An interview with Jeff Guenther, founder of Therapy Den. Jeff Guenther is a licensed
professional counselor and the founder of Therapy Den – a unique directory of
psychotherapists that aims to be inclusive of all needs and works to promote diversity. Who
better to talk about directories, than the founder of one?! Jeff has a wealth of knowledge and
his site is full of information – including a great list of questions to explore on your initial
consult call.
Site: www.therapyden.com
Consult questions: https://www.therapyden.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-therapy-part-2-
what-to-ask-in-the-consult
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This is a teaser for my new Podcast, Finding Therapy! Fans of The Online Counselling Podcast will find the same great content with Finding Therapy.
Thank you to the tens of thousands who have enjoyed The Online Counselling Podcast, I am glad to be back! Please subscribe and enjoy!
Stefan Charidge is a BACP accredited psychotherapist from the UK who saw many of his clients struggling with anxiety and decided to build an app that could teach them the skills necessary to reduce and manage their symptoms. I think it is fascinating how a counselor decides to learn something new (app development and promotion) and take his practice in a completely different direction. So while today’s interview is not entirely about ‘online counseling’ – we do get to talk about how technology is changing the field through the development of apps. His app: Break Fee Anxiety, is an amazing tool and well worth a look. And it’s FREE!
Stefan’s practice:
In this podcast I got to speak with the wonderfully energetic Jo Muirhead. She is an incredibly passionate Career Development Coach and Rehabilitation Counsellor. You can’t help from being inspired by this trainer, professional speaker and coach. She is working with people all over the world via online platforms to “love their job, live life passionately, and reach their potential”. We get to explore how online connections have helped her bring healing to all parts of Australia, how she launched her business and quickly made it a success – and how she is teaching others to do the same. Lots of great tips and tricks from this powerhouse!
Last summer, my wife and spent a month in London and I had the privilege of meeting Jimi Sayo who is an extremely talented hypnotherapist based in London. But I was fascinated to learn that she works online via skype with people all over the world. Today we get to learn about her approach and how she believes that connecting via skype can be just as effective as meeting in person in her South London office. We also get to talk a little a bit about the Virtual Gastric Band – which just blows my mind. As a hypnotherapist and a practitioner of NLP – Jimi has many tools to draw from and we spend the beginning of the podcast exploring her approach, but at about the 21 minute mark, we start really delving into the online approach – the benefits and challenges.
Hypnotherapyresults.co.uk
See the benfits of BNI? Here is another contact from my very own BNI chapter – Christine Sachs. She is a ball of energy and she brings this passion to her life coaching practice. Today we get to talk about how coaches have ALWAYS been working with technology – phone, video, etc. This has been their natural territory for quite some time and I think we can learn from them. We talk a bit about the differences between coaching and therapy and how best to use technology to enhance a practice. I’ve known Christine for a long time and I know how incredibly busy she is and I think we are lucky to get to learn from her.
Christinesachscoaching.com
Other resources: Accomplishmentcoaching.com
Dr Ivy Branin is an inspiration and I could talk to her for hours. Dr Ivy is another contact I made through BNI – ( Business Networking International. If you haven’t visited a BNI chapter near you – you really should. ) She is a Naturopathic Doctor based in New York City but also doing tele-medicine with clients all over the world via skype. Fluent in both French and English, she has developed a truly global practice. In this podcast we talk about her journey toward holistic natural medicine and the many clients and types of disorders that she treats. I know she perhaps is a different choice for this podcast – but seeing as she does online medicine, I think there are several things we can learn from her. We get a little deep into a few things, but hang in there – we come out the other side with a lot of great information on the challenges and benefits of reaching clients through technology.
Simplicityhealthassociates.com
I’m very excited to welcome Karissa Brennan to the podcast. We met through a mutual contact at BNI. BNI stands for Business Networking International and it is an amazing organization that allows for small business owners to network with each other and build their referral base. You will hear a lot about BNI from me because I’m a big supporter – as is Karissa. You can learn more about them from BNI.com. Karissa is a fellow New Yorker and has a very interesting practice – she works online via video cam, texting and instant messaging. We get to talk about her approach, what platforms she uses and the ups and downs of online counseling. In fact, we had a bit of a problem with the connection – and this interview shows how things do not always go smoothly but you can use the problems to maybe come up with solutions! She has a beautiful story of how she was drawn to online counseling and does a wonderful job of opening up and showing the personal side of a therapist. She has a beautiful “why”. Other resources we mentioned: www.cce-global.org/dcc
Dr Judith Zur - Onlinetherapyandlifecoach.com - For my first interview, I could not have chosen a better person to talk with than Dr. Judith Zur. She is a fascinating person – with dual US and UK citizenship and currently working in Mexico, she is truly a global therapist. It was raining in Mexico on the day we recorded this interview and were at times having internet connection issues – which gave us a great subject to explore - how do you deal with tech problems when doing therapy online? But we also explored her fascinating history which includes working with individuals all over the world, her experience with doing therapy with war time torture victims, the difficulty of cultural boundaries and language when doing therapy in different countries and which virtual platforms she prefers: Skype, Facetime, etc. As my first podcast I could not have asked for a better volunteer.