What is Therapy?
This week a client asked one of my associates, "what's therapy?" When she told me that my initial thought was, "it's therapy, what do you mean, "what's therapy?". But then I gave it some thought and began to wonder what might prompt such a question from a non-counselor. Like a lot of businesses it's easy to assume that everyone knows what we do and how we do it when, in fact, that's not the case. We live in it 24/7, they don't.
So, What is Therapy?
I think there are several very real queries packed into that simple little question.
- How does this work? What do I need to do first?
- How is therapy different than visiting my regular doctor?
- How are therapists different from psychiatrists?
- Are there drugs involved? Do you write prescriptions?
- Who's going to know about this?
- What do I need to do to make an appointment?
- How do I pay for this?
- How long will this last?
- What am I to look for in a therapist? (Generalist? Specialist?)
- What questions should I be asking?
And probably a dozen more but, do you see what I see? They often times don't know what they don't know. So how can we help them?
Be Proactive In Your Marketing
Here's what I'll be doing from now on.
- I'm going to build an exhaustive list of questions starting with the list above and write simple, clear answers for each one.
- Then I'm going to have Phillip add a web page to my website (get yourself a Phillip, it's great!) and create a Q&A page for this one question (What is therapy?) and not make it look like a Q&A page.
- Then I'm going to add this lesson to my 18-month associate training curriculum so they don't assume that clients know as much about how counseling works as we do.
I'll letcha know when that page is done. In the meantime, you might listen to a podcast we recorded just this week about this very topic. You can find that here.
So, what are you doing to help your new clients better understand what therapy is and how it works before they schedule that first appointment with you?
Thought worth thinking about. You got this!
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About the Author
Kathleen Mills is a fire-breathing, 32+ year veteran of the counseling world. People react in one of two ways when evil touches their lives: some retreat in fear, and some advance without pause to engage it. Kathleen falls firmly in the latter group. She owns and operates Life Tree Counseling in Frisco, TX, possesses a tireless work-ethic, and eagerly awaits your arrival into her growing army of warriors.
