A Temptress in the Computer: The Cautionary Tale of a Facebook Affair

The Therapist’s New Couch is Online

I’m very pleased to announce that my online CE course in Digital and Social Media Ethics for Psychotherapists has gone live!

This course will teach psychotherapists to
• Describe social media and summarize several popular social media sites and services.
• Distinguish between one’s personal and professional activities on the Internet.
• Identify the ethical challenges that may arise from engaging in activities on the Internet.
• Develop strategies for minimizing risk of ethical violations on the Internet.
• Appraise their use of e-mail, record-keeping, and mobile computing devices to prevent confidentiality breaches.
• Construct a social media policy for one’s office to address potential boundary issues with clients.
• Review the different approaches and attitudes towards social networking between therapists and clients.
• Discuss the relevant ethical issues as they pertain to therapists’ web sites and social networking profiles.

First, C.J. Hayden asks “Not Enough Clients?  What’s in Your Way?”

Instead of trying to fix your marketing by just seeking out more ways to meet people or collect names, email addresses and phone numbers, stop for a moment. What is the problem you’re trying to solve? In other words, what’s really getting in the way of your marketing success?

And Lynn Grodzki looks at “Essential Connections“:

[T]the resource of connection — with community — is free. Having a strong professional community can build your practice, but sometimes attending a professional group feels like a waste of precious time.  So I wondered: What is the best strategy to finding or creating a community that really supports your life and your work?

Symbols of Individuation in Global Politics: The Case of Barack Obama (“Global Internet Seminar,” Sept. 10, 2010)

Hazelden Women’s Healing Conferences (San Diego, Sept. 24-25; Chicago, Dec. 3-4, 2010)

Jon Kabat-Zinn at UCLA (Oct. 6, 2010)

So many singles asked me to be their personal Love Mentor and I have simply not had the time to do it because of my writing and TV schedule.  This is why I started a highly personalized Love Mentor coaching service where women can have coaching by phone or Skype from specially-trained Love Mentors.  And I am personally supervising them to provide highly specialized one-on-one dating coaching and love mentoring.

Details on the site.  If you try this, please check in, let us all know how it goes.

(Via proconnectnews@yourtango.com)

Based on a case study of Pat (our sandal-wearing, cat-loving psychotherapist) and her new client, James (an ambitious barrister with a potentially harmful habit he can’t stop), this graphic novel follows the anxieties, frustrations, mind-wanderings and break-throughs of each, through a year of therapy sessions together.

Plenty of opportunity to recognize your good-and-bad therapist self, and maybe even freshen up on some theory (via commentary at the bottom of each page).   More b.g.:  A review here…and an author interview here.  Enjoy.

We wanted to inform you of a counseling scam that is going around the internet. In a nutshell, a potential client contacts you asking to pre-pay for counseling. He is out of the country, or somewhere distant and intends on using the sessions when he returns. He then sends you a check for too much money. The check is an overpayment. He contacts you and requests you send him a refund for the overpayment. He needs the money ASAP. So you send him money. The problem is, the check then bounces, and you are out money. Please be very careful of scams, never ever send someone money unless you are certain that it is the right thing to do. If someone “overpays” you, make sure the money is cleared before ever sending money back.

If you get a suspicious email, its probably best not even to reply.

After the Storm
By Esther Perel
As therapists, we have an unquenchable desire to find happy endings for troubled clients, especially those weathering the crisis of infidelity. But what happens months or years later to those couples once our work with them has concluded?

Hope in the Ruins
By Laurie Leitch
A disaster-tested therapist, who’s worked with the survivors of the Thai tsunami, the Sichuan earthquake, and the Rwanda genocide, offers an on-the-scene report from Haiti in the wake of its recent, unimaginably devastating earthquake.

Seeking the Silence
By Dick Anderson
At an age when many are sticking ever closer to their couches and remote controls, a restless soul decides to seize his last chance to explore the wilderness alone.

Participants were asked to rate the importance of 69 criteria with respect to their influence on rankings in the Google, Bing and Yahoo Local “Universal” search algorithms (those that drive the 7-pack, 3-pack, and authoritative onebox search results; NOT the standard organic algorithms).

Results on the site.

What’s Stopping You From Getting Clients… and What To Do About It

Learn how to overcome the challenges you are facing and get the tools to help you grow a successful and thriving practice. C.J. Hayden, best-selling author of Get Clients Now!, will teach you how to attract more clients with less effort.