3 Common Mistakes Therapists Make with Their Therapy Clients

Don’t Make These 3 Common Mistakes with Your Clients

Do you remember when you first set up your practice? You probably didn’t know if you would be able to get any therapy clients and once you did you wondered if they would stay. Eventually, clients streamed in either through your marketing efforts or through referrals and now that your schedule is full, you’ve noticed that not every client is the same. Some clients show up early and prepared for every appointment, some show up late, and some don’t show up at all. You know that life happens, but you don’t want one client’s ‘bad behavior’ in and out of appointments to continue and affect your work or your other clients. While managing clients and client expectations can be a difficult task it is something that’s necessary to your practice. Whether you’re new to practicing or not there are a few common management mistakes you should avoid making with each and every one of your clients to make sure your valuable time goes where it’s needed most.

When You Have to Break Confidentiality as a Therapist

When Can Client Confidentiality be Broken?

As a therapist, your relationship with your clients has therapeutic, economic, and legal dimensions. These relationships are governed by laws which require confidentiality on your part as a therapist.

Confidentiality is a legal construct which prevents the disclosure of the events of therapy. Therapist confidentiality gives the client the assurance they can share whatever they want with you.

Nonetheless, there are a number of critical limits of confidentiality in counseling. In some cases, due to forces outside your and your client’s control, your client can’t expect you to keep their disclosures private. Certain exceptions to confidentiality in counseling are at your discretion. In other cases, you are obligated to breach confidentiality in the name of public safety or your client’s health.

EMDR Therapy for Traumatic Grief: Where My Heart Is

This post has been authored by Lisa S. Larsen, PsyD as part of our guest post series. Learn more about Lisa at the bottom of this post.

Using EMDR Therapy to Overcome Grief

There are very few things I do as a psychologist that satisfy me more than helping someone break free from painful events in their past. I do this primarily with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Therapy. This type of therapy helps people re-consolidate painful memories or “stuck” experiences from the past so they can release the emotional upset from their memory.

Preparing For Your Telehealth Session

How to Prepare for Your First Telehealth Appointment

Preparing for your first Telehealth session doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We’re breaking down everything you need to know about getting started with online therapy in one simple infographic. Our infographic provides useful information for both providers and clients as they prepare for their first online session.

Social Anxiety Interventions

This post has been authored by Pamela Hagues, LPC, CSOTP, CC as part of our guest post series. Learn more about Pamela at the bottom of this post.

Therapeutic Interventions for Social Anxiety

Coming from an inpatient residential and community-based background for 15 years, as a clinician, I was used to providing mental health treatment for various populations with more complex issues than what the average individual copes with in society today. These clients typically received dual diagnoses such as depression and substance abuse, were trauma and abuse victims and several had even committed sexual offenses. So, after several years of working in these settings, I became experienced and knowledgeable and was ready to take that leap of faith into my own practice. I was prepared to serve clients in the ‘regular community’ after years of working in a more intense environment.

Turning Anger into an Ally

This post has been authored by Stephanie Wijkstrom MS, LPC, NBCC as part of our guest post series. Learn more about Stephanie at the bottom of this post.

Therapy Techniques for Effective Couples Counseling

One of the greatest challenges many therapists cite as a hurdle in working with couples is the thought that marriage counseling has to ‘blow up.’ We all know couples therapy is one of the more challenging types of therapy to provide. Marriage counselors are trained to enter the lion’s den of heated emotion. The conversations being had in the therapy office are between two, often hostile or detached people.

What the more seasoned therapists among us know is that the emotion of anger must be integrated into the therapy room. Anger is an effective tool that can be used to help the couple learn how to manage their conflict, emotions, and to further enhance their relationship.

Therapeutic Activities for Teens

Therapy Activities for Teen Clients

Keeping teenagers engaged in therapy can be a difficult task–getting them to open up can sometimes even be near impossible. Thankfully, you’re not the first therapist who has had to deal with a disengaged teen and there are plenty of resources out there to help you get your young client to talk.

We’re going to dive into a few therapeutic activities that you can use in your therapy sessions with teens to encourage them to open up. These activities center around a few different mediums ranging from art and writing to movement and meditation.

These activities can be done during a session or assigned to be completed between sessions. They are designed to help encourage teenage clients to open up about themselves in ways that may feel less intrusive to them than a direct conversation in therapy.

Must Read Psychology Magazines & Journals - TheraNest Blog

Must Read Psychology Magazines and Journals

Top Psychology Magazines and Journals for Therapists

The field of psychology is fast-paced and constantly changing. Though this makes it an exciting field to study, staying up to date on the continuously evolving research can often prove to be overwhelming.

Doing a simple Google search for psychology magazines and journals returns hundreds of results and often leaves you wondering– “where do I even begin?” With thousands of new articles and papers being published each year in hundreds of different psychology journals and magazines, being well-read and up-to-date almost seems an impossible task.

Here at TheraNest we wanted to make it easier for you to stay on top of the research you need to know, that’s why we collected eight publications covering different aspects of the field of psychology that we think you should consider reading. Whether you are looking for a light read on topics that interest you or a deep dive into research-heavy perspectives, there is something for you on this list.

How to Effectively Raise Your Rates

Tips on how to raise your rates

After much internal struggle, you’ve decided that it’s time to raise your rates. You’ve wanted to do it for some time now, but didn’t push ahead for fear of the backlash.

What will your clients say? Will they all abandon your practice for the cheaper therapist across town? Are you being greedy and asking too much? How will you justify the higher rates—especially to your long-time clients?

Finally figuring out your fee schedule was hard, but raising those fees is even harder.

No doubt, you have questions about raising your rates. Fortunately, the path that you’re on is well traveled and there are signposts to help you along the way. Let’s walk through how to raise your rates without inadvertently alienating your clients.

How to Choose the Right Office Space for Your Private Practice

How to Choose Your Private Practice’s Office Space

How do you find the right office for your private practice?

It can be daunting to find a space that accommodates both your clients and your budget. In the following post, we’ll discuss what to look for when choosing an office space specifically for your private therapy practice.