Creating Your Perfect Work Week (part 1)

This guest post is written by Ashley Eder, LPC. Ashley is a counselor and supervisor who believes we each have the potential to create a more satisfying life. Located in Boulder, CO, she works with clients and therapists through curiosity, self-awareness, and acceptance in order to create lasting change.

A successful private practice is not just defined by how many clients you see or how much income you generate. One critical stream of non-monetary compensation is the satisfaction your practice brings you.

That’s right--as a business owner in an inherently flexible field, part of your “payment” is the freedom to create a work week that works for you.

Whether your workload is in its sweet spot or not is a personal measure; what feels nourishing and sustainable for another clinician might be either under-stimulating or exhausting for you given your temperament and the other responsibilities in your life.

Ask yourself the following questions to start creating your own ideal work week:

• Are you excited to go to work?
• Do you enjoy your clients?
• Can you maintain your personal relationships?
• Do you have time for self-care?
• Do you feel satisfied and complete at the end of the day?
• Are you resentment-free?
• Are you intellectually stimulated?
• Have you stopped doing the things you dread?

Yes, you really can expect to have a practice that is that satisfying. If you found yourself shaking your head “no” to some of the questions above, it’s time to re-evaluate how you spend your work week. Take time now to explore these questions in detail. Be honest. Where are you solid in your business satisfaction and where could you use more work? What would your life look like if you were able to answer “yes” to these questions? Can you be specific now, or will it take some soul-searching to figure that out?

Check back for part 2 of Creating Your Perfect Work Week for concrete suggestions on ways to build satisfaction with your business. My suggestions will help you narrow the gap between where you are now and where you would like to be. Expect to revisit these areas throughout your career in private practice, especially as you advance in your career and skills, experience personal life changes in relationships and parenting, and do your own work in personal therapy.

Visit Ashley Eder, LPC's practice website

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Therapist Roll Call: Join Private Practice Toolbox Facebook Group

Call it group therapy for therapists. Connect with other like-mined therapists in my closed Facebook group and share resources, ideas, practice building tools, successes and failures. Must be a licensed mental health therapist or therapist in training be added to the group.

Click here and request to join the Private Practice Toolbox Facebook group

• If you're not familiar with Facebook groups, you'll have to join as your personal profile. Unfortunately, at this point you can't participate as your Facebook practice page.
• Your posts in the group will not show up in your other Facebook friend's newsfeeds, even though it may show up on your feed.
• As you get to know other therapists in the Facebook group it's OK to be selective in who you add as a "friend" to your personal profile. There's no pressure to add anyone in the group as a "friend" on your personal profile.
• My goal in creating the group is to have a fun and supportive forum to share ideas with each other in a more dynamic way than just through blog comments.
• I'll post articles from this Private Practice Toolbox blog in the Facebook group so we can discuss them. Feel free to post helpful practice building resources that you find with the group, too.

I'm looking forward to talking with you! So, what are you waiting for?

See you in the Private Practice Toolbox Facebook Group

Multiple Income Streams Soothe Therapist's Financial Anxiety (part 1)

Relying solely on direct clinical hours may leave private practitioners financially vulnerable to income instability. Since client hours in private practice can vary greatly depending on the time of year, state of the economy, number of new referrals, and several other factors, developing multiple income streams can help you to create a more stable income. "By having the other income streams in place, I have been able to be less susceptible to the ebbs and flows that occur in private practice during difficult economic times," says The Rev. Christopher L. Smith, LCAC, LMHC, LMFT. In addition to providing income stability, diversifying your professional activities with multiple income streams allows therapists to explore a variety of interests, to express creativity, and to get paid for their passions.

In addition to clinical hours, I own and serve as clinical director of a private therapy clinic where I oversee and supervise 10 therapists, write for PsychCentral and other publications, work as a relationship and emotional health media contributor, do public speaking, provide consultation to therapists building a private practice, and I'm currently writing my first book.  Curious about what other private practitioners are doing to add to income stability I reached out to several successful colleagues to see what additional income streams they've developed. Here's a sampling of what other therapists are doing to diversify their professional life and achieve greater income stability.

Write and publish a book

Many therapists have taken their clinical expertise and turned it into a book. For example, Frank J. Sileo, PhD has  written three children's books, including Bug Bites and Campfires: A Story for Kids about Homesickness (Health Press, 2009). Clinical Psychologist Dr. John Duffy took his passion for parenting and authored a book The Available Parent: Radical Optimism For Raising Teens and Tweens (Viva Editions, 2011). What areas of expertise could you write about?

Write for print publications

Supplementing clinical work, Terrie Browning, LPC, CFC, DCC writes for a column "My Healthy Mind" for a local magazine My Metro You. Not only does it provide additional revenue but she says it's also personally fulfilling. Of writing for publications she says, "Writing allows me to share knowledge on topics that are a concern for many people and offers a way for me to network myself."  Therapist Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed. has successfully written for professional publications including Social Work Focus, Social Work Today, Addiction Treatment Forum, and The Newsletter for the Society for Family Therapy and Research, adding an additional income stream.

Create a therapeutic product

Have you considered creating and selling a product based on your clinical expertise? Stephanie Ann Adams, M.A., LPC of Beginnings Counseling & Consulting, created a hybrid counseling/video series for premarital counseling through Twogether in Texas. To help families deal with the stress of relocation Jill Kristal, President of Transitional Learning Curves, developed a game and book series called 'Our Move'.

Develop a professional online network

The internet allows for many options for therapists to create passive income through membership sites. In addition to writing a local magazine column and providing clinical work, Browning, with the help of her adult children, developed a professional wellness center online called Experts Now. This online center offers wellness experts an avenue to offer services and sell products for a commission creating additional income for Browning.

Contract as a consultant

Consider asking yourself, "Which companies or organizations may want to tap into your areas of expertise?" Therapist Dr. Mario Kirk, LPC, Director, A Blessed Child, LLC, performs psychological testing for local attorneys and schools. Women's reproductive health specialist Pec Indman EdD, MFT consults and trains for county health programs and for the US Federal government.

Are you developing multiple streams of income to supplement your direct care hours? Please share your ideas in a comment below.

Watch for multiple income streams part 2 later this week!

Who’s Your Ideal Client?

“Who do you want to work with?” was the question I asked workshop participants in a recent private practice workshop at a local university. For many workshop participants, this was the first time they’d ever even considered asking themselves which clients they wanted to see in their clinical practice. Shrinking funding, crowded managed care panels, and a saturation of therapists have  left private practitioners feeling desperate to fill their schedules with anyone who is willing to see them.  However, based on my personal experience of nearly a decade in private practice, “Who do I want to work with?” is one of the most important questions a clinician can ask themselves.

This question, “Who do I want to work with?” has informed every other aspect of my practice: from my marketing and networking efforts, office location & decor, payment policies, website design, and more.

I was first introduced to this concept of an “ideal client” about 7 years ago when I picked up a practice book, Building Your Ideal Private Practice by Lynn Grodzki. I was hoping to find some guidance and direction for my solo private practice, and like most of you, I had no clue how to build a successful business and had never taken a business course.  I thought to myself, “What? I get to decide who I want to work with? It’s not just who wants to see me or who finds me on managed care panels?”  Ms. Grodzky taught me that the ideal client concept includes more than just a preferable diagnosis or demographic, but also includes identifying characteristics, values and traits.

Getting clear about which clients I want to bring to my practice has allowed me to build a joyful and thriving private practice that has grown from a solo practice to a flourishing clinic employing several therapist. Now, I am passionate about helping my clinical team at Wasatch Family Therapy, as well as the therapists who come to me for consultations, to identify their ideal clients and build profitable private practices.  This, in turn, provides excellent services to clients and allows the therapist to feel fulfilled.

Ask yourself these questions:

Which clients energizes you?

Which clients do you look forward to seeing?

What personal experiences drew you to this field?

Which clients have you had the most success with?

What social issues, population, diagnoses are you passionate about?

In Ms Grodzki's book she suggests completing these phrases to help you define your ideal client:

My ideal client appreciates…

My ideal client values…

My ideal client understands…

My ideal client agrees to…

When I first read Ms. Grodzki's book I identified my ideal client as working with educated, motivated, young adult women who were individuating from their family of origin, and trying to solidify their individual identities. They often presented with depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and relationship distress. Here's how I filled out Ms. Grodzki's ideal client inventory years ago:

My ideal client appreciates... my education. my expertise and life experience. that change is a process. that we are in a collaborative relationship.

My ideal client values... personal responsibility and accountability. professional office space. self-exploration. excellent clinical services. technology and uses it regularly.

My ideal client understands... the importance of their past experiences on their present issues. that they are responsible for their own growth. my professional boundaries and office policies. that I won't give them answers, but I will guide them in the process.

My ideal client agrees to... pay my full fee at the beginning of every session. arrive on time to sessions. attend therapy on a regular basis. emotionally invest in the therapy process.

Several months after reading Ms. Grodzki's book I looked at my schedule one morning and realized that I had an entire day filled with my ideal clients! Though my "ideal client" has evolved through the years, I've found the question, "Who is my ideal client?" to be the most important question and foundation on which to build a successful private practice.

Now it's your turn. Who is your ideal client?