Pause Before Posting About Work On Personal Social Media Pages (part 1)

We all need to vent about a hard day at work, but clinicians should think twice before posting on personal social network pages.

Guest post by Kimberly Sandstrom, MFTI

Have you ever have a long day at the office and wanted to vent your frustration to someone? Me too! We are containers of all sorts of confidential information and sometimes our containers get full, or we get triggered by something that happened during the day. It’s hard to hold it all in at times—especially when it touches or triggers some reaction in us. Yet, we are called to an oath of confidentiality, and sensitivity to our client’s information. For most, venting to a trusted colleague or a relaxation activity can be enough. Yet, some therapists use their personal social media accounts to release stress about their clients. Can’t believe clinicians do this? Read on.

As therapists, we reach in, listen, validate our client’s pain and help them make sense of it so that they can reflect, respond, and repair the distance in their relationships. It can be emotionally draining work. And we need ways to work out our stress. But are personal social media accounts the place to do this? Probably not.

Yet, some therapists post things their clients did or said that made them laugh or made them upset.  Yes, you read that right. I’ve seen complaints about cancellations, clients not following treatment plans, and negligent parents. Then there are the posts intended to be funny—pictures of notes clients left for them (yes, I have seen this), pictures of children in the local paper they treat (this too!). Friends comment back “lol” or similar funny retorts, and then everyone gets a good laugh.

My heart drops whenever I read these posts.

What about all the people in their friendship circle who are in therapy or contemplating therapy? Do they wonder if their own therapist is posting something they said? I know I would.

We have such a wonderful opportunity to promote a positive image o

f ourselves and our therapeutic community and to cultivate confidence in the therapy process (see Julie Hanks' article on using social media in practice). We also have an opportunity to foster community with our public who often need courage just to pick up the phone and call us for support. Posting about clients negatively undermines these opportunities!

The good news is that therapists who post in a negative or comical fashion about their clients are definitely in the minority. And, given that I have seen some of these posts myself online from people I know, I take the view that their posts are not meant to be harmful but meant to release steam from a difficult day, or to draw others in as a way to cope with the “compassion fatigue” often experienced in this line of work. While the person posting does not intend harm, ultimately, in a round-about-way, they can elicit harm. How do we address this problem as we experience stress burnout and how do we address this with our therapeutic community?

Next time, I will provide tips on how to create self-awareness of our personal postings about our work, promote a positive image of therapy, and how to approach colleagues who may not be aware of how their posts about clients impact our wonderful therapeutic community.

Kimberly Sandstrom is a Marriage & Family Therapist Intern and Relationship Educator, Supervised by Kathryn de Bruin, LMFT, working in private practice in San Diego, CA. Married for 24 years, she and her husband are raising three daughters, two of whom are now adults.  She works with couples, and families to create emotionally safe and enduring connections in their most cherished relationships.

The Hazards Of Being A Therapist

Guest post by Regina Bright, MS, LMHC

I have been working in mental health for about 12 years. I listen to clients in crisis for many hours a day, providing support, empathy, interpretation and direction. As therapists, we can easily lose track of our own issues, ignore our own problems, and at times have difficulty shutting off the therapeutic processing.

In order to be a good therapist, it is necessary to take care of ourselves — our clients depend on it. Just because we know everything there is to know about stress management doesn’t mean that we are immune from becoming mentally exhausted. If you are feeling detached or apathetic toward your clients, yourself, or your relationships you could be experiencing emotional fatigue.

Here are some ways that I like to take care of my own needs so I can continue to support my clients:

I use my colleagues’ expertise regularly. We go to lunch and consult each other on difficult cases. We bounce around different techniques and approaches that could heighten the therapeutic process.

I belong to many professional organizations and am very involved in my community. I feel that if I have the support of my community, then I am not alone in my journey. I enjoy volunteering and giving back to my community whenever possible. It makes me feel good to see that I have helped others with a small donation of my time.

I enjoy spending time with my family. Going to the beach and reading or walking is especially refreshing. I have two Labrador retrievers who demand a lot of attention. I find a great escape just going out into the backyard and throwing the Frisbee for an hour.

My family enjoys going on vacation. I take two trips a year with the family and then one with just my husband.

My practice is in my hometown. I have developed many friendships over the years. I enjoy spending time with many different groups of people. I am very thankful for the friendships that I have made.

In college, I had different goals. I could do and wanted to do everything that came to my mind. I achieved more things in one day than most people did in a week. My priorities have changed. I have a family now and I find it necessary to relax. Now, I want to balance giving and getting – attention to my family, friends, spouse, community, and solitude.

As a mental health professional, self-care is a minimum standard of professional practice. Your clients deserve to be served by a healthy, well-balanced health care professional. Every mental health professional has vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and needs. Take time today to identify yours.

About The Author:

Regina Bright is the owner of Stepping Stones Professional Counseling, a Mary Esther private practice. She is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, a Clinical Supervisor, a Parent Coordinator and a Florida Supreme Court Family Mediator. At Stepping Stones Professional Counseling, they provide individual, group, couples and family counseling. Call 850-226-6430 or visit SteppingStonesCounseling.org

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3 Things Google Analytics Can Teach You About Your Private Practice

Guest post by Liz Lockard, a self-confessed Google Analytics geek who loves helping small businesses get more out of their marketing data.

Do you have a website for your private practice? If so, you can’t pass up the best free marketing insights tool for your business - Google Analytics.

If you don’t already have it installed, go do that first (check out my mini Google Analytics setup tutorial for that).

Sure Google Analytics can tell me about my website, you say, but what can it tell me about my practice?

Here’s just three things you can learn about your practice from Google Analytics.

1) Where in the world are your prospects from?

Google Analytics can tell you exactly where every visitor to your website is visiting from. When logged in, just head to Standard Reporting - Audience - Demographics - Location.

You’ll get a map that looks a lot like this one:

You can view as top-level as on what continent and as specific as in which city your visitors are located. What could that mean for your practice? If you were considering expanding your practice into a neighboring state, Google Analytics can help guide that decision by giving you data on which state sends your site the most visitors, or which state sends you the most engaged visitors. City-wise it could help you target local in-state marketing efforts.

2) What is your most popular content?

Do you have a blog or host other articles on your site? If so, Google Analytics can tell you exactly which page or post is getting the most visits. Simply head to Standard Reporting - Content - Site Content - All Pages.

You’ll get a list that looks like this one:

You can see exactly which pieces of content on your site are most popular by visits, time on site, and a whole host of other metrics.

What could this mean for your practice? Your most popular content is a great indicator of what your audience finds most interest and what will be popular in the future. You could develop a follow up piece or similar pieces of content for future blog posts or articles. You could extend the topic into your weekly newsletter, or use the topic in other marketing channels.

3) Which referral source is sending the most traffic?

If you’ve ever pursued a specific marketing channel only to wonder if those new patients or newsletter sign ups actually came from there or somewhere else, you’ll understand the importance of this Google Analytics capability. Simply head to Standard Reporting - Traffic Sources - Sources - All Traffic.

You’ll get a list that looks like this one:

You can see exactly which traffic source is sending you the most traffic (or most engaged) - whether that’s search traffic, email marketing traffic, social media traffic, or other sites you’ve written for or advertised with.

What could this mean for your practice? You can finally stop wondering what’s working! And finally start making data-backed decisions for your marketing efforts and budget. If you didn’t see a single click-through on an ad you ran for 3 months on a popular site - pull it! If you saw a lot of engaged visitors coming from a guest post you wrote for another site, consider writing for them again! This is one of my favorite insights from Google Analytics - being able to actually evaluate marketing efforts.

(bonus points if you measure this traffic based on conversion - but that requires that you have goals set up)

What Do You Think?

Do you have Google Analytics set up for your site? Ever use it to pull insights for your business? Did you find this article helpful? Let me know in the comments!

About The Author:

Liz Lockard is a self-confessed Google Analytics geek who loves helping small businesses get more out of their marketing data. If you enjoyed this article and are interested in more ways of how you can use Google Analytics to up your marketing game, you can sign up for more free training and get on the first-to-know list for her upcoming course Google Analytics: The Missing Manual here. Follow her on Twitter @lizlockard.

(c) Can Stock Photo

What You Need To Succeed As A Solopreneur Therapist

 Why are so many therapists bad at building a business? A key to building a successful private practice is developing discipline.

Guest post by Clinton Power, a Sydney-based Gestalt therapist and the owner of Clinton Power & Associates and founder of Australia Counselling Directory.

When I first dreamed of being a therapist, my vision was about helping people, making a difference and feeling good about contributing to the well-being of others.

After 10 years as a therapist, I’ve become acutely aware of the reality of running a business by myself. While I still enjoy the reward of doing all those good things I mentioned, I’m also realistic about what it takes to run a private practice. In fact, I’ve come to the conclusion that to be a successful therapist in private practice today, you need to be a solopreneur.

What is a soloprenuer therapist?

So what’s a soloprenuer therapist? Effectively it means you’re an entrepreneurial therapist that works solo. Being a solopreneur therapist means you can hold a big vision of what you want for your business and you’re always on the lookout for new opportunities.

You might have all your qualifications, a lovely office space in the right area where your ideal client is located, the furnishings to accompany it and perhaps an attractive website. But that’s no guarantee that you will attract clients to your practice.

In my mind, to be a successful therapist and soloprenuer, you need to have some of the following skills:

• Marketing skills to effectively communicate about your services
• Accounting skills to track your income and manage your finances
• Discipline to show up and complete your marketing activities
• The ability to create a vision for your business and implement the smaller steps needed
• Interpersonal skills to network with other therapists and allied professionals
• Willingness to learn about online marketing, social media and good website design
• Basic SEO knowledge to help your website and articles show up in the search engines
• Writing skills and basic copywriting skills so you can convert your readers into paying clients

Are you getting the idea?

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s not my intention. I hope you have a sense of how versatile you need to be to be able to run a therapy business that brings you clients on an ongoing basis.

I’m not talking about a hobby therapy business where you see a handful of clients a week. I’m talking about what’s needed to create a thriving practice where you are the ‘go to’ person in your niche and you can make a very comfortable living from being a therapist.

The importance of discipline for the solopreneur therapist

In my coaching and consulting work with many healthcare professionals, I talk to a lot of therapists that are wanting to build their businesses, but are not sure what they’re doing wrong.

If there’s one theme that seems to capture what many therapists struggle with, I would say it’s discipline for the solopreneur.

Maybe it’s from my many years as a classical musician, where I had to be disciplined in my musical practice to maintain my performance standard, but I see discipline as an essential part of my business, but also the mindset needed for success. And I see discipline as a major stumbling block for many therapists.

It’s so essential for the soloprenuer therapist to have discipline, because if you don’t do the work, no one will do it for you.

Tips for developing discipline

Here’s a number of ways you can work on your discipline in your private practice:

• Create a publishing schedule for your blog and stick to it
• Give yourself learning goals to increase your knowledge of how to use social media effectively
• Study the basic principles of copywriting so you can write powerful copy for your services and events
• Learn how to manage money effectively using accounting software that makes your job easier
• Create a networking schedule to build relationships with other healthcare professionals and make yourself accountable
• Create a marketing plan that breaks down into weekly tasks that you follow through on
• Create 1, 3, and 5 year goals for your business, write them down and review your progress every 3-6 months
• Join a mastermind group or find an accountability partner and schedule regular meetings so you can support, encourage and challenge each other

This is just a start, but I hope I’m giving you some ideas here.

I believe if you choose just one of those ideas from the list above and commit to the application, it can only benefit your therapy business.

The practice of discipline is one that many people struggle with, however, I do believe it’s like a muscle that you can build and strengthen with practice over time.

I invite you to experiment with shifting your mindset from thinking of yourself as a business owner to a soloprenuer, and notice what happens in your business. Take this as a challenge to help take your business to the next level.

Clinton Power is a Sydney-based Gestalt therapist and the owner of Clinton Power & Associates- a private practice dedicated to helping singles and couples move out of relationship pain. He is also the founder of Australia Counselling Directory, a free directory for find counsellors and psychologists in Australia. Clinton is also a passionate coach and consultant for healthcare professionals. Find him on Twitter @sydneytherapist.

(c) Can Stock Photo