“Big Box” stores for therapists may not be your best bet.

I had just re-opened my private practice after maternity leave and was looking for a way to reach more clients, when I came across an ad for a popular online website that offers to connect therapists with clients. You’ve seen their commercials— I’m sure of it. You can’t listen to a podcast or make a google search about mental health without one of these ads popping up, and the company names are easily recognizable. They make it easy to sign up and get help in just a few clicks. In my case, they made it easy to sign up and start offering services again.

So I joined up. I was quickly bombarded with potential clients. There was no shortage! It was clear that the marketing the company had done was very effective in reaching people who needed help. While I’d been in private practice for over a year and had marketed myself on various search engines, I received nowhere near the amount of clients than I had in a few short days using this new service.

I filled my schedule with new clients and began the work. The clients were varied, interesting, and easy to care about, as usual. However anytime I logged onto this website portal, I would see a variety of messages and productivity trackers that were geared toward encouraging me to increase my engagement with clients in order to gain more money. The more I used their system to text my clients and “check in,” the more I would earn. The more sessions per week I could set up for each person, the more I’d earn. I found this to be problematic.

Therapy is sacred. The position of therapist is one of power, and with great power comes great responsibility. (Yes, I just quoted Spiderman. Let’s move past it.) When someone trusts you with their care, their secrets, their lives, the therapist needs to safeguard that relationship. A therapist should determine how many sessions a client is offered based on the client’s need, diagnosis and assessment, not on a desire for increased profits. Boundaries are in place around the therapeutic relationship for a reason. Texting a client out of the blue is not necessarily a good thing. Therapists guard their personal time to prevent burn-out, which in turn allows them to continue to provide meaningful and effective services. There are other benefits to restricting communication to the session. For some people, holding them to a boundary such as this can be a therapeutic intervention in and of itself. Texting a client and engaging them in an online conversation solely for the purpose of increasing income is unethical.

I tried to move forward with my clients’ sessions while staying true to the ethical standards of practice that I was taught to uphold but I found that many of my clients were confused by this. They wanted what they had paid for— a therapist who would be available by text throughout the week, whenever they felt the need to chat.

This is not therapy. It’s not necessarily good for the client, and it’s definitely not good for a therapist’s well-being. Over time my clients also alerted me to experiences they’d had with other therapists on this platform that I found somewhat alarming. It came as no surprise that a platform that encourages therapists to burn-out would end up producing therapists who were providing sub-standard care… because they were burnt-out!

I’m not saying that every therapist on a large platform is providing sub-standard care. I’m saying that the company I worked for seemed to be encouraging such an environment. It was enough to get me to leave, and to encourage me to start a blog and social media campaign solely for the purpose of helping to connect the people who want help with the people who want to provide it. No third parties— just tips on how to find a therapist in private practice, and what to look for.

That’s where the idea began. Since I made the decision to move forward I’ve come up with several more goals all centering around increasing mental health awareness. I’m also going to talk about all kinds of things related to mental health in an attempt to de-mystify this often misunderstood field! Bottom line—I’m here to help. And I’m excited to invite you on the journey with me.

-Katie