-Laurie Kolt, Ph.D.

How should you go about successfully building your practice? Here is some valuable information learned by the American Psychological Association (APA) and also by the Los Angeles Consortium of Psychological Associations (LACPA). Despite well-designed and expensive ads placed across the nation by APA and in Southern California by LACPA, they did not bring in the expected return. Why? The reasons are not completely known. But other focus group studies may be pointing to the answer.

What they found was that people respond to a story with emotion that helps them see the impact of psychotherapy on their lives. For example, how do you cope with infertility, recover from grief, increase self-esteem or alter unhealthy lifestyle patterns? When someone is dealing with a personal challenge, there is a lot of emotion going on. If they can identify with someone who had their problem, they can begin to say, "Hey, I'm not alone with this. Now I know there is help and now I how where to find it."

How do you actually do this? Your message can be conveyed by how you communicate during a speaking engagement, in a community article or when you talk to a community referral source or even through the local media. Various defenses including denial, anger, fear and even low self-esteem can keep people away from therapy for a long time. But when someone hears your message it may be the next step in their process, to help them become ready to enter therapy. Whether you want to give psychology away, gain visibility in your community or build your practice, telling a story is an effective way to reach the public.

Educating the pubic and referral sources in this way does not come easily or naturally to most clinicians. The opportunity as well as responsibility to educate the public and related organizations about the value of psychotherapy rests largely in the hands of mental health professionals in each community.

1. Pick one of your clinical specialties
2. Update your research and clinical knowledge.
3. Understand the needs, challenges and interests of potential clients
4. Translate clinical issues and needs into nonpsychological jargon.
5. Include emotions, vignettes to help listeners identify with the problems and also feel hopeful that change can occur.
6. Tell them how to locate a qualified therapist, support group or organization.
7. Assess your skills in sharing your expertise through vehicles such as seminars, workshops, networking, writing, radio and TV news formats.
8. Set goals to learn communication skills through coaches, continuing education classes and role models.

• _____ Insecurities centering around: _______________
  
• _____ Fears stemming from: ________________
  
• _____ Difficulty seeing myself "out there" in the community
  
• _____ Fear of failure or success
  
• _____ Fear of being sued if I am too visible
              and take risks
  
• _____ Focusing on anger at managed care and not my goals
  
• _____ Professional burnout
  
• _____ Being cynical about my clients,
              my community, etc.
  
• _____ Being cynical about my profession
              and where it is going
  
• _____ Feeling sad or guilty that I am spending
              too much time away from my loved ones
  
• _____ Feeling bad that I am not making the
              money I that want to
  
• _____ Fear of doing something embarrassing
              in a public speaking or media forum

• "Office Forms for Your Practice"
  Now Includes 30 Forms:

  New additions include spreadsheets to track & summarize key marketing information and a "Day Timer-sized" New Client Information Form. Original forms cover marketing, analyzing weekly, monthly & yearly practice growth, policy statements, intakes, insurance, treatment planning, confidentiality, releases, client satisfaction surveys, termination forms and more (professional looking originals and on disk). The price remains at $49.95

• Consulting Services Expand
  Most of our clients consulting is done over the phone (supplemented by FAX, mail or e-mail) and can help you work smarter and not harder.

  Individual Consulting: Confidential one-on-one training is tailored to your specific clinical specialties, unique personality, practice interests and financial goals.

  Group Coaching:
  Learn the principles of practice building with national or local peers who have a variety of clinical specialties - providing a learning format that is filled with plenty of examples, support and motivation.

  Infertility Virtual Group Consulting:
  You can now "meet" regularly with your peers in other cities who are also building infertility practices. Call for details for this stimulating and useful training.

• Academic Press Book Selling Well in the US and Europe

  Book sales have been going very well for, "How to Build A Thriving Fee-For-Service Practice: Integrating the Healing Side with the Business Side of Psychotherapy." You can purchase it from your local bookstore, our web site (www.kolt.com) or Amazon.com.

Some very interesting findings already exist that tell us a lot about how and why people hesitate to enter therapy. Examples range from stigmas, stereotypes and managed care, to commonplace denial or a lack of understanding about how psychotherapy can positively impact their lives. Our profession can play a key role in designing studies that assess these barriers to access quality care.

All interested individuals, organizations or institutions can contact Kolt Consulting to review current findings and develop funding sources for studies to take the data further.

Kolt Consulting
1330 Camino Del Mar
Del Mar, CA 92104

Phone: (858) 509-1330
Fax: (858) 536-8887

E-mail