Deb Legge

Over the past 18 years I’ve been blessed to have developed a very strong referral base for my private practice and for those who share space in my office. When coaching clinicians new to private practice, one of the biggest concerns (and understandably so) is “How am I going to get clients?” One of the reasons many folks would rather be employed by others is a steady stream of clients, which equate to a steady paycheck.

This week I was asked to do a Skype consult with someone who is working hard to learn Mindfulness Meditation and couldn’t quite get “there”. His struggle reminded me of my struggle, as well as the struggle I often hear about when teaching Mindfulness techniques to my clients, family, and friends. I was first introduced to Mindfulness Meditation when learning about Dialectical Behavior Therapy for the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder. The concept of being in the present non-judgmentally was appealing – so I started a practice of my own.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face as counselors is to sort through a lot of “stuff” (theoretical orientation, preferred treatment strategies, transference, counter-transference, what the client is saying, what the client is really saying, etc.) to determine the intervention point, and then to choose a reasonable intervention to assist our clients. I admit that I am often tempted to do what many of my students struggle with as neophyte counselors – the temptation to prematurely push up my sleeves and jump in to fix “it”. Now, experience helps quell that temptation most of the time, but I’d be lying if I told you that after almost 20 years it no longer exists.

About half of my private practice coaching clients are just starting out in business for themselves. We work on setting up a business, establishing a niche, gaining a good reputation in town, pulling together marketing efforts, and establishing relationships to get the referrals flowing. The other half of my coaching clients are stuck – in a deep rut. Sounds bad, eh? Actually these are the lucky ones (most of those who are stuck are so stuck that they are numb and never reach out for help). Sure they are stuck, but they have the insight to know that they need help – someone to pull them out of the rut with both hands!

So… how do you do it? Do you carry a pager? Do you carry your cell phone into the shower with you? Do you have an answering service? Do your clients have access to your cell phone… your email… your FaceBook…? Do you check in and respond to your clients when you are on vacation? I’m not sure if what I’ve observed over the years is a function of a maturing in my career or if it is a function of change over time in the profession. When I started out almost 20 years ago I carried a pager and had an answering service with access to my home phone number (and eventually my cell phone number). When clients called, day or night, the service found me no matter what. I returned calls at 2AM.