How many of your clients email, text message or call your cell phone to make, change or cancel an appointment? Do your clients call your cell when they are experiencing an emotional crisis? The ACA Code of Ethics says that we should use encryption when emailing clients with the exception of housekeeping issues [...]

By “job”, I refer to anything you do to produce income. If you work in state or federally funded agency you have probably seen massive budget cuts. I assume that goes for university, college and school settings. Oh, and non-profits? I guess they may have had some budget cuts too. I would [...]

Many directories are available online for professionals to list services. Many counselors in private practice create profiles in directories such as the most popular offered by Psychology Today. What about using websites like Yelp.com and Kudzu.com to list one’s services and additionally, provide a forum for ongoing client testimonials? A counselor can create a [...]

I am sitting at the Newark airport about to board a flight to Atlanta, traveling south to conduct a Distance Credentialed Counselor 2-day training.  I sit here wondering about how many of us who train will continue to travel to teach and learn as we move into this technology-laden future.
With more and more training and [...]

Are you a member of a listserv?  The most popular Listserv service is Yahoo Groups.  Various organizations and like-minded professionals often create listservs to communicate efficiently with one another.  Once a member, you can usually either opt to receive the emails as they come in or a digest of all of the posts at the [...]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed the surge in television shows that focus on mental health, treatment, therapy….? The other day I received a solicitous email about a new reality TV show that will feature two counselors who are related.  Yes I did.  The show is looking for counselors who are married [...]

So, let’s talk about this.  I read an article recently: Internet Social Media Present New Quandaries for Psychiatrists published May 15th in the Psychiatric Times (http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/conference-reports/apa2009/display/article/10168/1414489). Since then, I have had a couple of provocative discussions with workshop participants.  This article is geared toward psychiatrists, but clearly this is an issue that can crop up [...]

It is fifteen years since I completed graduate school. Times have changed and so has the counseling profession. Here I sit in 2009, perched on my sofa, laptop in hand, blogging with my ACA colleagues who are miles away in other parts of the country. We bring our collective knowledge to cyberspace and [...]