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
As healers, we genuinely like to do our work. Guiding clients through the therapy process and seeing them make progress is why we do what we do. But if you're in private practice, you know there's a lot going on in the back end and that it's crucial to run an efficient and organized business.