Licensed Professional Counselor, Shaun Fischler in Denver, Colorado posed an interesting question on one of the discussion lists that I frequent. Shaun gave me permission here to post his comments here and get
some feedback from you . . . .
. . . Should graduate level counseling programs teach students about the realities and issues with creating and operating a private practice? So many of us eventually get into private practice, but my experience and sense from others is that we are not educated about this side of things, particularly the business end of running a successful practice.
I recognize that CACREP and counselor ed programs are designed for educating students on clinical issues, but it seems to me that many of us would benefit from practical knowledge regarding private practice. Most of us just have to figure it out as we go along, go to workshops, make many mistakes along the way, and ask colleagues for advice. I am unsure if counseling programs should teach this aspect of our work, but I know I would have appreciated even a 1 day seminar on the topic.”
And, here’s what I’m thinking . . . . The clinical skills are critical to any counselor surviving and thriving in private practice so I completely understand why schools emphasize this area. However, with so many student counselors identifying private practice as an end goal even as they begin their graduate training, it seems almost unconscionable that those same programs often fail to address these business-related needs in any identifiable way.
CACREP-approved programs do an excellent job of building a strong clinical foundation for new counselors to build on. And, university budgets and funding are unable to keep up with the rising needs of students and faculty. However, there are many other ways for counselor education programs to support students’ needs for business and marketing-related information. Here’s a few that I’ve thought of . . . .
- Offer a course, like the Annual Series of Private Practice from the Inside Out, as an elective during graduate school.
- Seek grant money specifically targeting this educational need.
- Encourage Chi Sigma Iota or other campus clubs to join together to bring in a consultant like me to provide 1:1 training or workshops for larger groups.
- Create a resource list that includes business-related websites like this one to assist new professionals in growing their marketing skills.
- Invite local therapists (who have successfully built their practices) into classrooms to speak about the practical issues related to private practice.
- Encourage professors to speak candidly about their own experiences in opening / growing a private practice.
- Use counseling conferences as opportunities to solicit presentations that address these issues as well as the clinical ones. (The Colorado Counseling Association is talking with me about presenting at their 2012 Annual Conference!)
- Host pre-conference institutes (and charge separately) for business-related topics of interest to mental health professionals.
- Support the development of a new (mental health) professionals’ networking group that meets monthly to help each other learn marketing and networking skills.
I’m sure there’s many more ways to meet the business and marketing needs of new mental health professionals. Do you have ideas or suggestions to share? If so, please leave them here!
And, if you are a counselor in training, please take a copy of this post (or better yet, the URL) back to your instructors. It’s a discussion worth having.
Not do I only feel that my graduate classes failed to provide me with any education on the business end of private practice but I feel they were not even remotely accurate in terms of estimating earning potential and the complications of dealing with managed care versus not being a participating provider. I feel that I was led down a primrose path only to be left with huge student loan debt that cannot be paid at my level of income. Truth in education/ truth in advertising something that seemed to be lacking in my experience..
Barb
Hi, Barbara! Welcome back. Your comment is particularly interesting to me because it sounds as if your school actually spoke to you about earning potential and managed care. Earning potential was definitely not discussed in my graduate program and, admittedly, I was not wise enough to even inquire about it! (Managed care, by the way, didn’t even exist until I was out of graduate school. Needless to say it wasn’t discussed either.)
I’m so sorry that you feel so taken advantage of by your graduate program. In spite of my graduate program not addressing the business aspects of mental health, I was completely satisfied with my clinical program and suspect that now (20 years later) they are most likely rectifying that. I would be curious to know what graduate program you attended since you actually feel like you’ve been misled. That’s information that I’m sure other readers who are just looking at graduate school would love to have.
Barbara, it’s always good to hear from you and I really appreciate you taking the time to join the conversation here! Hurry back soon!
Some graduate programs do offer elective courses on private practice topics as Tamara mentioned. For example, I attended the University of Colorado at Denver where Howard Baumgarten taught a great class covering all aspects of private practice. We had panels of LPC’s in private practice, lawyers, accountants, even reps from managed care companies who shared wisdom and expertise with us. Look around in your area. A class like this may already exist that you can audit.
Hi, Joel! It’s great to have you back again and joining the conversation with good news! Your experience appears to still be the exception but your suggestion to others to seek out additional training / classes is a good one.
By the way, you are the second person to mention Howard Baumgarten’s class – and both of you have indicated that it was a valuable experience. I’m definitely going to have to track down Howard to talk to him! Is there anyone else out there who’s graduate program addressed business or marketing issues in mental health?
Thank you for mentioning my course on private practice. Yes, I have been teaching it now for over 7 years. Anyone in the metro area can take it through the University of Colorado, Denver graduate program in Counseling Psychology. If you are not a student in the program, I believe you can register as non-degree. I usually teach it each fall, and it’s chalked full of many insightful lessons on building a successful practice. Additionally, like Tamara, I provide individual consulting nationwide. We practice building professionals are a unique bunch, and while we may differ somewhat in our approach and philosophies, we all agree in the importance of seeking professional help and guidance in the business world! So, I am grateful to you Tamara for being in our community helping the cause. Tamara, feel free to contact me. Let’s go out to lunch and maybe even collaborate! 303-312-1687. (Joel, good to see you pop up in here! Hope all is well!)
Howard, I’m always happy to share great resources with the readers here in my online community! And, yes, I’ll call after Thanksgiving to see if we can meet for lunch! That would be lovely!
Even though I am years away from building a private practice as as student with one year to go, it seems as if private practice could be an ideal situation for many of us — especially if a few professionals with different specialties are willing to work together in one large office to meet the needs of multiple client issues. This would work well for working with one another to help with talking through issues about more difficult client situations, ethics, etc. It is my hope that someday I am lucky enough to be part of a team such as this. However, in looking at what Barb S. wrote above, I hear of this more and more in the counseling industry. Knowing this before internship would be a good thing.
Even a 1 hour credit, 1 time per week seminar class on private practice matters that have subjects such as what Tamara proposes would be excellent in a CACREP school as an elective. I think that having a private practice versus working in a clinic or non-profit group situation would be a great topic of conversation in a class such as this as well. Because of often having to do internships at places OTHER than private practices, I think students do not have an idea of private practice realities and then are thrown into water without swimming lessons upon often paying out of pocket for supervision and working very hard while obtaining licensure.
Let’s not join the type of industry that often plagues other professions, which is “Well, I was put through that tough time without knowing anything and turned out okay, so should these new counselors!” This happens often with new professors and new medical interns, and many other professions — and it is ridiculous. Why make the new counselors re-invent the wheel?? I have gone through school as a 30-to-40 something woman to help others, so it seems to me that the ones that have gone through this before should pay it forward as part of helping other counselors as well our clients. I plan to do so by being a supervisor after licensure and hope others do as well – even if it means helping teach an elective seminar course. This can go a long way and even in the “truth in education/truth in advertising” that Barb mentions above.
Kim
Master’s Student in Mental Health Counseling
Hi, Kim! Thanks for dropping in here to join the conversation! You bring up a really smart strategy for anyone in private practice – working collaboratively to meet the needs of clients! It’s clinically smart and it’s marketing smart, too!
I would love to hear from some of the college instructors out there concerning Kim’s suggestion of incorporating at least a discussion or two (if not full blown classes) on the difference between agency work and that of private practice. It seems to me like a tiny step in the right direction – a dose of reality, so to speak, for soon-to-graduate professionals.
Thanks, Kim, for your thoughtful contributions to this discussion. We don’t hear from students in mental health nearly often enough here!
Excellent question. So many Music Therapists are also in private practice without any business training also!
Antoinette, yes!!! Music Therapists, Art Therapists, Drama Therapists, Addictions Counselors, Social Workers, Psychologists, . . . . Very few of our graduate programs are addressing the business and marketing needs yet.
Hopefully, you guys will pass this post along to your professors, your professional associations, and your professional fraternities to help start the conversation! And, if there’s anything I can do to support you / your schools / your organizations, let me know! I’m happy to come speak to your classes and your schools to help get that ball rolling!
[And, for those of you who have already graduated, stay tuned! I’ll be posting info about the 2011-2012 Private Practice from the Inside Out in the next couple of weeks. It will be a distance-learning opportunity to learn the basics of marketing your private practice!]
As a music therapist. I will also encourage the conversation to be a regular one at conferences. With the new CBMT requirement of Ethics I believe this is relevant and needs discussion. Depending on our populations, types of practice, and where we reside, some of this needs to flex to situation rather than be a blanket policy.
Many people find social media scary because a client might follow them or try to friend them. We need to educate ourselves and be able to make informed decisions for our individual practices.
JoAnn! Welcome back! I’m not familiar with the new CBMT ethics requirements. What do you mean when you say “some of this needs to flex to situation?” What’s happened?
Social media has definitely scared off a bunch of us. (That’s why The Private Practice Online Survival Guide will be announcing our next series is about Twitter! Stay tuned for details . . . !)
We now have to have a minium of 3 continuing ed units in ethics, which I think is good. Some people have expressed a desire to keep music therapist off various social media. I lived very metro & very rural. When I was in a metro area, there was little intersecting of business & personal life. Living rural everything intersects. It has been recommended I not live in the community where I provide services. I live so rural there is still cross over. And when I shop 1 1/2 or 3 hours away, I often see people from my community.
Some people believe no therapist should have contact with clients or their families outside of the work environment. That isn’t going to happen where I live. Nor do I think it is necessary given the clientele I serve.
JoAnn, it’s reallly exciting to see the discipline of music therapy grappling with these issues. Alhough the use of music has been around forever as a healing practice, the formalizing of music as therapy is much younger. Like professional counseling, you guys continue to tweak the professional standards as your discipline grows. Your changing ethics are just part of the journey.
It’s not just practitioners in rural areas that have to deal with boundary issues. It’s those in churches, 12 step programs and other support groups, . . . . It’s those who practice in a very tiny niche, glbt communities, racial minorities, . . . and the list goes on and on. It’s part of the reason the American Counseling Association revisited this issue and reversed its position on dual relationships with clients. Now, dual relationships, under very specific circumstances, may be seen as appropriate or even necessary to best serve the client. (However, having said that, it’s also iimportant to recognize that not all jurisdictions agree with this position. Here in Colorado, ALL dual relationships are illegal and can result in loss of license – regardless of what ACA says.)
JoAnn, it’s always good to hear from you. Thanks for dropping back in to catch us up.!
I remember attending panel discussions offered through Chi Sigma Iota for my school that offered practical advice from experienced therapists to web designers to small business accountants. Also, my alumni association had a “mentor” program set up where experienced alumni therapists could be matched with a new graduate but this fizzled out due to lack of interest. All of these activities were elective and some were only for the CSI students.
While part of me is thinking it would be more appropriate for classes like these to be offered as an elective, I think I’d prefer to keep the cost down and offer them as panel discussion and networking workshops but on a more regular basis. Also, I’d tap into the vast resources of both the recently graduated alumni and the more seasoned graduates to provide valuable information to the fresh-eyed, excited, and possibly overwhelmed students.
Great discussion which is prompting me to right now call my alumni association to see if we can’t get the mentor program revived!
Hi, Barbara! Welcome back! I love that you are going to contact your alumni association! That’s the professional advocacy that we are all supposed to be engaged in! We didin’t have an alumni association that was focused on mentoring counseling students when I was in school.What a cool idea!
Still . . . I’m thinking that I would have preferred to pay the additional money and get all that info up front during my graduate year as an elective class. It took me 5 years of starvation before I finally figured out how to build a thriving private practice. Trusting the good intentions of my alumni and catching workshops as I can just seems a little riskier than paying that chunk of money up front.
Thank you, Colorado Counseling Association, for bringing me in last year to speak in their Pre-Conference Workshop!
Thank you, American Counseling Association, for bringing me in last year to speak in your Pre-Conference Institute!
Thank you, Chi Sigma Iota (University of Northern Colorado), to speak to you tomorrow on How to Get Ready for Your Private Practice Success! So looking forward to it!