How to be a therapist: a guide for thoughtful clinicians
Being a therapist, starting a private practice, can be daunting.
On this web site, I intend to assemble a “manual” to help you - to help you avoid some of the mistakes I, and others I know, have made; to help you identify the questions you need (or might wish) to ask as you go along; and, to help you make the best possible choices.
I’ve conceived of this as a manual, a sort of cookbook - I will try to gather here a combination of experiences, materials, resources, and the like - and I’ll try to strip away, to the greatest extent possible, anything that’s not necessary to you.
In the coming weeks and months (and who knows, years?), I expect I'll flesh this all out for you. For now, though, here's my notional table of contents. It's aspirational, and I expect it will change over time. But it gives you a sense of what I hope to cover here, of what I think you need to know to be a therapist. What follows on this page is the archival table of contents as it was on September 10, 2023. If you follow this link, you will find the real, live, changing, evolving table of contents.
- Your own treatment
- Your interests and history and colleagues and friends
- Your relationship to money
Transference and your practice
Your “brand”
Your name/practice name
- Your web site/business cards/other promotional materials
- The space in which you practice
- Social media
Getting referrals
- Making referrals
- Networking
- Marketing/advertising
- Web site
- Psychology Today
- My Wellbeing / Zencare / ZocDoc / Alma / others
- Free networks
- Self-promotion
- Handling referrals when they come
Establishing policies
- Scheduling
- Cancellation
- Payment/delinquency/non-payment
- Meeting in-person vs. meeting virtually
Communication with patients (e-mails, texts, phone calls, etc.)
Having first sessions
Establishing ongoing treatments
Setting fees
Billing/collections management
Collaborating with other mental health practitioners
HIPAA/other legal issues
Dealing with insurance companies
Bookkeeping/accounting/taxes
- Corporate form
- Banking
- Record-keeping
- Financial management
- Taxes
Continuing education/analytic training
General comments on the culture of therapists