A Day In The Life: Meet Body-Centered Therapist Ashley Eder, LPC

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 an 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.

7:00AM - 8:30AM

This is a whirlwind of play, feeding, diapering, getting dressed, and chasing a toddler around the house. My son decides today is the day he wants to learn how to climb the stairs. My husband makes us some coffee and I eat my own breakfast. We divide and conquer morning tasks like feeding our pets and unloading the dishwasher. I check email again and see I have one cancellation for this evening, and one client in crisis and requesting a phone consult today (no safety concerns). I’ll get back to both of them as soon as my son heads to daycare.

8:30AM - 9:00AM

Check in with my client in crisis over the phone. Return email to the client who needed to cancel confirming our regular appointment time next week.

9:00AM - 9:45AM

Shower and get dressed. Get my therapy dog Angel ready for work and in the car, then we head to the office. I have a short phone conversation with a colleague whose caseload I’ll be covering the next two weeks while she is out of town. I also call my son’s pediatrician to let them know that he still has the cough I brought him in for last week.

10:00AM - 10:30AM

I get settled in to see clients. This includes tidying up my office, making sure there is water in Angel’s bowl, and pulling charts for the clients I’ll see today. I have recently switched to electronic record keeping and have a personal goal of all case notes completed for the day before I leave the office. This keeps me from getting behind. I take a few minutes to sit quietly.

10:30AM - 3:00PM

I have four consecutive sessions with a half-hour break mid-way through. It’s the beginning of the school semester and my roster today reflects that students’ schedules are in flux, which means mine is too. This time flies. It is so rewarding that it’s energizing and I feel grateful for this work.

3:00PM - 4:30PM

A break. Angel and I go for a walk to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. We eat lunch by the pond outside my office where a pair of ducks is over-wintering. Angel loves to watch the ducks. Back in the office I check in with friends over Facebook and email. I return phone calls and schedule appointments with the two prospective clients who left messages this morning, and I schedule a supervision session with one of the licensure candidates I am supervising. I send a quick note to a colleague who has been a regular referral source for me lately.

4:30PM - 5:00PM

I participate in a half-hour informational interview over Skype with a college graduate from my alma mater. She contacted me via LinkedIn for advice on applying to graduate school and pursuing a career in counseling. I’m impressed by her initiative and preparation, and it feels good to help her out.

5:00PM - 6:00PM

My last session of the day. Because I have been charting all day I finish this final case note and log out of the electronic health record system by 6:00 PM sharp.

6:10PM

Pack my bag, draw the shades, lock my filing cabinet, vacuum dog hair from the carpet, leash up Angel, and head home.

6:30PM - 7:00PM

I come home where my husband and son have finished their dinners. Angel and I eat with their company and we talk about everyone’s day. My husband asks if Angel was a good therapy dog and I answer “of course.” I enjoy watching my toddler roam around the kitchen and family room. His curiosity is delightful and tomorrow we will spend the entire day together.

7:00PM - 7:30PM

Baby bedtime. We all go upstairs for the diaper change, pajamas, teeth brushing, and bedtime story.

7:30PM - 9:00PM

I finally make a dent in the pile of receipts from last year’s business expenses--time to get ready for taxes. Write a rough draft of a letter of recommendation for a client. Put the finishing touches on my resume and cover letter for an affiliate faculty teaching job I’d love to have.

9:00PM - 10:00PM

Hang out with my husband, who has also been catching up on some work that was left over from the day.

10:00PM

In bed, I skim through email and Facebook once more before going to sleep.

To learn more about Ashley Eder, LPC and her therapy dog angel, visit www.ashleyeder.com.

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To Tweet or Not to Tweet? Using Twitter To Grow Your Therapy Practice

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a popular social media platform where users can send short updates that are up to 140 characters long.  Twitter is basically the equivalent of a Facebook status update newsfeed. If you have no idea what a "newsfeed" or "status update" is, then you may want to stop reading here and start by setting up a Facebook account.

Facebook is THE social network site and is the most effective way to build your practice through social media because of it's high number of daily users. Here's an article on how to set up a Facebook Page for your practice.  If you want to know how to use Twitter, here are a few suggestions on how to effectively tweet to build your practice.

How can Twitter help you build your practice?

Twitter, like all social media platforms, is a forum for conversation and connecting with other people online. It is also a great way to spread the word about your practice, to educate the public about issues you care about, and to share your areas of expertise. The point of social networking sites like Twitter is...uh...the social networking. If your Twitter followers find value in your tweets they will share them by retweeting your information their Twitter followers. Over time you can grow a network of people who are sharing your tweets which helps you get the word out about your private therapy practice.

Ways to Build Your Therapy Practice Through Twitter

1) Follow local businesses and professionals

Following potential referral sources on Twitter can help you build referral sources.  If you specialize in helping clients with chronic pain, then you may want to search for pain clinics, chiropractors, and other health professionals in your geographic area and start a conversation with them about your services.

Don't limit who you follow to only mental health or other psychotherapists. Referrals can come from any kind of social networking relationship. Let your definition of an ideal client help guide who you follow on Twitter so you can attract the kind of client you want to work with. Twitter can also be used a search engine to find other businesses or people in your area and see what they talking about.

2) Don't just tweet, have conversations

Don't just send out information or tweets into the social network universe. Take a few minutes each day to respond to others who mention you or who retweet your tweets. "Mention" other users by using the "@" sign followed by their twitter handle and it will show up on their Twitter page. This builds rapport and relationships. For example, my user name is @julie_hanks. If someone posts a tweet and mentions me, I will be notified of it and it gives me a chance to respond to them.  I've found Twitter to be a source of professional support too, meeting therapists all over the world and sharing ideas. I've found some therapists in private practice featured in recent articles on Twitter.

3) Tweet links to your practice website

Increase traffic to your therapy website by tweeting links to your website. If you have a website blog, you can automate your site to tweet every new blog post. Here's a screenshot of my Twitter page. The yellow text are links that mostly go to on of my websites or blogs to increase visitors and provide helpful information.

4) Use hashtags to attract followers interested in your expertise

A hashtag is a "#" followed by a topic. For example, if you're specialty area is parenting, you can use #parenting on tweets about anything related to parenting to make it easier for others interesting in parenting to find you. When you click on a hashtag it will bring up other tweets mentioning the same topic. Hashtags make it easy to find, follow, and converse with others who have similar interest or expertise.

Do you use Twitter as a mental health professional? What are your suggestions for using Twitter to build your practice?