Newcomer Questions

[Lindsey Halpern-Givens]

I am interested to know how folks got started in providing online therapy. What motivated you to start an online practice? What advice are you willing to share with neophytes? Does anyone practice through Live person.com? Thanks!

[DeeAnna Merz Nagel]

Hi Lindsey! I am sure we have all migrated to this work for different reasons- I have been doing online therapy for over 10 years and when I started, I needed a way to produce income from home. I started out with a listing on an e-clinic and now I offer online therapy through my website.

We do have some folks here who practice through LivePerson- hopefully they will chime in. My advice is to just know that building an online practice is just like building any other practice or business- it takes time, word of mouth, networking and marketing!

[Lindsey Halpern-Givens]

Hi DeeAnna and Catherine,

Thanks for the responses. I am glad to get a discussion started. I am a licensed professional counselor and certified rehabilitation counselor ( this is a National designation) in the state of Illinois. I am also a Board Certified Chaplain and a trained Pastoral counselor with the American Association of Pastoral Counselors who currently practices with a private agency, part time. I am interested in learning more about e-therapy and have studied about it, reading favorably, particularly regarding treatment for men. The studies I read stated that younger men, esp. men who were working through grief issues were more likely to avail themselves of online counseling. I was looking into Liveperson.com but read that Liveperson.com in their contractual agreement with counselors forbids any kind of contact with clients outside of Liveperson sessions. SO- if a client - in an e-mail contacted a therapist- (hypothetically expressing suicidal ideation for example) how would a therapist assist the client? (If not in a Liveperson session?) Some of the verbiage of the Liveperson contract concerned me and I therefore decided against their platform at this time BUT would like a platform for an e-practice. These are just some of my thoughts.

[DeeAnna Merz Nagel]

Just a note- you are both in states where I will be facilitating a training this summer- I am conducting a Distance Credentialed Counselor training at Loyola College in MD and in Springfield IL. You can find out about the trainings at http://www.readyminds.com/training/dcc_event.asp

[E-Therapy]

Hello Lindsey, We started E-Therapy by getting together a few therapists, and a tech-e guy, and then we set up a website and some ‘therapy rooms’. The biggest IT challenge is to provide HIPAA compliant services. We would be happy to discuss what we are doing,
Best regards,
E-Therapy
http://electronic-therapy.com

[Fran Marmor]

I also would love to get started with an on-line therapy practice. I am a great therapist, but lousy computer person. Does someone know of an IT person with experience helping people set up on-line practices who is reasonably priced? Also, can someone give me an idea of the income potential with this type of practice? Thanks so much. Fran

[Fran Marmor]

Fran Marmor said:

I also would love to get started with an on-line therapy practice. I am a great therapist, but lousy computer person. Does someone know of an IT person with experience helping people set up on-line practices who is reasonably priced? Also, can someone give me an idea of the income potential with this type of practice? Thanks so much. Fran

PS I didn't realize my dog was the picture I selected!

[Jacqui Atkinson]

Hi my interest started when I was woking in a college as a counsellor and realised that young people were getting ever more into the technologies for their communication. The other reason alongside this was my thinking about possible retirement from that but still wishing to work. Ihad a small f2f practice but as we wanted to spend more time in Portugal online work became increasingly attractive.

Re advice keep in touch with all your contacts as you never know what oportunities will emerge.

Jacqui