Q:

A: I don’t have any literature specifically for 12-year-olds on this topic, though I’m sure if you did an Amazon search you would find some therapeutic titles for latency age kids. However, unless he’s insight-oriented (most 12 year olds aren’t), I wouldn’t expect a bibliotherapy approach. I would be looking at finding out what his goals are using motivational-interviewing/solution-focused approaches to help him identify his goals on becoming more honest. That in addition to whatever work your program already does to address his unresolved past issues, current family dynamics and parenting strategies. Certainly any recreational/experiential delivery methods will help integrate these issues more than direct talking-based therapies or reading on his own.

Also, as you said, “these behaviors have not surfaced completely since he came” is no surprise, since from a systemic perspective he’s no longer in his native home system where his lying/stealing may have served a purpose (the function of the problem) for him in that system. This is one of the problems inherent in treating the child and not treating the system (the family) around the child. Make sure the family is part of the treatment process.

Q: “Hey quick question for you – how much does it cost to get a master’s in MFT (marriage and family therapy)?”
—Undergrad student considering grad school

A: Quick answer–a lot! ;-) Actually I don’t recall exactly. Varies of course. I got offered a tuition waiver in exchange for being a teacher’s assistant which saved a bunch of money, and they paid a small monthly stipend.

Two good links:

http://www.ncfr.org/professional-resources/career-development/choosing-mft-program-s-right-you
and http://mftprogress.blogspot.com/2008/12/best-mft-graduate-schools.html?m=1

They duplicate some info. The 2nd has a lot of user comments. You’ll have to contact several schools that interest you and start getting current numbers from them and start comparing.

Good luck! Please share your findings for the benefit of others!

“Sometimes I think I’m pretty awesome. Other times I feel like a loser. I’m not sure which is the truth and which is the lie. The last few days, I’ve been thinking maybe its the latter, that I’ve been deluding myself to think otherwise. I do a pretty good job of screwing things up — relationships, career, money, etc. — so I’m not sure which is the reality. I think I’m just freaking out because my business is still struggling to get off the ground and I’m running out of money and will have to take a desk job. I’m way too entrepreneurial for the 9-5 thing so it’s killing me.”

“I AM AWESOME!” is not a statement of arrogance or self-delusion—it’s recognizing that who you ARE is based in a state of BEING not based on DOING. Accomplishing things and being successful in this or that aspect is important and meaningful, of course, but it’s NOT the place to start. OWN that you ARE awesome REGARDLESS of what you DO. Why? So 1. When you succeed in what you are DOING you will naturally feel great from that, but won’t feel your greatness is dependent “just” on that and 2. When you fail in what you are doing you have your clear sense of BEING to fall back on. From that safe sense of BEING you can recuperate, recharge, take solace and so on which will then help you get back into a more effective state of DOING. However, when our state of BEING is confused, in doubt, clouded and unclear it drains us so much that it’s hard to get back into effective DOING. So this isn’t just fluffy prop ya up fragile-ego stroking—it’s a strategy to keep you focused and effective.

Most people consider me very successful, and in many ways I am. However, what most people don’t know and haven’t seen “behind the scenes” are how many, MANY, MANY things I have failed at, how INCREDIBLY LONG it took for my business to get off the ground. It was NOT a graceful lift off—but was a crash, bang, fail, screw-up, wrong choice, stupid mistake, exhausting hours while working jobs I loathed while building my consulting and speaking practice on the side, zero-budget or savings to work with, often depressing experience over and over and over again. Repeat. Repeat again. Welcome to entrepreneurship! ;-) Honestly being a successful entrepreneur is a real pain in the katukus (it’s a LOT more than “build it and they will come”) but I wouldn’t trade it for the world!

The other side of PAYING THE PRICE of entrepreneurship is that NOW I work in a cute cottage behind my house, work with motivated clients I LOVE (locally and all around the world), create the workshops and products that I am passionate about, have the time to be with my kids and have the opportunity to keep growing in other opportunities.

Hang in there my fellow 9-5 hater! Never say die and DO NOT DOUBT YOUR AWESOMENESS or I’m going to take off my nice counselor mask and come over there and kick your booty!

Her reply:

“Wow, that’s AWESOME, Jonathan! Thanks! Your input is invaluable. I think I’m going to post this somewhere where I can remind myself regularly. I want to hug you right now. You made my day! I’m really glad you took the time to comment. It helped a lot.”

I told her, “You are VERY welcome. I personally know all too well how much encouragement and support this takes. We’re all in this together! Hang in there my friend!”

The conversation continued and another friend shared:

Brene Brown makes the point in this talk ”Listening to Shame” that the TED Conference is a great collection of people who have learned how to fail repeatedly.

Excellent talk! Failure, folks IS the mechanism of success. Several failure mantras I’ve come up with that I use with myself, my kids and my clients:

• “If you’re not failing, you’re not learning.”
• “Failure is the mechanism of success.”
• “We succeed in direct proportion to our failures, not in spite of them.”
• “Every successful person has a wake of failure in his/her path.”
• “I am failing to succeed” (a play on words–that while at the moment I may be failing and not succeeding I am also using failure as the path to my success).
• “Fail on!”
• “Mistakes are bad if you don’t learn from them. Mistakes are good so long as you learn from them.”
• “Failure is an event, not a person.”

Please read my other articles on this subject:

• “Hang In There You’re Not Done Yet“
• “From Ignorance to Mastery“
• “Say ‘Nay!’ to the Naysayers! Lessons from Famous ‘Failures’“

I’ll try to remember to post my “Hey Kids! Failure Posters” we did as a family activity one night and posted on the walls and doors around our house.

So FAIL ON! my friends and keep learning and as Winston Churchill said, “NEVER, NEVER GIVE UP!”

PLEASE COMMENT BELOW! THANK YOU!

Q: Do you have any suggestions on literature or websites to get information on treatment for adolescents with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)? I am working with a 13-year-old boy that was adopted at the age of eight along with his younger brother from an orphanage in Russia. He is now from California and lived with his brother and adoptive mother before coming to our center. There is no father involved in their lives. Thank you for your help.
—Treatment Center Director and colleague

A: Sure thing… I’m sharing this Q&A from my colleague as these are resources that parents will find helpful as much as professionals will.

Websites:

• A good RAD overview here at The Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/reactive-attachment-disorder/DS00988
• There are of course many online support groups/forums. It’s important that mom finds one that she feels comfortable in just as she would in a regular support group setting.

A few books:

• Treating Attachment Disorders; From Theory to Therapy, by Karl Heinz Brisch
• Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow, by Gregory C. Keck, Regina M. Kupecky
• 
  When Love is Not Enough: A Guide to Parenting Children with RAD – Reactive Attachment Disorder, by Nancy L. Thomas
• All of these books are available here.

A few other considerations:

• Hope mom’s getting lots of parent training while he’s getting treatment, as well as family therapy together. The worse thing you can do is treat “the problem child” without treating the entire family system the child lives in.

Staff & Parent Training:

There’s simply no substitute for good training for both your staff and your client’s parents. If you ever want to do a staff training and/or parent training on working with difficult teens, I do a workshop for professionals who work with teens and for parents. Here’s the link and  description from my website:

• “WORKING the System: Motivating and Strategizing with “Resistant” Teens to Achieve the Better Outcomes THEY Want“
  Systems, whether they be school, family or legal systems, can seem impossible for teens to successfully navigate. These systems can seem especially hard to figure out when they feel their only options are comply or rebel—neither option being what the teen really wants. Teaching them how to strategically “work the system” empowers them to actually achieve the better goals they want. And they do want to succeed. Many just don’t know how. The Working the System seminar teaches your people how to reach and teach the “unreachable” and “unteachable”.
• “How to Talk to Teens about the Tough Stuff“
  This workshop is closely related to the “Working the System” above that is less clinical and more geared towards parents. It’d be fun to do a training with your people sometime if you like.
• “Child Development & Attachment Disorder: What’s “Normal” and What’s Not”
  If you work with kids then knowing what’s “normal” and not can make ALL the difference. I have given this training several times to The State of Utah’s Guardian ad Litem’s and CASA’s Office.

Glad to hear of your work and your life.

Peace bro,

Jonathan

Q: I have a friend just graduated with his masters in clinical psychology and is looking for a job (does not have his license yet). Do you know of any places that may be hiring?

A: Sorry, I’m not in the loop as far as any available jobs at this point. However, I would recommend doing a networking blitz:

1. Send a cover letter introducing himself with his resume to any/all of the treatment providers, mental health centers, rehabs, and agencies that interest him (and even the ones who don’t, as you never know who will know someone who knows someone) and follow up the following week with a phone call. This may be an obvious suggestion, however, I’m always surprised by how many people don’t.

When I was graduating in Illinois we knew we were moving back to Utah so Kara could resume her schooling. I only knew a few people in Utah professionally with whom to network. We had no money in reserve. I needed a job as soon as I got to Utah. So this was early Internet days so I looked up what I could online, but mostly scoured a Utah County phonebook I found at the library, for every single provider (solo, group, agency, etc) I could find and mailed them all the following networking letter with my resume.

May 1, 1997

Name
Address
Provo, UT 84604

Dear ________________,

I am currently exploring job opportunities in the Utah County and Salt Lake County areas. I am relocating myself and my family to Utah County where I am seeking employment as a mental health professional. I am looking forward to returning to the community where I had such rewarding experiences in the field. I am writing to you in the hope that you may be able to assist me in exploring employment opportunities with your organization or other organizations you are aware of that may have positions available.

I graduated from Brigham Young University in Family Sciences in 1993. Since then my training has been in the field of substance abuse with the Utah Alcoholism Foundation and in the field of marriage and family therapy at Northern Illinois University’s Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program.

I have enclosed my resume detailing my qualifications as well as my references. I will be available for an interview in your area after May 19th. Please feel free to call me if you have any further questions at (815) 756-xxxx prior to May 15th or at (801) 763-xxxx after May 18th. Any assistance you can grant will be greatly appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

Jonathan D. Sherman

Enclosures:
resume
reference

I sent 70 of these. I then called most of them up. Nothing. However, that was the market then. But I did get one solid lead from the next method:

2. Contact the state division of his professional organization and see who there knows who’s hiring. For my field it’s the Utah Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. I’m sure he has one for clinical psychologists. This is how I got my first job out of grad school, which opened the door for every other opportunity I’ve had since.  I sent a modified version of my networking letter as follows:

May 2, 1997

Lynne Maynes, Ph.D.
Counseling Center
P.O. Box 681499
Park City, UT 84068-1499

Dear Dr. Maynes,

Beth Hughes with the UAMFT suggested I contact you. Last month I was able to talk with Becky at your organization and she suggested I send you my vita. I am currently exploring job opportunities in the Utah County and Salt Lake County areas. I am relocating myself and my family to Utah County where I am seeking employment as a mental health professional. I am looking forward to returning to the community where I had such rewarding experiences in the field. I am writing to you in the hope that you may be able to assist me in exploring employment opportunities with your organization or other organizations you are Daware of that may have positions available.

I graduated from Brigham Young University in Family Sciences in 1993. Since then my training has been in the field of substance abuse with the Utah Alcoholism Foundation and in the field of marriage and family therapy at Northern Illinois University’s Marriage and Family Therapy graduate program.

I have enclosed my resume detailing my qualifications as well as my references. I will be available for an interview in your area after May 19th. Please feel free to call me if you have any further questions at (815) 756-xxxx prior to May 15th or at (801) 763-xxxx after May 18th. Any assistance you can grant will be greatly appreciated. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

Jonathan D. Sherman

Enclosures:
resume
references

3. And he’s already doing #3–ask everyone you know who they know… And while I don’t know of any leads specifically right now I’m happy to post the need on my Facebook and Twitter and see if anyone knows anything. It  may or may not yield anything, but you never know—and as of this writing POW! that’s 4,700 people instantly added to his network! If there are any leads I’ll forward them on to you, or your friend can friend me on Facebook and Twitter and keep an eye on these posts himself.

4. Consider the rural option. Question: Is he local, does he want to stay local or willing to relocate? There are often great jobs in rural settings/boonies and they are willing to pay more b/c a lot of people aren’t willing to relocate and they desperately need providers. Further, many states have Rural Loan Repayment programs where by committing to work a min of 2 years in a rural setting he can get a lot and sometimes all of his grad school loans paid off.

Hope this helps.

—[ More "PRACTICE BUILDERS FOR PROS" tips here... ]—

ASK AN MFT: I spoke to a Family Systems class at Utah Valley University (UVU) about being a Marriage & Family Therapist. I had the students ask me questions ahead of time online. What questions would YOU ask? Here are their questions (organized in topics) that we covered.

Podcast coming soon: I recorded this Q&A and will post as a podcast for those who are interested in the answers I gave.

See what they thought: Their evaluation results are below.

You do a better job of connecting and marketing than most MFTs I know, and the students will be inspired by your energy.”
—Lori Schade, LMFT, UVU Adjunct Professor

THE QUESTIONS

More than “Just” MFT
1. What do Marriage & Family Therapists treat? What kind of clients and issues do you see and deal with on a typical day?

In Session: Models & Approach
2. How do you decide which model/approach/theory to use when you meet with a couple? What is the information that is given to you from a client that directs that decision?
3. How do you show empathy to your client’s problems and still be able to maintain your professionalism?
4. As a counselor do you find it more effective to help client’s work out solutions to their own problems and only give them advice when they ask for it or what?

Couples: Revitalizing Marriage
5. What would you recommend a couple do to reclaim their marriage and have a GREAT relationship again? They love each other, get along well, work through their stressors well, but are “stuck in a rut,” their marriage has taken back-burner status and they are running on “auto pilot.”

Couples: Marriage Prep
6. What advice would you give to a couple before they get married? What should couples know before they get married?

Couples: Counseling One-Half of the Couple
7. What do you do when a couple comes in, and only one partner is trying to make their marriage work?
8. What if the other partner is stonewalling and wants nothing to do with the therapy sessions?
9. What happens with the other partner who wants to make it work?

Couples: Abuse & Domestic Violence
10. When a person has experienced an abusive marriage how do you counsel the person to be able to once again trust in a new relationship?

Being a Therapist: Making the Decision
11. What motivations drove you to become a marriage therapist?
12. Where did you get your MFT?
13. Is Utah a good place to do marriage therapy? How do I get clients to come to me?

Being a Therapist: Passion or Burnout?
14. How do you keep from becoming too emotionally involved or just plain burned-out? Do you find it can be very emotionally draining sometimes and if so how do you cope with that?
15. Do you know if many therapists seek counseling themselves to help them deal with their profession?

Being a Therapist: Impact On Your Own Marriage
16. Do you apply all the techniques that you give to the couples who come to you to your own marriage?
17. Does being a marriage therapist put stress on your own marriage, or does it give you a greater appreciation of how good you have it in your marriage?
18. Is there a high divorce rate among therapists because they spend so much of their time helping others that they are emotionally unavailable in their own relationships?
19. I imagine that you hear and feel more than your share of negativity and hopelessness, therefore, how do you not allow that to spill over into your important personal relationships?

Helping Your Family & Friends
20. I have a teen sibling with low self esteem. I am studying to be a therapist and have worked with troubled teens. When I talk to her about anything she shuts down because she thinks I am trying to “fix” her. How do you counsel your family members without them feeling like you are using the skills you learned for your job on them?

More Questions? Some have already been answered and more are coming! Visit the PRACTICE BUILDERS FOR PROS blog at MarriageEnvy.com/PracticeBuilders

Articles available now
• Technology & Remote Counseling
• Marriage & Family Therapist makes “50 Best Careers of 2011″ List
• Clients on Facebook? Okay or Not?
• For Pros: Working with Latency-Age Children
• Tagline: Answer Their Pain
• How to Thrive in Private Practice, Parts 1
• How to Thrive in Private Practice, Parts 2
• For My Colleagues: Making It as an Entrepreneur
• PDF: 11 Ways to Thrive in Private Practice article

Upcoming posts… stay tuned!
• Refusing to Devalue Your Work
• Insurance Billing Resources for Private and Group Practices
• Being a Marriage and Family Therapist
• Don’t Be Too Quickly Flattered
• Podcast Interview: 21 Questions for Jonathan Sherman on Being a Therapist
• Podcast Interview: Questions from a Student Considering the MFT Field
• Is Couples Therapy Stressful?
• Is Private Practice for You?
• “It’s a Long Way to the Top if You Wanna _________.”
• MFT Info Link resources

Book Jonathan

Please fill out this Speaker Request Form to book Jonathan to offer this presentation to your group. Thank you.

Evaluation Results

I don’t filter my evaluation results I give them here as straight as I get them. I figure if you’re making the important decision to select the right speaker for your group is it better to just get filtered positive only testimonials about a potential speaker or to know how people respond to the speaker including both those who loved it and didn’t? So if someone thought I stunk you’ll hear it hear first. Obviously, I don’t try to make everyone happy. Part of my utility is to get people out of their comfort zones. If the majority love an approach I use in a seminar I’ll continue those items that resonate with most. If the majority hate an approach I’ll drop it. If one or two people don’t like what the majority love, then I don’t give much heed to those critiques, of course. However, I appreciate all feedback, which is one of the reasons my evaluation results are consistently high: My audiences teach me what they like and what works best for them and I listen.

My evaluation form contains the following items:

• 1-10 Rating: ”Please rate your overall experience of this presentation”

• The Good: “What was brilliant, superb, exhilarating, life-altering, or opened the heavens for you? In short, what did you like about the presentation?
• One Thing: “What’s one thing that you plan on using and/or implementing into your life from this presentation?” This tells me out of everything what was the one thing that had the most meaningful impact.
• The Bad: ”What stunk, turned your stomach, gave you a headache, made  you dizzy, or gave you gas? In short, what didn’t you like that could be improved and/or what would you like to see covered that wasn’t? (Go ahead, I can take it!)”
• Requested eZine: This is actually also an evaluation measure: You’d think that someone who would give a lower rating didn’t like the presentation. However, while it may not have been the favorite for that person, they got enough out of it that they would like to receive emails containing articles, tips, strategies and events on these topics from me.

Event: UVU Family Systems class, Guest Speaker for Professor Lori Schade, LMFT
Date: 9-11-2012
Attendance: 20
Number of Evals Returned: 14
Average Rating for this Event: 9.6/10

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 Q: What questions would YOU like to ask about the field of MFT or what it’s like to be a therapist?

National and International

10 years ago I never would’ve had clients in these states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington AND these countries: Afghanistan, Canada (Alberta and Ontario), England, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, ALL of whom I’ve been able to work with from the comfort of my own office and that they’ve been able to work with me from the comfort of their own homes or offices.

“Continuity of Care” and “Client-Centered” Realized

In the past it was local or nothing. Now my clients can choose who they work with. They can have real “continuity of care” rather than hope they find a good therapist when they move (and as we know, most don’t make that transition to a new therapist successfully, and more than often drop out of counseling altogether). They no longer have to start over with someone new and tell their whole story fresh again. They have the freedom of continuing the work they began. And new clients from these places get to access who they want to work with. It is truly making it more and more client-centered, which is what we believe in this field, but sometimes isn’t realized. Technology is giving my clients more choice and with choice comes power.

I am truly grateful for amazing technology and ALL the brilliant minds that have come together to make this all so “easy.” Due props to all you awesome geeks and nerds out there!

For my colleagues who desire to go out on their own into private practice, speaking business, etc. I highly recommend this GREAT article: How to Survive Your First Year as a Entrepreneur. Love it. Rings so true to my experience as an entrepreneur (minus the prostitutes). Great advice to anyone venturing into the fantastic world of entrepreneurship.

By the way, you still might fail on that first business. But now it’s too late for you. You’re never going back to the pencil factory. You’re an animal, you hunt in the wild, you dig your sharp teeth into flesh and enjoy it, and at the top of the mountain you roar like a lion and everyone cowers in fear.”

Personally, there’s no going back to the pencil factory for me (i.e., mental health agency or working for someone else in my case). LOVE working for self and CREATING!!! Tough, nerve-wracking, fantastic. If you’ve got the passion and heart to put yourself out there and aren’t too risk-averse I highly recommend this crazy wonderful life.

The author, Henry Clay Webster, wrote:

“As one of the 50 Best Careers of 2011, this should have strong growth over the next decade…. While some counselors focus on the behavior of an individual, marriage and family therapists go a step further, addressing mental-health issues within the context of the family. By counseling couples, families, or individuals, marriage and family therapists tackle a host of problems: adult schizophrenia, substance abuse, anorexia, and marital conflict. Today, marriage and family therapy is considered a “core” mental-health profession, alongside social work, psychiatric nursing, psychology, and psychiatry. More than 1.8 million people are now receiving treatment from a marriage and family therapist.”

[Read the full article here for more info on the field, pros/cons, average incomes (be sure to read the comments for some info on higher incomes, too), etc.

Q: A therapist colleague asked me:

Do you ever say yes to a client’s friend request on Facebook? And if so what are your rules about it? I have some that want to keep in touch with me after I move but I am just not sure and don’t want to make a bad choice but there isn’t much said about ‘internet’ and ‘Facebook’ stuff?”

A: Great question. Yes, I do. And yes, I know there’s some controversy on this topic. I’ve read a lot on the subject and have given it a good deal of thought. Admittedly, for the field as a whole, this is still mostly uncharted territory. But it’s one that isn’t going away, and old school practitioners are going to find it hard to compete if they don’t learn to adapt to where their clients are—which is where the market is.

For me and my clients, I’m all for embracing current technology and how people (our clients) communicate in real life. For example, I also do coaching via phone and Skype with clients all over the country and internationally. Some say it’s not as good as face to face (I agree). However what it does for:

1. Continuity of care for clients is simply phenomenal,
2. Providing greater choice to clients in their selection of providers is unparalleled, especially in rural areas, as well as
3. Greater flexibility and convenience in scheduling (just consider the convenience of a single mother or young couple not needing to arrange for a babysitter).

Face-to-face cannot always provide for these three very significant factors. There are pros and cons for each method.

I’ve always been an early adopter of integrating technology in our field as well as being a proactive marketer of wellness rather than passively waiting for clients to find me. I believe we as therapists have specialized knowledge and skill sets that are too important to just wait in our offices until people’s problems reach the crisis point that they then start searching for a therapist. I’d much rather people get to know a good therapist long before they “need” one… Then when the need arises they don’t have to scramble “hoping” they find someone that will work. The latter does not seem like good client care to me. Giving them the chance to pre-decide way ahead of time is much better for all as it insures a more proper “fit” with client and therapist which predicts greater successful outcomes for both.

So, to answer your question here are a few points (in no particular order and by no means comprehensive) I use on Facebook:

1. First of all, I work with a high functioning clientele, so boundary issues are rarely (haven’t had any yet actually) an issue. If I still worked for a community mental health agency I would very likely not “friend” my clients for the most part, even though they were wonderful people. Generally, in the discussion around where does coaching and therapy begin/leave-off, the thinking is that GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) scores of 70+ are more “coaching” clients. That is open to debate, but it’s the general thinking on the topic. When I say “high-functioning”, though, that is what I’m talking about;
2. My Facebook page is first and foremost for networking, so I stay mindful that my posts and pics will be seen by clients, colleagues, referrers, as well as friends and family. So is what I post something I’d feel sharing posting on a bulletin board or discussing in a seminar? Yes. Sometimes it’s clinical. Sometimes funny. Sometime personal. The point in both therapy and social networking is to always be real, relevant and relatable;
3. The broad mix of Facebook friends I feel provides the same anonymity and confidentiality that any other public social environment affords, such as the grocery store and the same rules there apply. For example, the client owns the relationship–meaning I won’t acknowledge them as a client unless they want to self-identify publicly in a post that way such as, “You helped our marriage so much. Thanks!” Otherwise as far as anyone else knows they are just another acquaintance. It’s similar if I run into a client in the grocery store–if they come up to me I’m happy to talk. If not, I politely avoid them to protect their privacy. If my kids ask who was that, I just say, “A friend of mine” to protect their confidentiality;
4. Contrary, to conventional practice (which some of the research now supports me) I do believe in a good deal of self-disclosure. Many clients over the years have expressed frustration that they want a great relationship with their spouse or kids but have never seen that modeled in real life. The medium of Facebook and appropriate self-disclosure provides that. I’m by no means THE model, but I am one very real life example of a guy doing his level best at practicing about 80% as a husband and father of what he preaches as a therapist.
5. I’m also pretty down to earth, silly and frank in my Facebook posts. This serves a dual purpose: 1. To remove the stigma of the stuffy, clinical therapist and 2. Markets myself to my ideal clients (ie., those who value plainness and authenticity) and screens out my non-ideal clients (ie., the ones who take themselves too seriously). This leads to a better fit on both sides. Potential clients get to “check me out” in advance and decide whether I will be a good fit for their style and their needs. Yellow Page ads and websites just don’t give the same level of relate-ability or transparency that clients really want and value;
6. After all that, I re-read your question and realized I neglected to directly answer your first question. Yes, I do accept my clients “friend” requests (remember my caveat: I have a high-functioning clientele with good boundaries). I also didn’t mention what is likely obvious: Most people don’t consider Facebook “friends” to be the same as friends in the traditional sense unless their page is strictly limited to immediate friends and family. This is one reason I don’t consider my client who is also my Facebook “friend” as being a dual relationship anymore than I would consider having a friendly conversation with a client I happened to meet at the grocery store a dual relationship.

Now there may be others who will say you should never “friend” clients on Facebook. And they may be right depending on the population they work with or their own preferences. However, for me it’s worked great. Client feedback is they value it. My approach has always to be client-centered and customer-driven. So, bottom line: I’m all about effectiveness. If it works keep doing it. If it doesn’t, don’t.

Your thoughts? Other questions?

Peace,

Jonathan