changes to the Powerpoint presentation I have created. Update my business accounts, typing in and filing receipts and client payments for the appointments I’ve had this week.

2:30PM

Return voicemail from local student applying to counseling master’s programs. Set up a time to meet with her after Thanksgiving week, and invite her to tonight’s webinar.

3-4 PM

Rehearse for presentation of my first webinar tonight, “Developing Your Counselor Mission: The One Idea That Changes Everything.”

4:18PM

Assure several recipients of my webinar invitation that if they cannot attend the seminar tonight, the recording will be emailed to them.

5:00PM

Tell my husband I’m nervous about giving the webinar. He reassures me that I will do fine.

5:30PM

Discuss Thanksgiving travel plans with my husband.

6:13PM

Receive new subscriber to email list for Beginning Counselors. Yay!

6:30-7:00PM

Open AnyMeeting and “start” the webinar before anyone gets there so I can play with sound and turn off the webcam – not having a good enough hair day for that. Discover to my horror that if I am to share my Powerpoint presentation with attendees, I will not be able to see their chat box, because as I have a Mac I can only share my entire screen. They will be able to see the chat box, but I can’t. Scramble through potential options to correct this situation, including turning on my husband’s old desktop (does not have a working microphone) and playing the Powerpoint from within program itself. It doesn’t look as good outside of presentation mode, so finally decide to bite the bullet, and share the situation with participants signing in. Let them know that when Powerpoint poses a question I want them to answer, I will have to minimize the program in order to see their answers.

7:00PM

Give webinar. I enjoy getting to talk to new counselors and get excited about the topic all over again.

8:30PM

Sign off from webinar. Share with my husband that it was a success. Make a to-do list for tomorrow: Meeting with owner of online counseling site. Research licensure laws to see if any other states will allow me provisional licensure to practice online in their jurisdiction. Finish homemade baby blankets for family baby shower over Thanksgiving break. Confirm appointments for the next Monday and Tuesday before we leave for home.

9:00PM

Call my mom.

9:30PM

Relax.

For more information visit www.stephanieadamslpc.com

A Day In The Life: Meet Anxiety Expert Marla W. Deibler, Psy.D.

Peek into a work day in the life of private practitioner and licensed clinical psychologist Marla W. Deibler, Psy.D. Founder and Director of The Center for Emotional Health of Greater Philadelphia, LLC. Her outpatient behavioral health group practice specializes in the treatment of anxiety and obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders.

She's also a wife and a mother of three children and has found a nice work/life balance working 2.5 days per week at her clinic, and spending time the rest of the time home with her children. Thanks to email, phone, and text, Dr. Deibler operates her business remotely "in spurt" during the days she's at her home. And apparently, she doesn't sleep much!

Here's a day in the life of one of Dr. Deibler's "work" days:

A Day In The Life

November 16, 2011

6:15am – 8:15am

Woke up and got my children ready for school and myself ready for work. Ate breakfast. Checked my email, responded to several emails, including an email to our web designer who is working on our new website (very exciting), and forwarded a few visual voicemail emails to my office manager for return phone calls later in the day. Quickly scanned personal and business Facebook newsfeeds and scanned my Twitter feed.

8:15am-9am

Took my second grader to board his school bus and took my 1 year-old and 4 year-old to day care.

9:30am-10am

Arrived at my office, large cup of caffeinated tea in hand that I brewed before leaving home.  Turned on all office lights and computers, collected billing slips and receivables, returned two phone calls, one from a potential patient who had a question and one from a TV network with whom I’ve worked. Review my clinical schedule for the day: it looks like I’ll be working with adults and children today with difficulties including, OCD, compulsive hoarding, tourette’s disorder, depression, panic disorder, and trichotillomania.

10am-11am

Saw a therapy patient.

11am – 12:45pm

Supervision meeting with one of my post-doctoral fellows. Discussed cases and other clinical and practice management issues. Discussed planning co-presenter workshop proposals for the Trichotillomania Learning Center (www.trich.org) annual conference in May 2012. The deadline is quickly approaching, so we have to finalize our proposals over the next 10 days.

12:45pm – 1pm

Pulled testing measures to create charts for this week’s pre-bariatric surgery psychological evaluations. Received incoming mail. Checked email and forwarded visual voicemail emails to my office manager for return calls.

1pm – 2pm

Weekly staff luncheon. Enjoyed great salads from a nearby restaurant that delivers while we discussed cases with one another and other practice issues.

2pm – 3pm

Supervision meeting with another post-doctoral fellow who has just returned to work on a limited basis from maternity leave. This was particularly nice, as she brought her 8 week-old baby while we discussed her cases and other work-life balance issues. I manage my facility in an employee-focused, family-focused manner; each clinician is valued professionally and given the flexibility to create their own schedule so that they can create happy work and personal lives (I whole-heartedly believe this happiness is reflected in their work with patients, so it’s a win-win approach to practice management). In this clinician’s case, she presently sees patients on Saturdays, when her husband is home caring for their child.  On Wednesdays, she brings him to the office for her weekly meeting with me.

3pm – 6:30pm

Saw therapy patients.

6:30pm – 6:45pm

Left the office for the day and drove home to my family. My husband is also a psychologist. He works at a special services school, so he gets off from work at 3:30pm and tends to the children until I come home (Mondays and Wednesdays I work late).

7pm-8:30pm

Spent time with my husband and children. Ate dinner. Ensured that homework was done. Put the baby to bed. Supervised bath time for the older children. Read bedtime stories and tucked the big kids in.

8:30pm-9:30pm

Sat with my husband in our bedroom, while each of us spent some winding down time on our Apple devices –We love this technology. (My husband read news and such on his iPhone, talking about some of the day’s events with me), while I logged into my electronic medical records system (www.carepaths.com), signed off on billing, reviewed and signed off on clinical documentation written by post-doctoral fellows, and submitted batched electronic insurance claims for the day’s in-network patients. Contemplated a run on the treadmill, but today is usually a “rest day” for me and I have too much to do this evening, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.

9:30pm-10pm

Brewed a cup of tea and planned our Thanksgiving dinner menu (as well as ordering our turkey and when I’m going to grocery shop—I’ve got to begin with making butternut squash soup this weekend). I cook Thanksgiving dinner for my family and my brother’s family every year.

10pm-2am

Procrastinated work a bit here and there, intermittently throughout, by checking and returning emails, both personal and professional (needs to be done anyway), checking Facebook, and exploring professional and practice growth opportunities.

Reviewed a post-doctoral fellow’s lengthy forensic report. Completed business accounting tasks for the week. Created to do list with particular attention to the insurance claims/pre-authorizations about which I need to inquire.  Filed a freelance writing/consulting application.

2:30am

Went to sleep (Yes, it is very late. Wednesday is by far my latest night of the week; it’s a worthwhile tradeoff for more time with my family on other days). Tomorrow is a new day. I’m home with my two youngest children to enjoy time with this and take care of household tasks, while managing the practice via email/phone for the day.

For more information on Dr. Deibler and her practice visit www.thecenterforemotionalhealth.com, or connect on Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.

A Day In The Life: Meet Online Counselor Terrie Browning, LPC

What does it take to build and maintain a private mental health practice? Terrie Browning, LPC, DCC, CFC was among the first to respond to my request for therapists to track their activities for a day to shed light on what it takes to be in private practice. Friday, the day she uses  for last minute crisis appointments, online counseling appointments, website meetings, phone consults, and runs errands, was the day she chose to track her activities. Terrie provides in person, and online counseling, in addition to providing court testimony as part of her private practice, Alternative Therapies. Terrie is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Forensic Consultant, Distance Credentialed Counselor, and holds a Masters Degree in Science of Psychology, with specialization in Counseling Psychology.

To learn more about Terrie's practice visit her website TerrieBrowning.com.

A Day In The Life

Novemember 18, 2011 Friday

7am-8am

Woke with my partner. Made coffee and tea and had a conversation about home, bills, tonight’s activities.

8:00-9:00AM

Started some laundry and checked emails for both my private practice and my website. Noted a return email from a potential new therapist for my live consultation website confirming our 11am phone consult. Email my accountant regarding chat system payouts and reporting options for experts.

9:00-9:15AM

Call from client, appointment for marriage counseling. Discuss options and insurance.

9:15-10:00AM

Answered emails to LinkedIn professionals offering a wide range of services, mostly media opportunities for the website (radio, press releases, etc.). Received an email from the editor at MyMetroYou magazine where I write a monthly column, My Healthy Mind. Deadline for January series was early this month, due Monday. Yikes, I haven’t even started it yet! January starts the first of a three part series on “What Makes Love Work”. I make a mental note to complete outline this afternoon.

10:00-10:30AM

Change beds and clean up house before leaving my phone consult.

10:45-11:00AM

Phone call from client whose husband had brain surgery. Anger issues and needed some assistance with conflict resolution.

11:00-11:45AM

Phone consult with expert from CA. A fellow therapist asking about ethical issues with online counseling. I share information I received during my Distance Credentialed Counselor certification I received last year from ReadyMinds in Chicago.

11:45AM-12:25PM

Consult with a close relative about difficult situation of living in a new place and trying to find employment and the stress it is taking on her relationship, feeling of loneliness, frustration and diminished self-worth.

12:25-1:00PM

Skype with my social networking company representing my website.

1:00-1:50PM

Online counseling with return client.

2:00-2:45PM

Work out at gym.

2:45-3:30PM

Meet attorney with whom I work with on alcohol evaluations. Get a call from client with need to come in for crisis appt. Agree to meet in 1/2hr.

4:00-4:45PM

Meet with client in the office.

4:45-5:30PM

Paperwork in office. Billing, faxing to alcohol testing lab for results, rehab for dates for clients alcohol evaluation. Phoned the parent of client admitted to emergency psychiatric ward with suicide attempt. Doing well. Whew, on my mind for last 24 hours. Talk about after care and outpatient services.

5:30-6:00PM

Return calls for appointments for following week. Phone consult with parent; minor child is going to court against his father for psychiatric evaluation and ending parenting time.

6:00-7:00PM

Return home to shower.

7:00-7:30PM

Talk with daughter who wants to transfer universities (her junior year).

7:30-9:30PM

Dinner with best friends for birthday celebration.

10:00-11:30PM

Return home and talk with partner, watch TV, go to bed.

Thank you Terrie, for letting us peek into a day in your life as a private practice therapist!