Episode 200: Mail Bag!

Curt and Katie reflect on 200 episodes, answer questions and respond to feedback from listeners. We explore the tension between making a good living and providing affordable mental health care to consumers. We dig into paying prelicensed individuals, antitrust concerns, training centers, ethics codes, app therapy, setting fees, and therapist career trajectories.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. 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.

In this episode we talk about:

Celebrating 200 episodes!
Question about how to make money and help to provide affordable access to clients
Systemic challenges and the phases of change to the system
Individual responsibility and the problems of this individual responsibility to therapists
The way in which we can take action to make our careers more sustainable, while also advocating for change
The debate about unpaid internships, training centers, and free labor (which is against the law)
Online App Therapy – whether it is hurting the field and gaslighting therapists
Sliding scale, setting fees, and why therapists’ rates vary so widely
Why people don’t stay therapists, feel the need to become a thought leader
Reflections on 200 episodes

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Resources mentioned:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below might be 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!

CAMFT’s statement on Paying Prelicensees as a Best Practice

Department of Labor Statement on Internship Programs

Robert Casares Jr. (2020): Embracing the Podcast Era: Trends, Opportunities, & Implications for Counselors, Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, DOI: 10.1080/15401383.2020.1816865

Relevant Episodes:

Making Access More Affordable

A Living Wage for Prelicensees

Antitrust for Therapists

That’s Unethical

Gaslighting Therapists

Online Therapy Apps (that Curt is renaming to App-alling Therapy)

Overcoming Your Poverty Mindset

Negotiating Sliding Scale

Asking for Money (a throw back episode on setting fees)

You Don’t Have to be a Thought Leader

Why Therapists Quit and Part 2

Connect with us!

Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group

Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined 2021

Our consultation services:

The Fifty-Minute Hour

Who we are:

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, 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. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also Past President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.