Before You See Your First Client begins where courses, workshops, training seminars, and textbooks leave off, providing a candid, behind-the-scenes look at the fields of therapy, counseling, and human services. The classic edition includes a new preface from the author reflecting on changes in counseling and in his own life during the last twenty years.
In a reader-friendly and accessible style, Dr. Howard Rosenthal offers his readers 55 useful and practical ideas for the implementation, improvement, and expansion of one's mental health practice. Based on the author's own personal experiences, the book is written in an intimate and personal style to which inexperienced and beginning therapists can easily relate.
Introduction
1. Join Forces with a Psychiatrist to Open a Risk-Free
Private Practice
2. Dont Become Married to a Single Referral Source
3.
Accept the Fact That Salaries in This Field Are Often Unfair
4. It Pays to Be
Assertive When Youre Shopping for Your Salary
5. Managed Care Panels Often
Slam the Door in Your Face
6. Managed Care Firms Dictate Who, When, and How
7. The Multicultural Diversity Secret: You Can Work with a Wider Range of
People than You Think
8. Never Give Any Client Information without a Signed
Release-of-Information Form
9. You Must Use a DSM or ICD Diagnosis to Secure
Third-Party Payments
10. The Insurance Superbill Must Have Your Name as the
Provider
11. Lecturing May Not Flood Your Waiting Room with Clients
12.
Referrals Received Do Not Determine How Many New Clients You Actually See
13.
Managed Care Companies Discriminate against Some Counseling and Psychotherapy
Theories
14. Refer Severely Disturbed Clients for a Medical or Psychiatric
Evaluation
15. Find Out Whether the Psychological and PsychoEducational Test
Reports You Receive Are Individualized
16. Dont Be Misled by Clients Who
Initially Put You on a Pedestal
17. Most Professional Certifications Wont
Help You Secure Insurance Payments
18. Dont Use Paradoxical Interventions
with Suicidal and Homicidal Clients
19. Conduct a Suicide Assessment on Each
Initial Client
20. Dont Try to Clone Your Favorite Therapist
21. When In
Doubt, Use a Person-Centered Response
22. Read Ethical Guidelines Before You
Even So Much as Hug a Client
23. Dont Rush to Therapeutic Judgment Until You
Get All the Facts
24. The Number One Therapeutic Blunder: Confronting Sooner
than Later
25. You Are Not a Failure if You Dont Land Your Dream Job
26.
Your Supervisors Knowledge and Experience Should Not Be Underestimated
27.
Use Verbiage Your Client Will Understand
28. Be a Better Helper by Networking
with Others in the Field
29. Grandfathering: The Fast Track for Snaring
Licenses and Certifications
30. Use Free Advertising to Build Your Agency or
Practice
31. Helpers Are Mandated Child-Abuse Reporters
32. Beyond
Confidentiality: Professional Counselors and Therapists Have a Duty to Warn
33. If You Want to Work in a Public School, Contact the Department of
Education
34. Dont Let a Day from Hell in Court Lower Your Professional
Self-Esteem
35. Save Your Course Catalogs to Invest in Your Future
36.
Enhance Sessions by Adjusting Group Treatment Exercises and Using Small Talk
37. If a Client Was Disappointed with the Previous Helper Find Out Why
38.
Use Caution When Considering the "In" Diagnosis
39. Dont Go into This Field
to Recount Old War Stories About Your Own Recovery
40. Dont Become Married
to a Single System of Psychotherapy
41. Be Enthusiastic if You Want to Be a
Better Workshop Presenter
42. Dont Try to Clone Your Favorite Mental Health
Lecturer
43. If a Client You Have Been Seeing for an Extended Period of Time
Requests Marriage, Family or Couples Therapy, Consider a Referral to Another
Therapist
44. Be Prepared to Change Therapeutic Strategies at a Moments
Notice
45. Documentation: The Royal Road to Promotion
46. Avoid Dual
Relationships Like the Plague
47. Insider Tips for a Good Cover Letter and
Human Service Resumé
48. If You Are Daydreaming, Your Client Will Perceive
You as an Uninterested Helper
49. Pick a Theory of Intervention and a Job You
Believe In
50. Despite the Pitfalls, Make Friends with the Media to Promote
Yourself and Your Agency
51. Writing a Book or Starting a Project? Ask Your
Agency First
52. Your Employment and Credentials Determine What You Pay for
Malpractice Insurance
53. Private Practice Is Not a Panacea for Everything
That Ails You
54. Steer Clear of False Memory Syndrome
55. Create an
Emotional Trophy Closet to Help You Through a Bad Day Conclusion
Howard Rosenthal, EdD, CCMHC, HS-BCP, LPC, MAC, NCC, is professor and lead educator of the Human Services and Addiction Studies Program at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley. A longtime Routledge (and before that Accelerated Development) author, Dr. Rosenthal is the author of other best-selling Routledge titles including the Encyclopedia of Counseling, Human Services Dictionary, and Favorite Counseling and Therapy Techniques.
