BUSINESS AND CLINICAL ISSUES Sept 25th, 3:30 - 6:00pm

TOPICS:

1) Grappling with diagnoses:
- Why diagnose (besides insurance)?
- How do you decide on a diagnosis?
- What are some of the more common diagnostic questions? Some examples: borderline personality disorder vs. bipolar; substance
abuse vs. other psychiatric disorders; hypomania vs. agitated depression; ADD in adults vs. anxiety.
- When are differential diagnoses important for treatment planning?
- How do you use this diagnosis in treatment?

2) Boundary issues:
-- Managing confidentiality within the practice in a small community where therapists may know too much, i.e. clients and/or therapist and client have overlapping relationships.
--Managing contacts with clients in the community.
-- Violating confidentiality in emergency situations.--Cultural differences between therapist and client. Dealing with client racial
and religious prejudices. Dealing with political issues raised in session
-- Disclosure issues - pro and con, when to disclose or not disclose about oneself.
-- Working with members of the same family in individual and/or family sessions. What information disclosed by a minor child should be
shared with his/her parents?
-- Working with clients in both individual and group sessions
--When is advice appropriate? Exchanging information resources?

3) Marketing:
-- Referral sources: word of mouth, insurance companies, doctors, other therapists. How to cultivate referrals, how to get appropriate referrals. Feedback to referral sources?
-- Advertising: brochures, ads in publications, yellow pages (print and online), direct mail, distributing promotional material and
business cards (to doctors, other referral sources, etc.). Ad content ? Internet: group websites, own site, links on other
websites ?-- Workshops (at our office or for other organizations), courses, open therapy groups

4) How Do You Organize Your Practice?
--Scheduling
--Attendance policies and cancellation fees.
--Billing: Paper or computerized, using computer packages, private pay billing, financial record-keeping, collections.
--Standard forms: intake information, consent for treatment, conditions of treatment, attendance policies, releases, etc.
--Communicating with clients: reminder calls?, email contact, follow- up on clients who stop treatment without notice
-- We can add to this other practice issues that concern you, such as issues regarding interacting with insurance companies.

5) The Influence of today’s communication technology on clients’ lives and relationships:
--Relationship expectations: frequency and nature of contact with significant others, children, other family.
--Trust, privacy, boundary issues: monitoring phone/texting/computer usage, social network sites
--Attentiveness to real vs. virtual relationships (use of cell phone and computers while at job, school, when with others).
--Work relationships: availability, virtual vs. face to face communication,. telecommuting.
--Implications for therapy: how do we address these issues and how should we make use of technology ourselves?

6) Boundary issues:
-- Disclosure issues - pro and con, when to disclose or not disclose about oneself-- Working with members of the same family in individual and/or family sessions. What information disclosed by a minor child should be shared with his/her parents?
-- Working with clients in both individual and group sessions
-- Managing confidentiality and outside contact with clients in a small community
-- Cultural differences between therapist and client. Dealing with client racial and religious prejudices. Dealing with political issues
raised in session.

7) Transference/ Countertransference issues:
-- How to define and recognize transference/countertransference
-- How, when, and with which clients to use T/CT as part of their Psychotherapy is an interpersonal, relational intervention used by trained psychotherapists to aid clients in problems of living. ">psychotherapy sessions
-- How to use your CT reactions in different contexts: with clients, in supervision