Melvin Varghese:
Hey it's Melvin. Before we jump into today's podcast session just wanted to take a moment to thank the team over at Alma for supporting today's podcast session. Alma is an all-in-one platform that works with solo practitioners particularly who want to take insurance but don't want to deal with all of the headaches of taking insurance. We know that as clinicians doing private practice, that managing all of the different facets of private practice is absolutely overwhelming. Everything from managing clients to the admin to the billing, it's not just seeing the clients, right? It's all the other stuff. And so Alma is an all-in-one platform that really makes this process a lot easier. Their core thing is that they let you get credentialed with a majority of insurance providers. They do a 45-day credentialing process. They offer higher reimbursement rates than if you were to go through just solo and apply for insurance. And they also do guaranteed payback within two weeks. So basically your income stays steady. You get paid within 14 days of actually seeing the client. Now where Alma really shines is actually beyond all of this, the other stuff that they do. So they offer everything from peer supervision groups to resource sharing groups where clinicians can exchange worksheets and all sorts of stuff, as well as live CEUs and on-demand CEUs so you can get your CU hours. They also provide a HIPAA compliant telehealth platform so you can see clients and do telehealth sessions without worrying about safety and security and all of those things. The team at Alma hooked Selling the Couch listeners with a special code two months absolutely free. This is not even advertised online, but if you go to sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma, Alma is spelled A-L-M-A, you get two months absolutely free. Again, that's sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma. We'll jump right into today's session.

Hello, hello. Welcome to today's session of Selling the Couch. I hope you're doing well. Having an incredible day, incredible start to the new year. Today's topic is one that I know a lot of us will resonate with, which is burnout and particularly burnout in private practice. And I am joined by Dr. Jennifer Blanchett. Jen and I have connected through LinkedIn over the past couple of months, and I loved the stuff that Jen was talking about, both just sharing her own story of burnout, starting a practice, and then burning out, and realizing private practice just didn't make sense for her. Her website is over at drjenblanchett.com. And today we are honestly having an open and honest conversation on burnout and the things that we talk about, like the hazards of our profession. But this episode isn't like, you know, go do more like spas and stuff like that. It's more like a deeper conversation on our profession, the ways that our profession is changing, and the things that we often don't talk about, particularly in the private practice space, where the emphasis is often on like reaching certain revenue marks, or certain number of, if you're a group practice owner, certain number of clinicians in your practice, or reputation, or any of those kind of things. We start this conversation with this question of burnout among therapists, especially in private practice, is not talked about a lot. What's Jen's sense of like why we don't talk about those things? We also get really into what are some of the telltale signs that Jen saw when it came to her own burnout. We also felt this fascinating conversation on this juxtaposition between private practice is supposed to be this thing that gives us freedom,

Yet, when we get into private practice, we realize all of the things that we have to navigate, not just from seeing clients, but the administrative overload, the emotional toll, the isolation, all of that, and navigating all of that as a clinician in private practice. We wrap up with a couple of different questions, which is even Jen just sharing honestly about her own evolution and really some of the ways that she has shifted, particularly like even in learning to tune into her own body and being able to recognize these early signs of when Some things that she wants to do, it may make sense on many levels financially, all of these, but there's something about her body is responding in a certain way and how she's learned to tune into that part versus just sort of pushing it down. And we wrap up with this question of Jen's advice for a therapist who has built a successful practice, who looks successful on the outside, but is teetering on burnout on the inside. I think you're going to love this conversation. It's one that, you know, it has me thinking a lot when it comes to how I build things and all of those things. So here's my conversation with Jennifer Blanchett from drjenblanchett.com. Hey Jen, welcome to Selling the Couch.

Jennifer Blanchett: I'm so happy to be here.

Melvin Varghese: Oh my gosh, LinkedIn out of all places, right? Connected us.

Jennifer Blanchett: I know.

Melvin Varghese: I know. It's the happening place.

Jennifer Blanchett: It's where you should be.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, it is. It's a cool place. Although I do have, as with like most of these social media platforms, I do have like a love hate with it, you know, so I've, I feel like in the past two years have had to learn to be boundaried and partly related to like burnout and, and trying to like mitigate against that. But it is a, it's a cool medium for sure.

Jennifer Blanchett: Definitely. I mean, I think especially for therapists, psychologists, I think it's an interesting space if you're like pivoting, thinking about different things in your career or just connecting again with people that you haven't talked to from the past. So I think it's been fun and it's text based. So I did like a whole another podcast before the podcast I have now, which I did Instagram, which felt like so much work for marketing and all of that. And so I'm really enjoying it.

Melvin Varghese: app. So with Instagram, you'd have to like create videos and then the text with the videos. Like it was just a lot of work. It sounds like. Yeah.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yes.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. It's fascinating. Yeah. I'm really enjoying it. I'm glad that we've been able to connect there. And I mean, if y'all are listening, definitely follow Jen on LinkedIn, especially if you're like interested in this idea of therapist burnout, which is what we're talking about today. I was telling Jen before we even started, I feel like any time we do a burnout related episode, it tends to resonate with a lot of you know, what we're navigating. And I especially feel like in this season, with whatever is happening with the economy, new administration, there's just a lot of layers that I think therapists are legit thinking about. I feel like many questions among them what role does clinical work play in my broader sort of business? How much do I want to do it? How do I mitigate against, you know, compounding effects of hearing some really traumatic stories and while also dealing with things personally. So I'm just grateful for you. I'm grateful that we get to have like an open and honest conversation about this.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yes. I'm very excited too.

Melvin Varghese: You know, I had a bunch of questions for you. I actually had to like stop because I was like, okay, I got to like, make sure not to overwhelm Jen here. So, but the first question I had was burnout among therapists, especially in private practice is not something that's talked out about a lot. Right. So even like in the private practice building space, it's often about, for example, building the six figure practice. or if you've become a successful solo practitioner, like going to a group practice and scaling that group practice to seven figures, right? So there's always these like numbers that I think if we're not careful, it can really like dictate our own like self worth, especially because many of us don't have backgrounds in business or marketing. When we start businesses, what's your sense of like, why we don't talk about burnout in the therapist space, but particularly among private practice therapists.

Jennifer Blanchett: So many reasons. I think, yeah, when we hear it in the business space or on podcasts or things like that, it's often this place that people think of, okay, I did agency or I did my internship in community mental health and private practice is this dream where I can have freedom. I can have all this expansion to kind of explore and play and And it can be those things and it can also have a lot of burnout traps. And I think namely with the one I hear from therapists so much is isolation. I mean that is like top thing that I hear from therapists is I did not realize just how isolated private practice would be. And so it really takes a lot of intentionality if you're in private practice to figure out how am I going to find community? How am I going to find other therapists, other people that I can talk to about my clinical work? about the isolation that I feel and when I get stuck with clients. And I think we forget what it was like in our training where I never forget, like I had five hours of supervision in my doctoral program at one point. And I was like, I just talk about therapy so much. How could I ever get burned out?

Melvin Varghese: Right.

Jennifer Blanchett: And then I get to this place where I don't talk to people for a whole week really about my clinical work when I was in private practice.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, you said so many really good things there. So I think one of them you said was private practice is often this stream for freedom. And I think it's like important to acknowledge that because I do think a good chunk of therapists, it's usually private practices. There's something that's making me discontent with my previous employment situation. right? IE, maybe we can even say there's elements of burnout there. And then private practice offers something like different and particularly in the realm of freedom. I was wondering if you could like expand on that, that idea of when you think about like, I guess, private practice, freedom, but often like, you know, this transition from previous employers and

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah. I mean, I think what we face in other situations in agency work or in group practice even is that we have to do practice in a certain way, right? You have to hold 26 clinical hours, for example. I mean, that's kind of typical, I think in a lot of spaces, that's actually not that bad. Some expectations are 30 hours a week. That was the expectation when I was in agency work was 30 clinical hours a week. So one is the workload. So we can alter our workload that gives us freedom there. the way we work, right? So in private practice, we can set our own schedules. So there's a lot of freedom in that. And also the types of clients that we can see, right? We can kind of tailor the type of clientele we want to see. So I think it can be advantageous for many, many reasons. And that creates a sense of freedom, right? I can kind of control my day. And that's really great. And that worked for me for a number of years that I had freedom in practice. And I also had another job. So I had something else that I was doing. So I think it did create a lot of freedom and that can work for a lot of therapists that they make that pivot to private practice and it really works. But I think there's not also the space where if you need community, if you need other things in your work life, that it's okay if it doesn't work, that it's not the solution for you. And where I think therapists get stuck when they thought, this was my place where I had freedom, where it worked for me, and maybe that worked in a season and now it doesn't work. Now it feels like the antithesis of that, that I'm stuck, that I'm burdened, that I've been seeing clients for years And I didn't really think clinically about the changes I need to make in the relationships there. And they're feeling really stuck. And so I think they get to the place where the private practice really feels, they feel trapped. I mean, those are the words that therapists will tell me. I feel trapped in it. I feel like I've, I've set up this practice that I no longer feel like myself. anymore, like inside the practice and outside the practice. And that was very true for me too. Like I didn't really know what to do with this thing that I created that then felt like I was trapped in.

Melvin Varghese: First of all, thank you for normalizing that, and particularly even normalizing that people, we can change, businesses can change, right? What may make sense for a season may not make sense in other seasons. I think the solo episode that I will create around an hour episode, this is a similar conclusion after a lot of navigating this. Because about a year before, I had shared, I'm thinking I want to go back into a very small practice while still handling SD. And I don't know, over the past year, some details, but some real life stuff has happened. where I am like, there is no practical way I can see clients and do a good job. Like I like, you know, my partners had to go back from, you know, work from home to back in the office, right? So the times that I was going to go see clients, now I have pick up and drop offs. right? So stuff like that. And I think for the past few months, I've really struggled with this guilt of, oh my gosh, I said something, I like to like follow through on it. But I didn't also know this was gonna happen. And now like, I'm trying to fit, like, I don't know, I'm like curious if you I think you struggle with this too, which is like that overachiever kind of like wanting to follow through part of me was like, okay, I'm just going to figure it out. Like, it doesn't matter if others know this is really hard for me. And then there was like a moment I was like, Oh my God, what are you doing? Like, it's okay. Like that freedom was there when you thought about it, but like things changed, you know?

Jennifer Blanchett: And I've done so many things like that. I think over this journey where I'm like, Oh, I like over just the summer, I was going to like, maybe I'll launch a small practice around just therapists. And I started creating web pages. I started, you know, getting my mind around it. And I got up into the precipice of maybe I was going to do some console calls and my body just gave me that knowing stop. And so I had to listen to it and, I guess now when that happens, when I talk on the podcast about things about like I was, I was getting ready to launch a group and I just talked about it on the podcast last week and I'm not ready. My life is not, can't hold that right now. Like I want that to happen. I want to have a group of therapists together, but I can't provide that. And so that is part of my burnout journey also is really listening to my body and that push that my personality wants to do because I think you're a podcaster like I am, right? Like we, we lean into like putting ourselves out there and like we have all these ideas and want to see a lot of them come to fruition, but it, maybe it's not a right now. Maybe it's a later time for you or maybe it's, that's just not going to happen. And I realize that now. So I think that that is part of knowing like what you can hold and when it's the right season.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. How did you learn to listen to your body versus your like ambition?

Jennifer Blanchett: Oh my gosh, full surrender. So I think the lesson, the hardest lesson that I learned in that was probably when I developed panic attacks in the midst of all of this and the pandemic as a therapist. So my body just kind of gave me a full stop and it said, we, you really need to slow down. And I developed panic attacks while driving on the highway. And I did a year and a half of EMDR therapy. I mean, I was an EMDR therapist. I still consider myself, I have that training, right? But it made me realize that something was happening inside my body. My body was having these reactions to the work that I was doing and to the chronic stress that I was under. And I think that was being, you know, apparent in the pandemic. It was being, a therapist in the pandemic and really trying to hold space for my children, for my partner, for my practice, for my clients. And my body just really gave me a full stop and said, something has got to give. And so that's when I started really doing the like untethering that I needed to do from all the things that I had committed to to figure out what can I hold now?

Melvin Varghese: It's often like the scariest step to do that, but I think like often the most liberating when we can take a step back and say like, okay, my body's responding in this way. Something is not right. And what can I like control or take out the situation to mitigate some of this? I don't know. And I just keep thinking like, the work we do, it's not, yes, it's confined to maybe a 45 minute, 50 minute session, but it's not really confined to a 45, 50 minute session, right? It permeates how we think about stuff, what we do, the energy we show up out into the world as we have or spend time with family and loved ones and all of that stuff, right? And I don't know. For me, I think the past couple of years, this is like does not come easy. Thinking about like a broader definition of success. And among those is like, what is my like, how's my body feeling in the midst of like making a decision like this could be a great financial decision. It could be amazing, whatever. But like ultimately knowing my body will probably shut down at some point. And so instead of getting to that point, think about it as an onset.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah, I think it's the compass that we have to listen to. And, you know, I think, you know, a lot of times we want to make these choices. We want to, you know, continue to push and the work changes us. And I don't think we realize that the work that we've done over the course, for me, over the course of my 20 years of working in mental health changed how I saw the world and then what the healing that I needed after all that work that I did.

Melvin Varghese: How do you think it changed you?

Jennifer Blanchett: I mean, I think I got to a point where I started to, my emotional responses were just different. So I became more numb. I think that vicarious trauma really came, was super loud for me in the pandemic, that I just was different. I was quieter. I didn't want to reach out socially. So it looked a little bit like depression during that time. And so part of me not being a therapist now for nearly two years is that I have, Like I can feel emotion, like emotion is coming up now for me, like as I'm talking to you. And I don't think that would have happened two years ago, you know, just that I have it available anymore. And I think it was because I kind of had to hold so much back to hold space for other people. Because when people would tell me things, you know, that were really difficult, traumatic, horrific, I had to hold a part of myself back. And I think that's how it changes. It changes you to do, you have to do that. to not have a natural human emotional reaction. As much as possible as we try to do that, I think it does change our emotional response.

Melvin Varghese: You know, as therapists, we manage so many roles in private practice, from being a clinician to a business owner, to doing all the things that we need to do to market our practice. It's really easy for all of us to feel overwhelmed, especially when we are juggling so many things. That's where the team at Alma comes in. This is a platform that I would consider if you are a solo practitioner that either wants to take insurance or that is private pay but just wants to hedge a little bit, especially to account for periods of economic uncertainty or weird things like hyperinflation like we've been dealing with in more recent times. Alma makes it easier than ever to build a thriving private practice. They include a bunch of different cool stuff. So one is they have a members-only platform where you can exchange resources with other clinicians, exchange referrals, and just find support. They have consultation groups as well. And they also offer CEUs as part of your membership at no additional cost. These are both live and on demand. Now, in order to get credentialed with Alma, typically to get credentialed with insurance, it takes months and months, but Alma actually has a 45-day credentialing process, and you actually get increased reimbursement rates. So they're often higher than if you were to go just through the insurance carrier and if you were just to apply as a solo practitioner. And the really cool thing is they guarantee payback within two weeks of when you see the client so that you can ensure your income stays steady. You can see as few as like one client or two clients just to hedge a little bit. And Hama also has a HIPAA compliant telehealth platform so that everything is safe and secure. Alma also has a bunch of different stuff to support clinicians, all the way from workshops and all sorts of things, as well as an online directory, so that you can continue to get referrals coming your way. The best part, the team at Alma was able to hook the Selling the Couch family and listeners with a unique code, which is over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma. That's actually for two months absolutely free on Alma's platform. This is a non-advertised, like non-publicly advertised discount. So definitely encourage you to check it out over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash Alma for a 60 day free trial just to see if it makes sense for you. I remember, I think this was during practicum, a supervisor likened the therapy session to a container and that we're sort of containers. I think I was like, and I loved that analogy, but I was looking back and I was like, my gosh, ability to be a container and really like take in so much stuff right and hear these stories and like oh my gosh what happens to the walls of that container when that happens like over and over and over again.

Jennifer Blanchett: It's tough.

Melvin Varghese: It's tough.

Jennifer Blanchett: And I sit with therapists who just literally feel like they've come to the end of themselves. And the one reaction that I want to give them so much compassion for is what they feel like. They feel like they failed. They feel like somehow I'm broken because I can't do this anymore. So I just don't want to speak to any therapist listening to this. It is a common response and reaction to feel like you have somehow, you're somehow broken or not, not good enough because you feel like you can't do this work anymore. I feel like it's a consequence of holding really difficult space for people that it's okay if you needed a break. It's okay if you can't do this work anymore. So I think a lot of the work that I do is giving permission, providing permission for rest, for breaks. I just talked to my podcast about, A lot of times, I just want you to really learn to be an expert on rest and figure out what that looks like for you so that you can feel like yourself again, so you can get some of your humanity back. Because that's where I sit with a lot of, in a lot of space with other therapists.

Melvin Varghese: You and I, like, I noticed you got teary, I got teary just before, as we were talking about this, like, I don't know, what do you think was happening? I don't know for you. I know for me, like I just, I don't know, there was an image flashed in my mind of like starting grad school in like 2005, you know, going through all this training and like loving it, but also like so much compassion for that Mel, right, that had to hear all these things. And yeah, I had the supervision and I was like so grateful for it. And I'm like, I will always be so grateful for my supervisors. But reality also is like, it does take a toll on you, you know? And I think I wasn't a clinician during the pandemic, but I can imagine that is like normal therapy stuff amped up like times 10.

Jennifer Blanchett: I think the compassion you're talking about, you know, I, I've thought about that therapist. I thought about myself, that Jen, who was in 2020 and 2021, who had like a kindergartner and a preschooler and how I was trying my best. And I think part of it was feeling like I wasn't the mom for them that I needed to be. And that part is hard. You know, I think, and that's what I was like, something has to change. Like I need something different for my life. And I think getting to that point was important, but I have so much compassion. I'm so proud of who I was to know that I needed to pivot to close my practice. Even though I felt like at that point, I felt like I'd failed, honestly, that I built this thing. I thought, It was my baby, you know, I think for a lot of people in private practice. I built it with a son who had heart surgery and I couldn't go back to my agency job and it was a way for me to continue to work. And it worked for a while and I was so proud that I started a practice. I never thought I could do it. I never said I wanted to own a private practice. I never wanted to be a business person and I learned so many skills. And so I often like do this building up with my therapist clients to like, just look at what you've done. Just look at all the things that you've been able to do. Like you, you know, you have a doctorate degree, you got your LCSW, you built a practice, you're holding space for all these people. You know, I think about those, those beautiful sessions that you've had. So a lot of it is like building people up and just showing them like all the things that they have within them that when they've gotten to this place of chronic depletion, it just feels like everything is awful and I failed. And there's this some cost fallacy, of course, that I got this degree, I built this practice and now I can't do it. And what does that even mean about me as a person? Because I've tied my identity to being a therapist, to being this practice owner, to being the person that holds things. I can't anymore.

Melvin Varghese: you said something of so beautiful, which is I think so true, right? Like it's never, you're building a private practice in isolation, right? It's building private practice. And there's usually some other thing you're navigating, right? Whether it is son who needs heart surgery, being a parent, being as you know having a significant other like maybe you know parents that need caregiving whatever it is right like it's i think i was a little naive to it you know because i just thought like oh this is like i can just do this thing here and then step out of it and you know

Jennifer Blanchett: I think throughout our lives, we don't realize that we just have a certain capacity for caring, right? And that goes through clinical work to home life. And as we get older, we have more demands of that caring quotient as I kind of talk about it. Like we only have so much available to us. And so if some of that is depleted in our therapy practice, then we can't provide it for our loved ones at home. If it's depleted at home, then we don't have it as much clinically. So we have to think about managing our resources because they're finite and they're precious. And our ability to give is just what we have.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, I like that definition of it. You said something earlier, you said a lot of your work with therapists is just reminding them of what they have accomplished, even in the midst of like feeling like they failed, right? Like the sunk cost fallacy. Something I struggle with is when something doesn't work out, I'm like, I feel like it failed, but then I also have this hard time seeing that it was never that black and white, right? There were some really beautiful moments. And so I sort of minimize the positive things that happened and even the lessons that I learned. And I feel like a lot of us do that. What would you say to someone that's listening and that has that, that tendency as well?

Jennifer Blanchett: I think one of my favorite things to say is that you have a human brain, right? That thinks in this way, right? We tend to think of the things that are going wrong or that we're struggling with because, you know, I think our sympathetic nervous system is just prone to do that. It wants to protect us from threat. So all the things that are hard, we don't want to continue to want to do that. And so when you've been in chronic depletion, especially in burnout, I think we are just trying to do whatever we can to escape all of that. And so I think a lot of the therapists are like, what is the next thing? Is it, you know, is it intensive? Is it a bridge job? Is it, you know, starting a podcast, which was some of my dirty and burnout, my first podcast. to try to get the escape hatch, right? Your brain is trying to do that escape hatch. So it's not thinking of like, okay, let's slow down. Let's remember like actually what we can do, what skills we do have, what things we have accomplished and how we can figure this out because we are in fight or flight. So I think through kind of that trauma lens of what we're going through, that we're often operating in that mode. And so we have to really turn down the volume, get some rest, figure out what we can, you know, what things we can take out of our life before we can put things back in.

Melvin Varghese: Looking back, what were telltale signs of burnout that were there, but you didn't see?

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah, I think that's come over the course of my career with different. My first burnout experience was back in my twenties when I was a caseworker in foster care and it usually is my body. My body will give me kind of reactions. Either I have some tension or headaches. Um, I think this, this past one was a full stop. panic attacks that just developed out of nowhere. But I think some of the early signs were that when I would be on, I would go on vacation, right? And then I'd come back from vacation and it didn't feel like it was enough of a break. I think that's one of those kind of early signs that we are starting to get depleted and that we really need to start to work on really figuring out what we need, what supports that we need or kind of changing the way we work completely. And I think a lot of the pivots that I've done throughout my career was like, Ooh, I'm starting to feel like this is burning me out. So I pivot to another job and really hadn't thought about setting up the systems in my life for whatever I do so that I can feel like I am, you know, healthy in my relationships, that my body feels strong and healthy as well. That I think in all areas that I'm thinking through how I'm navigating through the world in a healthy way.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. Almost like thinking about the thinking, right? And being folk and like, like in that moment, right? Like realizing all of these things and, but that's not like acting without like intention, I guess.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah. And I think a lot of my career choices have been out of like, you know, not really thinking methodically towards like, Hey, I really want to work towards this goal or whatever. And I think our field sets us up for that, right? Something doesn't work. So I have to go to this other thing. Like when my son had heart surgery, okay, I have to like take this all in and start my own private practice with zero help. I did my own website. I did my own billing. And so I think a lot of times we just take so much on as therapists that we don't realize that we need help. We need support. And it's okay to look for that even in making our decisions that it's okay to, you know, reach out to a colleague or hire a coach or do some of the things that might be helpful in those decision-making processes.

Melvin Varghese: I think one thing with private practice, I think there's, for most therapists, right, when they're starting private practice, like they don't have a lot of discretionary income to spend on things like that, right? Like to hire a biller or handle someone with like phones or whatever it is, right? And it is. I think you're absolutely right. That system sets it up to at least closer to burnout potential from the onset. I don't know. I would love to hear your thoughts on what What are the alternatives? One idea that I just randomly had when you were talking is maybe it's like, hey, you set aside X amount of money even before jumping into private practice. just so that you can put some of these bare minimum systems or systems that I guess in the moment feel like a luxury, but potentially could or mitigate against some of that burnout stuff. So you're not trying to like see clients, build a practice, handle calls, like, you know, all of that stuff.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah. I mean, I think there's so many to think about and for every therapist, it's going to be different. Right. First would be doing math.

Melvin Varghese: the bait of many therapists.

Jennifer Blanchett: But I wish someone would have told me that. I wish someone would have said, you know, think about your average clinical hour and what are your expenses and really think through if that makes sense for you. Because I think a lot of times I just like threw myself into it. I took every insurance panel, I took Medicaid and every year insurance under the sun, I didn't think about what is my average session cost or payment that I'm going to get. And then does that make sense for my expenses and the money that I need to make to sustain my life? Does that even make financial sense? Because if we think through that, then it might be, well, actually it doesn't make a lot of financial sense, but if I take this contract job, maybe that actually makes better sense for me right now. So, I think really going into it, looking at all aspects of what a practice might take, the hours that it might take for admin work, for example, is a lot. And so, what is it going to cost to get my website up and running? What is it going to cost to do the billing if I'm handling it or if somebody else is handling it? Because there is going to be a cost for you to learn billing because I learned it all I learned how to bill and I wasn't great at it and I lost money, a lot of money, not getting the money that I actually earned. So if we think through, well, if I pay 5% to a biller, that's that 5%. But you don't think about, I'm probably, if I'm not doing that, I'm going to lose 10% of my income. We don't think about all the money in cancellations and late cancels. And so having that tight cancellation policy, how that's going to benefit us. I've read some statistics that therapists can lose anywhere between 10% of their income in cancellations and no-shows. So I think of there's so many things I think therapists can think about, but I think starting very simply, you know, I started with a huge website and doing all the things. That's how I had to start because we're overachievers as therapists. We want to have like the great website and look really competent, but that's not as important to just get yourself started and start with the very simple 1.0 version of your therapy practice website or whatever it is for you.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah. I love that, man. I've got like one or two more questions for you. You've had such an evolution, I think through like various careers, various, uh, how burnout has looked different, like different for you. What are things that you're thinking about now when it comes to like just burnout or burnout prevention? I don't even know if that's the right word, but like, how are you thinking about it now versus like how you used to think about it?

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah. I mean, in so many ways, I think, you know, there's, there's burnout that we all, I think experience from, and that's from an occupational kind of sense that anyone can experience burnout, right? Your workload is too, too high. You have, maybe you're overworked, there's low pay. That is, that is a thing that happens for therapists, right? I think also what is unique to therapists is compassion fatigue. And, you know, we've all heard some of that research, but it is that cost of caring. It is the constant like holding space that we do as therapists that is unique to a caregiving relationship. And then I think coupled also with moral injury, that this work becomes morally injurious often to many of us, whether that be for me, part of that was, you know, being a therapist in, you know, an election cycle of 2020. And I identified at that time as a Christian psychologist. And having clients that would tell me racist things, I felt like a lot of times I was complicit, you know, in some of that. And so that's just one example of how I think moral injury can show up. for therapists, but we don't often think about what is it costing to the way we see ourselves and what we feel like is moral to do as therapists. So I think it is the interaction between all of and the vicarious trauma. I didn't put that in the mix. So especially for trauma therapists, we don't realize how much sometimes we can be impacted. Our own bodies are impacted by doing that trauma work, by hearing the stories of our clients and then having our own trauma symptoms. And I had acute trauma symptoms with a couple of cases where I needed my own EMDR work. And so I think really it's the interaction of a lot of that for therapists that it's really hard to untangle for them. So I really recommend thinking through your own personal therapy, your own personal trauma work. Potentially I've had an EMDR therapist done EMDR work as a client that has been really, I think important for me to heal from a lot of that, which I think kind of segues into burnout prevention versus burnout recovery. If that makes sense for me to go into that.

Melvin Varghese: Yeah, yeah, of course.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah. So I think a lot of what we hear in the space is around burnout prevention, self-care, nervous system regulation. That is stress management. We all need stress management because life is stressful, right? I think a lot of therapists are in burnout. They need burnout recovery. So they need deep nervous system resets. they need really to think through medically, relationally, how they can reset their entire lives. And so I, I'm going to touch on a little bit of my experience from working with folks with TBI. So I know overwhelmed brains. I've worked with them all of my career and I see therapists who are just, they are at the point of chronic depletion. They're in the bed at night. They feel like they can barely get up in the morning. And that's just the reality of where they are. And so they really need like a year or two of deep recovery, therapy work, medical intervention, some kind of body work likely to help their body recover from what they've been suffering from. And I think a lot of them don't realize it till they're literally at the end of the rope and just, I cannot, my body wouldn't let me get up today is some of the realizations that I hear from therapists.

Melvin Varghese: Thank you for like outlining that. Cause I think like, I think you're right. Like it is beyond just like go to the wellness spa, get a massage, like, right. Like, especially at beyond a certain level, like you said that deep nervous system reset. I think that's like such a great way of, of, of saying it. I had one final question for you, if that's okay. What would you tell a therapist who's successful on the outside in private practice, successful on the outside, but teetering on the edge of burnout on the inside?

Jennifer Blanchett: I think that it's okay to be where you are and just that I'm just going to normalize it that I think a lot of therapists feel like they have to hang on to where they are because I think a lot of them are scared of letting people down. I mean, that's one of the biggest things I work with therapists on is they're scared of letting their clients down. They've held them for so long and they're scared of that abandonment. I'm going to abandon this client. They're going to be upset with me. I'm going to hurt them, which I think a lot of therapists are such caring and loving people and they, they want to continue to carry that client through their whole journey to see everything happen. And I just had said this on a call recently, you know, sometimes we don't carry our clients all the way through. but we've carried them through a part. And that part that you carried them through was really important. And so to honor that part and just to acknowledge it for them and yourself of the great work that you did, even if it doesn't always feel that way, especially at this point where you might be closing or terminating or whatever with them, because it's important for you to do that.

Melvin Varghese: Thank you for saying that. Jen, I'm so grateful for you, grateful for the work that you are doing, grateful for your courage and vulnerability, sharing your own story and the ways that you serve our field. Where can we learn more about you? Where can we connect with you? All of those things.

Jennifer Blanchett: Yeah, you might hear a child in the background. So yeah, so I host the therapist burnout podcast. So certainly connect with me on the podcast. Um, I think that's a great place for people to hear what I offer. Yeah. And I'd love to connect with you more so you can find me there. It's probably the best place.

Melvin Varghese: Awesome. Jen, thank you again for this conversation. And, uh, yeah, I'm just, again, grateful for you.

Jennifer Blanchett: Thanks so much. It's been awesome.

Melvin Varghese: Bye.

Jennifer Blanchett: Bye.

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jen, and especially if burnout is something that you're starting to recognize in yourself. I hope that this podcast has been helpful for you. More than anything, I hope that it's given you just different ways to think about it besides go see your own therapist, do supervision, you know, build more self-care into your days. This topic of burnout, you know, the longer I get in with STC and build out STC, and I realize, man, there are so many nuances to this that one really has to think about and factor. I hope the conversation with Jen has just been incredibly helpful for you. I resonated with so much of it. I shared even my own. I alluded to this of like deciding not to go back into private practice and this will again be an episode that's somewhere around this conversation but I think Jen put words in that I hadn't quite thought of it in that way of man like doing these businesses and the toll that it takes on you know even if we love them right but the totality of the toll that it takes and I love that phrase of like a deep nervous system reset and so I hope that this is one of these episodes where it's not just like you've listened to it and you're like oh that sounded so good I want to do that a lot right which most of us have a tendency, including me, to do. But I hope it's something that you legitimately think through, even if you're not feeling particularly burned out, even if you're actually feeling great with your work, which is fantastic. But I hope it also encourages you to put in some of these systems into place, realizing seasons can change. And if you are on, you know, at that edge of burnout, I hope that today's session has particularly been helpful for you. Please don't hesitate to shoot Jenna a message or DM. She's quite active on LinkedIn. Her website is again at drjenblanchette.com. And yeah, I hope that you enjoyed today's session. Have a great rest of your day and appreciate you. Bye.

Narrator: Thanks for listening to the Selling the Couch podcast. For more great content and to stay up to date, visit www.sellingthecouch.com.

Melvin Varghese: Hey there, thank you so much for tuning in to today's session. Just wanted to also let you know that we have a free email newsletter that goes out every week. You can download it over at sellingthecouch.com forward slash newsletter. Basically that newsletter contains some of the stuff that's happening behind the scenes with STC and also with my life and how I'm balancing and trying to balance being both an entrepreneur as well as building a life around my family and my health as well. And it also contains the latest podcast episode and some of the stuff that I'm doing on LinkedIn, some of the strategies and things that are working for me. And then finally, a brand new section called On Mel's Mind, where I take a video or a book or a blog post or something like that that's inspiring me for that week, and I share how I'm implementing it both in my life and in my business. Again, you can download that over at signthecouch.com forward slash newsletter. And if you are one of the thirty seven hundred colleagues that have been a part of the email newsletter is so appreciate you and I'm grateful for your support. We genuinely try to make these helpful and and just based on the data and based on the feedback we're getting, it seems like we're doing a really good job. So appreciate you. And I hope they have a great day.

00:00:34 – Introduction to Burnout in Private Practice
00:01:28 – The Hidden Hazards of Private Practice
00:02:52 – Recognizing the Signs of Burnout
00:05:15 – The Challenges of Social Media for Therapists
00:05:36 – The Importance of Community for Therapists
00:06:28 – The Illusion of Freedom in Private Practice
00:09:54 – The Transition from Agency Work to Private Practice
00:15:25 – Listening to Your Body vs. Ambition
00:20:04 – The Container Analogy in Therapy
00:29:15 – Telltale Signs of Burnout
00:40:04 – Advice for Therapists on the Edge of Burnout
00:41:53 – Conclusion and Resources for Therapists