"Practice Development Dispatch" Newsletter Collection
Dear Therapist,
Last month, Pete and I joined Casey Truffo to present a
teleseminar called, “What Keeps Smart, Savvy Therapists from
implementing good marketing ideas comfortably and effectively?”
After the seminar, Pete wrote some follow up thoughts. We
thought his analysis was relevant enough to share with you.
* * * * * *
Further reflections about September’s marketing teleseminar:
Even after the teleseminar was over, I couldn’t stop thinking
about why therapists avoid marketing. Yes, there are challenges
because it’s not taught in graduate school training. And yes,
marketing is often incompatible with therapists’ values.
But I think there is an additional reason. It’s one that I have
never heard spoken by anyone, anywhere. It has to do with the
high integrity of our profession.
Here’s what I mean. It started with the mental health profession
gaining reimbursement from the insurance empire. This has turned
out to be a Faustian bargain.
The good news is that we got acceptance. Now we are included
with the medical big boys. We can diagnose and treat problems
that are a medical condition. Take a look at the insurance forms
– “medical necessity” is in the fine print at the bottom of the
page.
The reality is that most of what is treated in our office
doesn’t fit the medical model. People come in with problems of
living and struggling to adjust to unpleasant, painful
circumstances, or difficult people in their lives. This is not
a medical condition.
There is no solution for the problem of living. Every solution
to a complex problem, no matter how perfect, sets the stage for
new problems and stresses. If you help someone who is
heartbreakingly shy, they will now take on challenges they have
avoided because of their shyness. This can lead to a whole new
set of awkward emotions and feelings of insecurity.
Great – we solve one problem and it starts another. The medical
profession doesn’t seem to struggle with this issue. A person
has malaria, gets treated, and it’s over. Everyone is happy. The
physician doesn’t tell the patient, “Well now that you are well,
there are going to be some negative repercussions. You are going
to have a new set of medical problems because we successfully
treated your malaria.”
The problem of living is not neatly diagnosed and treated. Even
when therapy works well, it often ends without a noticeable
relief or return of energy like the feeling we get when we
recover from the flu. In therapy there is a sharing of
appreciations about gains made and the challenges ahead.
Sometimes clients stop suddenly. They may or may not have made
progress. Perhaps their expectations were too high and their
efforts too low. Perhaps the amount of fear they experienced
would not allow anyone into their psyche. They leave and we
don’t really know why.
The point is we are in a profession that is basically a messy
art. And all the evidence based research in the world won’t
change the fact we are in a very inexact profession.
There is no doubt we help people. But we cannot with confidence
say we can cure all the people who have this disorder or that
struggle. At some level I think it chips away at the self
respect or feeling of being competent. Many of us get into the
profession because we are helpers and rescuers. When we fail to
help (by some impossible internal standard) we feel like we have
failed.
And because we cannot document success like the medical
profession, we do not feel like we can market our services with
integrity. A part of us feels a little fraudulent describing the
results we can produce about a given problem. What we can
achieve is dependant partially on what the client allows us to
do and the effort they put into it. In the medical model, the
benefits of penicillin do not depend on the patient’s motivation
or ability to understand the disease.
What’s worse, a newly minted therapist is now told to go out and
market their services. If new therapists felt like I did after
my Ph.D., they will not feel anything like a qualified expert.
Good luck on confidently marketing your skills when you feel
greener than a sapling in springtime.
Ultimately I think the biggest problem is not that we aren’t
taught to market or that we have a poverty mentality (which is
true in some cases) but that we are trying to market a service
with a horribly unrealistic standard. Our media is obsessed with
solutions from experts. While doing over 100 media interviews
with reporters ranging from “Good Morning America” to small
local newspapers, not one reporter asked me or Ellyn, “How can
someone think differently or feel differently about this
problem?” They all ask, “What can they do?” implying that there
are relatively clear or simple action steps someone can do to
solve their problem. The “expert” then suggests a few action
steps and the reporter feels good that the reader or viewer has
a solution.
For a couple of years I wrote a column in the “San Jose Mercury
News” on relationships. Readers wrote in questions and I had
about 200-250 words to answer questions like, “We have been
married twenty years and our sex life is fading away –what can
we do about it?” My directive was to write an answer that was
both entertaining and informative. Actually I liked the
challenge and found it to be quite satisfying to arrive at a
well crafted and interesting response. At the same time, it was
unreal to give a substantial solution without knowing more
details of their situation.
The bottom line is we are held to a standard that is horribly
unfair about giving short and quick answers to solve problems of
living. We also brought it on ourselves by fighting to gain
admission to a medical club that initially didn’t want us (the
insurance industry); and upon gaining admittance discovering
their rules and regulations are a poor fit for our craft.
So what is the solution to marketing your services with
integrity? What can you say with credibility? What can you say
without including so many qualifiers that you sound like your
message has been sanitized by a litigation attorney? We will
address that subject on the next call about getting over the
emotional blocks to marketing.
Mostly I wanted to rant about my reflections on the totally
unrealistic standards we unwittingly hold for ourselves. It’s no
wonder so many of us feel uneasy when we think about marketing
our services. Interesting, isn’t it, the hidden anxiety is about
integrity?
* * * * * *
Are you interested in listening to the teleseminar, “What Keeps
Smart, Savvy Therapists From Implementing Good Marketing Ideas
Comfortably and Effectively?” The downloadable version is
available online as the first session in a two-part series. Part
two is on overcoming emotional blocks to marketing. For more
information, visit
http://www.beawealthytherapist.com/stopbeingscared.html
Until next time,
Ellyn and Pete
© Copyright MMIV The Couples Institute
Top of Page
|
Sign up now for your FREE subscription
to the "Practice Development Dispatch." Every
month you'll receive tips from Ellyn and Peter on the
best ways to counsel and build your practice.
|
|
