When I think about building my career as a therapist, I must start with my need to build my IDENTITY as a therapist first.
I followed a somewhat circuitous route to becoming a mental health practitioner; I spent 11 years working in the Entertainment industry, followed by a stint in the non-profit sector and finally, at age 35, returned to graduate school to obtain an MS in Counseling, but with a Career Counseling specialization. Truthfully the idea of being a therapist had always scared me – attempting to support people at some of the most critical moments of their lives sounded daunting! At the time, having just experienced my own indecision-ridden career crisis for the last 15+ years, I felt more comfortable jumping into that end of the “helping profession pool”. I KNEW what it felt like to be lost, hopeless, misguided within a career context; the feeling of professionally trying to fit a square peg into a round hole was deeply ingrained in me. The tactical/logistical part of the career counseling process felt safer, more structured. I felt as though I could just learn how to follow the steps, ask the right questions, administer the right assessments…I could not go wrong. Little did I know, as a novice career counselor, that it would truly encompass so much more.
Once I accepted the honor and responsibility that went along with a helping profession, I became hungry for more…. more challenges, deeper issues, an opportunity to focus my empathetic lens on more than career uncertainty. I obtained my LPCC in 2013 and later was certified as an Employee Assistance Professional, while working at a major healthcare center in Los Angeles.
In addition to building my identity, I also needed to build my brand and acknowledge that I had value to offer. I wanted to be perceived within the provider marketplace as genuine, not fluffy…knowledgeable, but also approachable. Truth be told, I just wanted clients to like me! It took some time for me to accept that my “hodge podge” variety of specialties would ultimately help me serve a larger portion of the population. It has been rewarding to see how many people need support in regards to their careers, their past trauma, their ongoing anxiety and with the convoluted process of grieving…. sometimes all within the same session. Eventually I came up with a name for my solo practice – Insightful Empathy. I launched in 2019 (initially part time while I was still working in healthcare) and then expanded to full time in 2021.
Part of building my career as a therapist was learning how to market effectively. My first website was simple and clunky and truly did not reflect who I was. It reeked of desperation, reading more like a resume, using titles and accomplishments to entice prospective clients to work with me. It was as if I needed to hit them over the head with my experience, in hopes of masking the “imposter syndrome” that I was so clearly suffering from.
Over time, I started to come into my own. In early 2023, I made two big decisions. First, I was going to stop accepting insurance and go 100% private pay. That meant no more referrals and no more employer sponsored EAP plans…. that meant jumping out of the plane without the back-up parachute. I was going to be solely responsible for advertising my services and demonstrating value in hopes of attracting new clients.
The second decision had to do with my marketing strategy -If I expected people to invest in themselves by choosing to work with me, I needed to model behavior by investing in a major website overhaul. And I did just that. I hired a marketing guru who is also a therapist. My current website is one that I am proud to show clients, proud to display a link to within my Gmail auto-signature and proud to say is a true representation of who I am, as both a person and a therapist. The language is enticing, but not salesy….it has taken me a long time to realize that my value can speak for itself, but to do that, I really must represent my true self. It is no longer fluffy or technical…it is real. It evokes humor and honesty, peppered with expertise and empathy. I believe it manages the expectations of being in therapy - i.e. I am not a magician, but reminds potential clients that the possibility of change is real.
The building of my career is and always will be a work in progress. I am constantly adapting and upskilling. The 36 CEUs my licensure requires allows for continual learning and exposure to new techniques and modalities within the field. Since my website refresh, I have continued to strategize new ways to effectively market my services – I added the Mentaya link to the financial investment page on my website. I have invested in an aggressive Google Ads campaign, I attend networking events, I routinely highlight a specialty-focused Psychology Today profile each month, I have done trauma response work with corporations, I purchased a sponsorship at my daughter’s elementary school that included logo placement on a high traffic banner and am listed as a provider in several professional association directories. Most importantly, I continue to model the behaviors I ultimately strive to instill in clients – honesty, a sense of self, confidence, humility, and hope.
Jamie Harris is an LPCC living and practicing in Los Angeles, CA. She came to the field of counseling by way of trying every other job imaginable first! She has a background in the entertainment industry and the non-profit sector. She specializes in Trauma/EMDR, Grief, Anxiety and Career. She runs a bi-monthly support group for local moms called “Mamas Anonymous.”
