How to choose the right therapist, coach or practitioner….

Ironically, since then, I have attracted many people who want to work with me for non perinatal reasons!

This naturally leads to conversations about not being able to help them but signposting them on to other colleagues.

I often get asked for recommendations for other therapists, coaches or practitioners and of course if it is for perinatal support I have a vast directory to refer to but often I am asked for other things like a great weight loss coach or a children’s specialist.

Here is a checklist of how to find the right coach, therapist or practitioner.

1.    Find a specialist. Do a google search to find practitioners who work specifically within the area that you are seeking help. I believe we have reached an age where increasingly clients are seeking support from specialists rather than generalists. I was a good enough general hypnotherapist with fair to average results, but I always saw great results and got great feedback when I supported parents which is why I only want to work with those at this life stage now.

2.    Choose those who have experience with your problem. From looking at practitioners’ websites choose practitioners who are able to speak to the problem that you want help with.

3.    Call those practitioners or book a free consultation. Most good practitioners will offer a free, no obligation call to see if you are a good fit for each other. It benefits them as much as you because most good therapists don’t want to work with people who they can’t support. 

4.    Can they outline their process? Most good therapists, coaches, practitioners should be able to outline their process, what modalities they use, who it is suitable for (and who it isn’t suitable for), how many sessions approximately it will take for the problem to resolve or shift, how long each session is and how much it will cost. Some practitioners, like myself, can also tell you what typically happens in a session, how it is structured.

5.    Choose the therapist who you feel the most trust and rapport with. This is the cornerstone of all effective therapy or change work. In order to facilitate the kinds of transformations that clients are often seeking there needs to be good trust and rapport established, without it nothing changes.

This checklist also gives those of us who are practicing some pretty big clues about how to present ourselves to prospective clients.

It’s hard for clients to find out about services and therapists, no matter how good they are, if they have no website or internet presence at all. I know some practitioners prefer to rely on web directories for business but clients will usually want to read and find out more by looking at someone’s website.

I think that is completely reasonable that clients want to find out as much as possible about therapists before they part with their money and work with them. A website is a sign of authenticity and an established, committed business. Without one how will clients begin the process of building trust and rapport?

Here are my top 5 tips for building a website (I’m not an expert at all, but I do have 3!!)

1.    Use a template builder like Wix  or Squarespace where you click and drag sections onto a page, to get a website up quickly. Both of these have free or very low cost (£5 a month) options. Whatever domain (website name) you choose can go with you if you change provider later.

2.    Your website doesn’t need to be fancy or have tons of pages. It can be one page, with a picture of you and some text about your service and details with how to get in touch. Don’t over think it. It can be really simple and super effective.

3.    Get over your visibility fear. If you want to serve people they will need to be able to find you. Everyone has a website now, even my milkman, even my 16 year old son and as he would say ‘it’s not that big a deal!’

4.    Don’t procrastinate, just do it. Procrastination is just fear masquerading as internal debate, so call it out. The great thing about websites is that they can be easily changed so you don’t need to worry if you change your mind or direction or copy because a website is not a stone tablet.

5.    If the thought of a website is still bringing you out in hives then use social media pages instead. They are free and if you update them frequently your audience (all are potential clients) will naturally build over time.