This March: Marketing Your Private Practice — Who, What, How, and Why

In order to become a mental health professional, you fulfill demanding internship requirements, rigorous academic work, and go through a challenging paperwork journey. Throughout, however, you never really learn how to build and run your private practice once you do complete all your academic and professional requirements. We can help!

Whether you are a beginning clinician or a seasoned therapist, you might come across similar challenges.

There is a large number of therapists who have been working in the field for a while, but at some point, realize they aren’t clear about their professional and clinical goals, and need a space to understand and establish them. That is to say, although many beginning clinicians are busy figuring out their first steps, it doesn’t mean that many seasoned ones aren’t experiencing some challenges around building or maintaining a private practice as well.

Furthermore, many therapists in our community have had to take a break from this work for different personal reasons, and have decided at some point recommit to their career. In the ever-changing online landscape, these individuals can easily find themselves overwhelmed on the online ground where psychotherapy and marketing practices meet. 

Lastly, clinicians from more psychodynamic or psychoanalytic orientations often struggle with the concept of self-disclosure and the manner in which self-disclosure can manifest in their online presence. In other words, online presence understandably brings up many concerns for some therapists in regards to the impact on their current and future patients. Some are concerned that knowing too much about them will take away from their patient’s process and focus on self. These concerns make sense and exploring with like-minded professionals can help discover the ways in which self-disclosure can actually become a tool to facilitate the therapy rather than an obstacle (Mitchell, 2004).¹

In sum, online marketing presents particular challenges for therapists, and can simultaneously present stimulating opportunities for professional and personal growth. Navigating those challenges in a creative and supportive environment can make all the difference between being overwhelmed to being successful and being of service. That’s why WILA is offering the Marketing Bootcamp for Clinicians. This unique workshop offers 6 CE units for licensed clinicians, as we recognize the importance of a thorough process around gaining clarity into one’s work and into thoughtful ways of communicating it to the community.

Making the space to care for your business as much as you do for your clients

As clinicians, we know how to work hard for our clients’ growth and healing. This is wonderful, and is a major part of our work and personal values around helping our community members be heard and be their authentic self. This focus, however, can also at times make us forget that our private practice is also in need of our focus on its growth. Taking time and making space to reflect on our practice, on our unique set of skills and the individuals whom it best serves, on acknowledging the work we do and clarifying the goals for the work we want to do — are important components of maintaining a practice that is true to our values and on building a practice that can reach the community members that can benefit most from our specific areas of expertise.

Running a private practice is not “like” — it IS running a business

Being a mental health professional in private practice is often just as much about being an effective business person as it is about being a competent clinician. In other words, being highly skilled and trained in the latter does not often guarantee the same in the former. 

Our 6 CE-unit Marketing Bootcamp is designed specifically to bridge this gap and to help clinicians learn effective ways to formulate their clinical identity, pinpoint their preferred marketing methods and combine these two to establish their online presence. Our goal in this two-morning workshop, March 30th and 31st in Los Angeles, is to help therapists in any stage of their career to get clear on their professional values and on their particular skills, in order to effectively communicate them online to the clients that are searching for them. 

From the facilitators:

What Dr. Aimee Martinez says about the workshop: “We realized over time that the things we teach are perfectly suited to nearly any small business that interfaces with clients. Our marketing bootcamp is for people in the self-care industry who are motivated to clarify their particular set of skills and to establish an online presence that communicates these unique skills and services to their community.”

What Dr. Eva Patrick says about the workshop: “I feel that oftentimes, as clinicians, we are so focused on caring for others and facilitating self-care in our clients, that we forget that our private practice needs some self-care too. Our boot-camp essentially does that. It helps our fellow clinicians refocus their commitment to their practice and learn of ways to care for it, in a supportive and creative environment.” 

For more details about the bootcamp or to sign up, please click here.

For any questions, feel free to email Eva at [email protected].

¹ Mitchell, S. A. (2004). My Psychoanalytic Journey. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 24 (4): 531-541.

²Renik, O. (1999). Playing one’s cards face up in analysis: An approach to the problem of self-disclosure. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 68(4), 521-530.