Building Your Ideal Private Practice: A Guide for Therapists and Other Healing Professionals

by Lynn Grodzki

Book Overview

In this book, psychotherapist and business coach Lynn Grodzki acts as your personal business coach and shows you how to build an ideal private practice--one that is both highly profitable and personally satisfying. Today, being a talented professional is not enough to ensure the success of your private practice; you also need to be an enthusiastic, talented businessperson. Grodzki's business strategies are effective and immediately useful for a wide...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393703312
• ISBN13: 9780393703313
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Finally, solid, straightforward help for therapists

I am a clinical social worker, in private practice for quite a while. Last year without knowing why, my client count began to drop off. I got worried. A colleague in my peer supervision group swore by this book. (Her practice stays full all the time.) I think it is the most helpful book on practice-building and marketing for therapists I have ever read. The information in the book is really useful and solid. But more than that, the tone of the book is so calming and inspiring. The author clearly knows her topic, and she finds ways to explain exactly what steps you need to take to become more profitable and grow your practice. Unlike other non-therapist marketers, she understands the mind of a healing professional and the mental shifts in thinking that introverts like me need to go through in order to follow through on networking or getting more boundaries in place for my billing policy. On the back of the book, one reviewer (who was a social worker of the year!) said the book should be the bible of every clinician. I agree. I keep it on my bedside table, and when I can't sleep because I am worried about my practice, I open up this book and feel inspired. Her new workbook is great as well.

I Loved This Book

Lynn Grodzki offers two invaluable things in her book. One, was the ability to get me unstuck and out of my fear-based paralysis about the future of my practice and the future of the business of psychotherapy. She has done this through her unbridled enthusiasm and inspirational message that apparently comes directly from her own business experience. If someone has a very successful practice than I want to know their experience, hope, and strength. Her positive mind-set has helped shake me out of a "victim" and "scarsity" mindset that was polluting my "off" hours,i.e. the hours when I didn't have clients in my practice.Secondly, she offers a ton of practical advice for a clinician like me. How to start thinking like a business person in addition to being a skilled clinician? Her book has gently led me forward, past my resistences, towards thinking much more intelligently and responsibly about the business end of my work.

What a gift..the book that has been so desperately needed!

Building Your Ideal Practice, by Lynn Grodzki is a true gift. This is a book about empowering yourself to create, build and grow the type of practice that you dream of. It offers a rich set of practical tools, suggestions and examples to help guide you through the process. Blending the strength of Lynns business background and the richness and success of her own psychotherapeutic practice, she offers readers a well thought out approach that helps to attract new clients, hold onto clients and avoid the pitfalls of many private practioners. This book is particularly important for therapists who love the work of therapy, but are struggleing with growing their practice in light of changes in the health care industry. The book is fun and easy to read. I have spent 25 years in the business world and am now growing my executive coaching practice and have found her book to be most helpful in laying out the right foundation so that I get off to the right start. Bravo, Lynn Grodzki, thanks for writing the book that has been so desperately needed.

Every paragraph contained a fresh valuable tip/consideration

The first 30 pages alone would have been enough to rank 10 stars! Just by reading this book I became optimistic about my practice and it began to fill. Each chapter gave me ideas I never thought of before. It helped me work smarter - with less effort, much more pleasure. By the time I finished this book I was trying to decide whether to raise my rates or start a waiting list, and I was seeing IDEAL clients, taking no HMO's, charging more than other psychiatrists in my area, and looking forward to going to work each day. This book blends business with integrity and taught me to value myself, my practice and my clients. I recommend it to ANYONE in the health care field. It made it so easy, and helped me to confront business aspects I hadn't been paying attention to. And she gives so may real life examples, it feels do-able. This book is worth a years' worth of high quality business consulting. I recommend it to any of my clients who have private practices from yoga instruction to massage therapists, and to all my friends in the psychotherapy field. I have never made so much money or felt so good about my practice in my life. She even makes talking to clients about money something I can now do in a way that feels both appropriate and respectful - to me and to them. What I have learned has already netted me literally thousands of dollars. I have never written a book review before, but I have to express my gratitude in some way, and this is my attempt to let others know that with the suggestions, tips and encouragement from this book, it is not only possible to make a living doing therapy, but to build an IDEAL practice without having to contract with any insurance companies. What a God-send of a book.

A necessity for every person thinking about private practice

This book gave me the vision to open my own private practice. It provided me with the necessary information to make me feel confident when I finally made the decision to begin building my own practice. It not only explained the business aspects but also described how to make me personally satisfied with what I was doing. I call this book my "Private Practice Bible" and I am sure you will too once you read it for yourself. Good luck with your dreams. This book helped me make mine come true.