Therapists who are new to blogging often make the same little mistakes that 
cost them lots of money. That’s why I created BlogStart for Therapists – to educate and encourage therapists to blog ethically and effectively. After all, when done correctly, it’s the most effective way to get seen, get known, and get clients.
Last week I finished up teaching BlogStart for Therapists so you know what that means! There’s another batch of therapists out there blogging for clients!
If you’ve attended BlogStart for Therapists in 2013, I hope you’ll take a moment to drop in and share the URL to your blog and let others know what you learned in the series.
And, if you are curious about the class or are looking for some new blogs to follow, I hope you’ll take the time to check out the therapists who are blogging below.
Tamara….can you tell us little more about your class. I am not sure if it would benefit me or not, I have been blogging for a few years now but I am always looking for better ways of doing things.
Here is the URL to my blog I would value your thought on my blog: http://www.kaytrotter.com/drkayblog/
Thanks in advance
Kay
Sure, Kay! Thanks for asking! And, thanks for sharing a link to your blog!
I’ve just finished up BlogStart for Therapists. It’s a 4-week online series for therapists (and allied health professionals) who are just beginning to blog. We cover things like planning for your blog, content, commenting, and basic blogging etiquette and risk management. That one sounds a little basic for you.
In January, I’ll start a heftier course on more advanced blogging. The class is called From Blah to BAM! Brawny Blogging for Hungry Therapists Who Want to Get Known. I’m putting the finishing touches on this course and will be launching it later this month. You’ll have to wait until then to get the details but here’s what I can tell you. If you aren’t getting enough traffic to your website and you’ve been blogging for a little while, you are who this course is designed for. We’ll be diving into the details that make your blog the one that stands out and calls out to the search engines, potential clients and referrals sources, too.
Kay, I just took a quick tour of your blog and love the feeling of spaciousness that you have there. It’s neat, clean, lots of white space. So many blogs I see are so cluttered that it’s difficult to even focus on the writing. From the posts I read, you are writing in a fairly formal voice and appear to be directing your blog to other professionals. If that is your intent and you are getting all the traffic to your website that you want, I wouldn’t change a thing. On the other hand, if you are wanting to sound more accessible and less formal, try writing in the voice that you use when you talk to your family and friends. Your readers will typically perceive that voice as less scary, more authentic.
I hope that helps!
Tamara….thanks for your feedback and I look forward to hearing more about your Brawny Blogger series.
🙂 It’s coming! It’s coming!
Hi Tamara,
What a great idea, I know a number of counsellors and therapists in the UK who keep blogs and I have yet to find very much good information about the ethics of writing about what is basically a confidential service to the wider public. My blog http://www.existential-counselling.co.uk/blog tries to avoid talking about clients and draws on my background as a philosophy graduate. This feels like the best way of communicating where I’m coming from but I still feel like I’m finding my voice after more than 6 months of blogging.
Keep up the great work,
James Banyard
Counsellor, Exeter UK
Hi, James! Welcome to Private Practice from the Inside Out! It does take a while to find your voice and you are doing the most important thing already – you are posting on a regular basis. Ethics are dictated by the professional associations that we each belong to. But, of course, you are correct – for most of us in mental health, it is not OK to talk about our clients (even when we attempt to disguise / sanitize their identities) without their explicit permission to do so. And, even then, we still are not ethically allowed to talk about our clients unless we believe that it furthers their stated treatment goals. That’s true when we are talking about them and it’s true when we consider writing / blogging about them. Is that your understanding as well?
Hi Tamara,
It’s a very interesting area – blogging – I think because it’s still relatively in it’s infancy. Something like a case study – which Freud would recognise and which all therapists would have experience of writing in their training; the ethics around getting client consent are much more established and the rules for annonymity more clearly defined. What I feel uncomfortable with, and what I see sometimes are blogs which say something like, “My client today made me feel so angry!” – there may be enough detail that the client is able to identify themselves and this could be damaging to their treatment goals. Of course, clinical supervision is the place to really discuss clients in a safe way to help them meet their goals.
I can feel a new blog post forming in my mind already! Thanks for getting me thinking,
James
Thanks, James, for coming back to extend this conversation. Your example of “My client . . . made me . . . ” is an excellent example of what not to do. From the way your proposed scenario has started out, I imagine that this would be a fairly new blogger and fairly new therapist because, of course, when else would a therapist choose to publicly vent or choose to explore their own issues in such a public forum.
When considering what to blog about, it’s critical to be clear about the purpose of your blogging. For me, although there are certainly supportive benefits to my clients and the general public and there are social and even personal benefits to me, the real purpose for each of my blogs is to share information and inspiration to help clients and potential clients get to know – like – trust me enough to consider me their go-to source for all things related to private practice and, for my clinical practice, it’s about the same thing – giving them opportunities to know-like-trust me enough to pick up the phone and call me to see if I am a good “fit” for them.
In other words, blogging for me is a marketing strategy for my business. It’s not a place to vent or to publicly explore my own issues. So, talking about specific clients doesn’t really happen. If I need to give an example of something, I may use a composite of real and / or imaginary clients. That’s about as close as it gets to talking about a real situation with a real client.
James, I’m looking forward to your new post on this topic and hope you’ll let me know when it’s up! Have a great day!
Hi Tamara-
I have been following your blog for over a year and am learning from you and your contributors. I have been doing a blog, http://www.awakeninghealth.net/blog ,that addresses topics in mindfulness and mental health, targetted (I think) towards those I’d like to serve. I usually feature a blog entry in my e-newsletter every couple of months, and imagine that I am not posting often enough between newsletters. There are even 2 entries prompted by an SEO guru that I think I should take down… I wonder how much traffic is enough and how often I should be posting.
Thanks for any insight and comments you can offer!
Linda
Hi Tamara,
Just checking in to see if you’ll be offering BlogStart again any time in the next few months. I’ve gotten so much help from reading your blog posts, as well as the responses. I’d like to write a blog that adds to the collective wisdom, rather than just creating clamor, and can’t imagine a better teacher!
Best to you in 2014 and thank you for all you’ve shared.
Elizabeth
Hi, Elizabeth! That’s so kind of you to say! I would be very interested in the subject of your blog and would love to have you in my next round of BlogStart for Therapists! It starts in April and here’s a link where you can sign up. I look forward to seeing you there!
Hello Tamara!
I think that what you are doing is amazing! I am a psychotherapist who writes a relationship blog from a psychological perspective. It is called inspiring wholehearted connection at http://www.ericadjossa.com When i first started out I had a very discouraging experience with a supervisor who told me that I was not allowed to blog, but I strongly felt it was a passion I needed and wanted to pursue. Thanks for being proactive ad offering this type of training! It is amazing an so necessary! I will stay posted for more news.
Cheers,
Erica
Hi, Erica! Welcome to Private Practice from the Inside Out and thank you for dropping in to share your kind words. Thank you! When I started blogging back in 2009, I didn’t know one psychotherapist that was blogging. And, certainly no one was out here blogging to support other psychotherapists that were interested in building their private practiced. Today, there’s over 3 billion bloggers and a good number of them are mental health professionals and there’s more than a handful of them that are blogging to support you in building your practice.
I’m delighted to have been at the forefront of this trend. However, I do want to note that I completely understand if a supervisor is uncomfortable with her supervisee blogging or tweeting or engaged in other forms of social media. Now before you ( and others roll your eyes . . . please hear me out. Most mental health professionals (including supervisors) don’t know enough about the use of technology, in general, or social media tools, in particular, to ethically and legally use it.
What you may not realize is that there is an additional huge liability risk for every supervisor every time s/he takes on a new supervisee. If your clinical supervisor is saying “no” to social media, understand that she simply doesn’t know enough to adequately supervise the integration of social media into your clinical work. (I really discourage my supervisees from using Facebook because (1) it’s security setting and policies are always changing and (2) I do not want to incur the additional risk to my own license.)
Right now it is still difficult to find supervisors that are adequately trained in the intersection of mental health and technology. If you find that you or your supervisor would like to consult about this, feel free to contact me. It is part of the services that I offer and I’m happy to bring you up to speed.
I’m heading over to your blog right now, Erica, to learn more about your work. I hope you will drop back in often to join the conversations. We are a community that is mushrooming – the largest on the web, I’m proud to say, that is 100% focused on helping mental health professionals ethically grow your practices!
Have a great week!
Thanks for your reply Tamara!
It is very true that very few supervisors in the industry are familiar with the use of of technology and social media in their practices. I definitely recognize the lability concerns and the risk that any supervisor takes in bringing young therapists under there wing. I am so blessed and fortunate to have the opportunities I have and hope that in no way came across as ungrateful.
It is challenging to have such a technology gap but we have been working through these obstacles in our practice and with enough research and discussion are slow bringing more technology resources into the business.
This is a topic that I feel passionately about and have also created a group for discussions and resources on linkedin. It is called the social therapist and I would love for you to join and even share links to your blog. the link is http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=6608195&trk=anet_ug_hm
Thanks again 🙂
Hi Tamara, I’m a novice blogger and I must admit I’m still getting used to it. I blog because its good for the business side of my private practice from a marketing stand point(according to my husband who is in digital analytics and SEO consultant). Also, I enjoy sharing information with current/potential clients.
The hardest thing for me is figuring out the subject/topic of my blog post. I’m usually stuck for awhile trying to decide what would be beneficial for potential clients to come across and the impact it will make.
Tiffany
Tiffany, your husband is exactly right! The search engines LOVE blogs!
Here’s one quick way to generate topics for your posts . . . . Think about the questions that you repeatedly get asked by clients and potential clients. I do that often! And, if you still need more ideas, you are welcome to book a one-time appointment with me to learn about lots of other ways to generate ideas. That’s the one thing that I’m never in short supply of!