the mistakes of a rookie

 I started my own practice as a psychotherapist after dreaming of it for years. COVID19 changed my plans and after saving enough to keep me through a dry spell, ensuring that  I would not have to stay in NYC and not renew my lease, and all matters of other small details, I handed in my resignation. Due to vaccines and the need for me to work another month, I stretched my work yet another month and then, my nice insurance, my colleagues, and superb ones they still are, the support team that ensured that all I had to do was show up, my great office, all of that, puff! gone!
I was/am on my own, now for more or less 9 months, the time it takes to gestate a baby. It was slow going, a few hits and misses, and slowly I started to accumulate clients. My agenda was filling up, sometimes more, sometimes less. 

I confess to having little business acumen, to being too insecure and too fearful. I realized soon, that every person I spoke to, I would have to be doing an interview AND presenting my resume. Supposedly under 15 minutes. Ahahah! Many people I am sure got what they needed from my 45 minute session and decided, hey, she provided me with the tools I need to get going. Those were the ones that maybe did not need therapy after all. Not everyone does! People can have a supportive family, circle of friends and community and feel open enough about their issues that the need for therapy is covered. 

So on to the other blunders...

Giving clients 70+ minutes when their insurance is practically threatening anyone who puts down the code for 53 minutes that we will get audited. Good enough. But time management is also good practice. 

These were the easy ones. The hard ones have been, being ok with last minute cancelling, like, sorry I know you sent me a Zoom link but I have a....and my reply always being, "ok life!"

I don't think I'll ever charge anyone for not cancelling within 24 hours but having regular notice is a must that I have to communicate initially. It was so bad that in the last 2 weeks of December, my first and last 2 weeks of working in the last 2 weeks of December, I scheduled and rescheduled and descheduled most of my clients. That's not acceptable, not when people know that they will be having vacations. This might have been partially my fault! I might have shown anxiety and reluctance. I'll never know. My agenda, I need to use a paper agenda, was so crisscrossed that as the new yaer started I totally forgot a fairly new, but really reliable client and that is, to me unacceptable. 

New rules:

Scheduling on Zoom at the beginning of the week. Be parcimonious with people who are always trying to change the agenda, be compassionate with the ones who are always there. 

The age gap is real. I got a slew of youngsters from fancy universities and proceeded to lose them because, I could not understand their issues, I don't think most of them needed therapy, more than a few times at least, and my training was different. This issue will be covered in a new blog issue that no one will read. 

Always be empathic and compassionate, but know that for lots of people it's a business transaction, and their attachment to you is fickle and it's a generational thing. Be ok with it.