Becoming a Group Practice Owner, An Interview with Maureen Werrback, LCPC

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. We are human beings who can now present ourselves as whole people, with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Especially now, when therapists must develop a personal brand to market their practices.

To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

Interview with Maureen Werrbach, LCPC!

Maureen is a therapist in Chicago, a group practice owner, and a group practice coach. As a therapist, she helps adults with trauma histories, individuals who want to improve their relationships personally and professionally, and entrepreneurs/professionals learn to manage the stresses of leadership. She started a group practice (Urban Wellness) in 2012 and it has grown to a multi-location, 20+ staff that provide counseling, psychological testing and medication management. Her mission is to provide care to as many people in my community as possible. As a group practice coach (The Group Practice Exchange), she loves helping solo practice owners start and grow their group practices, as well as helping established group practice owners scale their group practice. She loves talking about marketing, organizational structuring, scaling, leadership, and everything in between. You can find more about Maureen and find tons of resources on starting and scaling a group practice at www.thegrouppracticeexchange.com and within her Group Practice Exchange Facebook Group.

In this episode we talk about all things Group Practice:

We address the following:

What to consider when starting a group practice
The importance of business plans and looking at your finances
How to shift your marketing when seeking referrals for your clinicians and how your branding must change to grow a group practice
How Maureen structures her work as a group psychotherapy practice owner, looking at time spent on different activities each week and the support and infrastructure she’s set up
The common problem with guilt and self-doubt for new group practice owners
How to support, mentor, and grow your clinicians and why it’s important to do so
Different aspects to assess when building your team

We also talk about the mistakes Maureen made on her way from solo practitioner to 20+ clinicians and multiple locations.

Resources mentioned:

We’ve pulled together the resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

How the World See You by Sally Hogshead

Who we are:

Curt Widhalm is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is a Board Member at Large for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, a Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, Adjunct Faculty at Pepperdine University, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby.

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant. As a helping professional for two decades, she’s navigated the ups and downs of our unique line of work. She’s run her own solo therapy practice, designed innovative clinical programs, built and managed large, thriving teams of service providers, and consulted hundreds of helping professionals on how to build meaningful AND sustainable practices. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world.