Who Gets to Have Therapy?
Curt and Katie talk about therapists’ responsibility for mental health access and the (sometimes moral) decision about whether one focuses on income or providing treatment to all. We look at a living wage, the mental health system, entrepreneurship, and capitalism.
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:
- Is mental health access a universal right?
- Group Practice Owner’s Summit 2019 where Katie got some wild ideas, especially during the talk by Maureen Werrbach and Michael Blumberg: Mental Health Access as a Human Right
- The moral dilemma regarding raising your fees to the point that you are only working with people who can afford it
- The extremes of martyrdom and pure entrepreneurship/capitalism
- Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a place to assess where we identify human rights
- The distinction of the system providing mental health access and individuals providing this access
- Homelessness, mental illness, and addiction
- Where systems and social services are best able to take care of mental health and other concerns
- Larger mission and vision of how to impact the world
- Taking care of your needs as a therapist/person first before society
- The systemic issue of not providing all therapists a living wage and therapists needing to go into entrepreneurship to survive
- The potential impact of universal mental healthcare on entrepreneurship and the field
- The concern about stagnation and stifled innovation
- The power of passion and motivation in the work
- Finding creative ways to increase access, while not negatively impacting your bottom line
- How to make individual decisions about mental health access versus the therapist’s individual income
- Self-actualization – #topofthepyramid
- How the system impacts which therapists are able to continue practicing
- Draw bridge effect of later career therapists not treating newer therapists how they wished they were treated
- Locus of Control impacting decision-making
- The poor treatment of employees, low wages as contributing factors
- The system impacts on people at all levels
- Basic Needs – #bottomofthepyramid
- Profit First versus clients who do not bring revenue in
- Beyond Basic Needs – #middleofthepyramid
- The salary needs that connects to optimal happiness
- Questions about how to address these concerns and which to address first
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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 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!
Group Practice Owner’s Summit 2020
Article 2005 Annapolis Coalition: An Action Plan for Behavioral Health Workforce Development
Ben Caldwell: Saving Psychotherapy
Mike Michalosicz: Profit First
Relevant Episodes:
Interview with Maureen Werrbach: Becoming a Group Practice Owner
Connect with us!
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group
Our consultation services:
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. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com
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. 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.
Stay in Touch:
http://www.therapyreimagined.com
Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist’s Group
https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/
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Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/
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