Why You Need To Offer Group Therapy With Carrie Haynes | PoP 547

Share this content

What are some common misconceptions around conducting group therapy sessions? How can you effectively market your group sessions? What are some important clinical skills that a budding group therapist should work towards?

In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks with Carrie Haynes about why we need to offer group therapy.

Podcast Sponsor

Try out TherapyNotes! It makes notes, billing, scheduling, and telehealth a whole lot easier. Check it out and you will quickly see why it’s the highest-rated EHR on TrustPilot with over 1000 verified customer reviews and an average customer rating of 4.9/5 stars.

You’ll notice the difference from the first day you sign up for a trial. They offer live phone support 7 days a week.

So when you have questions, you can quickly reach someone who can help, you are never wasting your time looking for answers.
If you are coming from another EHR, they make the transition really easy. TherapyNotes will import your clients’ demographic data free of charge during your trial so you can get going right away.

To get 3 free months of TherapyNotes, no strings attached including their very reliable telehealth platform click on www.therapynotes.com and enter the promo code: Joe

Meet Carrie Haynes

Carrie Haynes is a licensed professional counselor and the creator of The Art of Groups podcast and the Facebook community.

She has spent her career specializing in group work and is passionate about supporting therapists and healers in facilitating transformational group experiences for their clients. She truly believes that powerful group work can change the world.

Visit her website and join the Facebook community. Listen to The Art of Groups Podcast.

Claim your spot for an experiential training group for therapists who want to “learn by doing”

In This Podcast

  • Common misconceptions around group therapy
  • Clinical skills therapists can work on before conducting a group session
  • Marketing group therapy
  • Carrie’s tips for therapists starting their own podcasts

Common misconceptions around group therapy

“If you know how to conduct individual therapy then you know how to facilitate groups”

This is not true.

It is a special skillset and I think a lot of people get discouraged because things come up in group that they don’t know how to handle and don’t know how to deal with and then they feel like ‘well maybe I’m not so good at this’ or ‘maybe groups aren’t so helpful’ … but no, you didn’t get any specialized training [therefore] we would never expect you to be a wonderful therapist with no training. (Carrie Haynes)

The majority of therapist training does not include training therapists on how to handle and conduct group therapy, but this does not mean they are incapable therapists, it simply means that they lack the necessary skillset.

Luckily, it is something that you can learn and become better at. Give yourself the chance to see how successful a group facilitator you can become with a little mentorship and a little bit of grace.

“Group takes a lot of work”

If you prepare just a little, show up with your best self, and are willing to be present and centered – as all therapists have been taught – group can then feel like less work and can be more energizing because you are part of a healing space.

If we are dealing with [our clients] issues with relationships with people, there is something so much more powerful about the client being able to have an in vivo experience, because what we know is that in a lot of groups what happens in the outside world will be recreated inside of the group, but then there is an opportunity to heal that and change it. (Carrie Haynes)

Clinical skills therapists can work on before conducting a group session

  • Centering yourself and being able to be present in tracking what is going on in the moment rather than being in your head.
  • Being more embodied and present.
  • Tracking the process versus the content. Do not only follow the words that people are saying but also look at how and why they are saying them, and what is happening among and between members.

Marketing group therapy

It can be more difficult for people to self-select therapeutic groups for themselves.

Look at your own caseload:

and see who already in your caseload could benefit from group work who could benefit from it. If you are starting your group for the first time, consider starting with three or four clients in a session.

Market it to your colleagues:

Market group therapy to your follow therapists because therapists have relationships with their clients and they will not recommend their client to see a group therapist or join a group therapy session without reason, and their client will appreciate that because clients trust their therapists.

Tips for therapists starting their own podcast

  • Get some help with it: consider hiring a virtual assistant to help you with the editing and the show notes. Think about the systems that need to be taken care of so that you can shine on the podcast without having to worry about the admin pieces.
  • Give yourself the opportunity to get some support so that you can achieve your goals.
  • Have lots of self-compassion.

Useful Links:

Meet Joe Sanok

private practice consultant

Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners that are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

 

Podcast Transcription

[JOE SANOK]: Is managing your practice stressing you out? Try Therapy Notes. It makes notes, billing, scheduling, and tele-health a whole lot easier. Check it out and you will quickly see why it’s the highest rated EHR on Trustpilot with over a thousand verified customer views and an average customer rating of 4.9 out of five stars. You’ll notice the difference from the first day you sign up for a trial. They offer live phone support seven days a week so when you have questions, you can quickly reach out to someone who can help. You are never wasting your time looking for answers. If you’re coming from another EHR, they make the transition really easy. Therapy Notes will import your clients’ demographic data free of charge during your trial so you can get going right away. Use the promo code [JOE] to get three months to try out Therapy Notes, totally free, no strings attached, including their very reliable tele-health platform. Make 2021 best year yet with Therapy Notes. Again, that’s promo code [JOE] at checkout to get three months totally free.
This is the Practice of the Practice podcast with Joe Sanok, session number 547.
I am so excited to have you all on the podcast with me today. I hope you are doing awesome. I hope your practices are growing and thriving. If you have been listening to this podcast for awhile, I just want to say thank you. You know, we get new people all the time, but if you’ve stuck with us, I know that there’s podcasts I listened to all the time and come and go and there’s other ones that they serve a certain function for a period of time and then I move on. I hope that we’re covering things that continue to engage you and get you thinking bigger than maybe you learned in grad school or early in your career. We’ve had some really awesome guests recently. We just had that series on the Enneagram that Whitney did with her husband and then we had all those consulting shows.
[JOE]: So hopefully you’ve been enjoying that. It’s been an amazing beginning of 2021. Pretty soon here, I’m going to be working with Harper Collins on launching my book, that’s going to be out in October. So you’ll be hearing more about that. I’m sure you’re going to want to get it. It’s called Thursday is the New Friday, and it’s all about how, when we work less, we actually are more productive and more creative. So I’ll be chatting a little bit more about that in the coming podcast as well, but I am so excited to introduce you to Carrie Haynes. Carrie is a friend of mine. I just want to start with that. So I’m just excited to have her on the show, but she is also a licensed professional counselor and the creator of The Art of Groups podcast, a Facebook community, she was a speaker at Killin’It Camp and has her own practice in Fort Collins, Colorado. Carrie, welcome to the Practice of the Practice podcast.
[CARRIE HAYNES]: Thanks Joe. So glad to be here.
[JOE]: Oh man. I am so excited to have you here. I remember when we did The Art of Dreaming Big and you were talking about the podcast and it’s funny how sometimes you feel like you’re behind and then you realize when you’re around other people at your same phase, that there’s areas that you’re just like ahead. And it felt like, I don’t know, if you felt this way, I felt like you came into it thinking that you were going to be up here and then in a lot of ways you are so much farther ahead of some of the other people that were there. And it just was like such an affirmation of where you are at in your career of just kind of pushing groups and growing your podcast and all these really cool things. I don’t know if you felt that, but I felt that a lot there.
[CARRIE]: Yes. I felt like I was pleasantly surprised at like seeing my readiness. Like, I didn’t know how ready I was until I got into that group. And there was just this synergy around what we were doing and your energy and I was like, “Wow, I’m closer than I think. I just, I’m ready to do this, to launch it,” and I felt like just having that camaraderie and support really made it easier to just dive right in.
[JOE]: Yes. Well, give us a little bit of a history of kind of you and groups, because I know that a lot of people out there say that they teach groups, but then when you really dig into it, like they don’t have the history, but you’ve got the history of groups. So take us through in just a little bit of kind of your career, because those formative years, I think oftentimes set a trajectory, whether we like it or not into a direction for things. So take us through kind of those early days of your clinical work.
[CARRIE]: Yes, absolutely. Well, I always laugh because my first groups were, well, my family of origin was probably my first group. I think I was a therapist in my family, starting out, growing up. I’m one of five and I was always feeling into incensing the dynamics of my family and probably doing some group work that I didn’t really realize. So I got early training just in life but then when I went to grad school. I had an assistantship in the Center for Drug and Alcohol Education and my first experience with groups where mandated groups of students who had broken the university’s alcohol policy. That was a pretty tough crowd to start in and I had to be really creative and really just work to get any kind of relationship in this very short three-hour group experience that I facilitated.
Honestly it was pretty terrifying and rough. And I feel like I learned a lot from that, but it also made me realize how much I wanted more support and mentorship around group work. So that was my first experience. And then I moved into, I actually was seeing a therapist in the counseling center, like doing my own work, like we’re told to do as therapists and getting my own therapy while I was in grad school. And my counselor recommended I join an interpersonal process group. So my experience first was as a member of an interpersonal process group. And I think that that was great. I feel like we learned so, so much from being a member and doing our own work. Like, I feel like I’ve learned more about therapy that way than in a lot of trainings or the classroom.
And so after that experience, I had some transformational moments in that group, but it was pretty short if it was on a semester basis. And so my therapist had told me that the person who she had learned group therapy from was offering the class that summer. And I reached out to that professor and got accepted into the course and it was all based on process-oriented psychotherapy. And I just felt like I had come home. There was so much that resonated with me about interpersonal process theory, about being genuine, talking about what was going on between myself and the clients and the here and now, and that really launched my career into group work. And funny enough, that’s also where I met Jeremy, my husband, who is also a psychologist and a good friend of yours. We didn’t really start dating then, but we met in that class. So I really can say that that class transformed my life in ways I didn’t even know who it would. It was a game changer for me.
[JOE]: So then like what with that process oriented kind of approach, like what really just like resonated with you and what were elements that you were like, “Man, this is,” you said it was like coming home. Like what about it really felt like it was coming home?
[CARRIE]: Well, I just really believe that we all want to experience deep intimacy. We want to experience a sense of connectedness and we want to feel our belonging with other people and in the world. And I think that some of the most painful moments are when we feel we don’t belong or we don’t feel connected or we get missed and we don’t feel attuned to. And what my experience was in the process oriented psychotherapy groups was there was a real permission to show up authentically, to be human as a therapist and to name what was happening and to name sort of what was happening in the space between me and the client. So no longer did it feel like I was learning a theory, but it felt, and even a more dynamic way that I was just naming what might be getting in the way between me and the client or the client and somebody else in the room feeling that sense of belonging and connectedness.
Like I could name it, we could feel it, we could experience it. And it was happening right in the here and now. It wasn’t happening somewhere else at home and they were telling me about it, but I was experiencing it with them. And so were the other members, and then there was this amazing opportunity to move those blocks out of the way so that they could maybe sometimes for the first experience that sense of really being seen, really feeling connected. And that was magical. It just felt like everything dropped away and there was a magic that happened in the room and those groups. And so I was just hooked from that point on when I saw what could happen there.
[JOE]: Oh, that’s so cool. So then when did you get your private practice going? How did groups interact with that? Or was that always part of it or did that come later? Like take us through that in your private practice?
[CARRIE]: Yes, so after I did that first process group training, I actually ended up moving into a role at the university counseling center after I graduated with my masters in 2006. And I started facilitating two groups every semester that were process-oriented. So about six groups a year, I would facilitate with college students in the university counseling center, and I just loved the work and then eventually moved into a role of directing the group program at Colorado State University. So I did a lot of teaching and training therapists and training social work counseling, and psychology interns, how to facilitate groups. And we did all kinds of groups. We did process-oriented groups, but we also did art therapy and mindfulness-based groups, DBT, we did groups incorporating music. It just really ran the gamut. So I got to see how groups, all different types of groups could create the magic and healing that I had first experienced in those interpersonal process groups.
And after about 10 years in that role, which I absolutely loved during that time, I ended up marrying Jeremy and having two children. And what I found was working 50 hours a week at a university counseling center, even though I loved the work and being a mom was getting pretty tiring. So I moved into private practice in 2016. That was a big transition and it felt like a relief in some ways, but it also felt I really missed the teaching and training part because I just got so much energy and watching my students that I would work with, who maybe had pretty negative experiences with groups in the past, or maybe hadn’t had very good training or mentorship just fall in love with group during that internship year, the way that I did. And so when I moved into the community, I noticed that a lot of my colleagues and peers were not offering group work and felt maybe similarly to the way that I felt back when I was running those mandated groups when I first started leading groups. And I just felt kind of disappointed that, wow, like if I wouldn’t have had the training and experience, I may have never have experienced the magic of group work.
[JOE]: Yes. Like what are some common myths around group? For people that may be they had their group class in grad school and then maybe they haven’t run it or like myself, I read, so I ran some court mandated groups when I worked for the wraparound program with CMH. But you know, I did experiential groups where we did high ropes courses and things like that, but that wasn’t really therapy oriented as a therapist, but also people that have had experience with groups, but they maybe have been out of touch with it. What are some of the common misconceptions that you feel like have to be undone before we can move into like what actually makes good groups and how to market them and all of that side of it?
[CARRIE]: Yes. Great. This is a big piece of the work that I do because, one of the main ones is just that if you know how to do individual therapy, then you know how to facilitate groups. And I think that that’s not true. Now, do I think that you should not facilitate groups at all? No, but it is a special skillset. And I think a lot of people get discouraged because things come up in group that they don’t know how to handle and don’t know how to deal with. And then they feel like, well, maybe I’m not so good at this or maybe groups aren’t so helpful, but I just want to say like, “No, you didn’t get any specialized training. We would never expect you to be a wonderful therapist with no training.” And so it’s interesting the way that our academic training does not prepare us for group work and yet the majority of therapists are just thrown into group experiences.
And I think that we still have things to offer. We still can be healing. We can still use some of the skills we learned about individual in group, but that one group class that most of us got during grad school, it’s just not enough. And so if you’ve had any of those experiences, I guess I would say, give yourself a chance to be surprised at how amazing of a group facilitator you can become with a little mentorship and also at as little bit of grace, if you didn’t do everything as skillfully as you would have liked to because we just, we didn’t get the training or mentorship.
So that would be the number one. And then the number two about group is I think that a lot of people believe that group takes a lot of work. Like you have to prepare and plan and have handouts and almost teach it, create it like a class. And I find that usually if you get some training and you know how to handle the unexpected, if you just prepare a little and show up, being willing to be present and centered, which we all have learned how to do an individual therapy, really group can feel like less work. It can feel more energizing because you have the whole circle of participants that help to create the healing space with you. So those are two big ones. I could think of a lot of others if you want me to go into them, but those are two of the biggest ones.
[JOE]: You know what, one thing that I hear from people, and I’m no in groups at all, in regards to therapeutic groups is, well, why would someone sign up for a group when they’re mostly going to sit there and just listen to other people rather than just have the attention on them for a full session? How do you address that mindset and how people talk about that? And then I’d love to kind of get into some of the clinical skills that are needed and then some of the kind of marketing skills. But like, when people say that, like how do you address that pushback on groups?
[CARRIE]: Yes, I think that’s a great, I hear that all the time. And the way that I feel about that is that a couple things; one is that clients who are struggling with interpersonal issues, which is basically almost every client we work with, if we’re dealing with issues in relationships with other people, there is something so much more powerful about the client being able to have an in vivo experience. Because what we know is that on a lot of groups, what happens in the outside world will be recreated inside of the group, but then there’s an opportunity to heal that and change it. And so I find that group work can be more effective because we’re not just talking about, let’s say my partner and the struggles that come up, but we’re in the group and we’re noticing like, “Oh, this is the way I relate to so-and-so or these are the things that are coming up. Oh, I just got the same feedback that my partner gives me.”
And there’s just a different quality. So I think thinking about it as sitting around listening to other people really keeps you from, to me, that’s when somebody is doing individual therapy in a group setting is more like people are just talking about their problems that everybody’s listening, but if we use the here and now interactions of what’s happening inside of the group, then having all of those other people and experience there really is part of the healing and the work. The other thing I will say is that even in groups where we’re not using the here and now, there’s so many transformational qualities of group work that you can’t get in individual. One being that those clients that are most hesitant to share, or that really aren’t as aware of their feelings, have a chance to listen to other members who might be more expressive about their emotions, or might be able to articulate more what’s going on. And there’s a lot of aha moments that can happen just by listening to someone else and understanding how they articulate their experience.
So I find a lot of people say, “Well, this client isn’t ready for group yet.” Like group’s kind of the finisher, the finishing skills. And I actually find that a lot of my clients who are struggling in individual therapy do much better in group work because they can model after other members and it can kind of help them with psychological language, understanding, identifying emotion. So those are a couple of the things that I think about when I think about just sitting around listening to others.
[JOE]: Yes, that’s awesome. So what are maybe a handful of clinical skills that someone needs to develop before they jump into starting a group?
[CARRIE]: Well, I think that many of the clinical skills that we already have learned, do translate, which is you know, centering yourself, being able to be present and tracking what’s going on in the moment rather than being in your head. Being more embodied and present is really helpful. Another piece though, that I think is unique to group is really tracking the process versus the content. So not just like the words that people are saying, but how and why they’re saying them and what’s happening among and between members. Even if that’s not the focus of your group, I feel like if you don’t have that skill or you haven’t worked on it and we may attend to that in individual therapy, so that could be a way that you translate it to the group, but there are sometimes complex dynamics that happen in a group. And so really being able to work on those skills of tuning into what is happening here and almost treating the group as an entity, like the whole group as a client, is a different way of thinking about working rather than each individual member. So I would say the main skill is identifying the process and being able to zoom out enough to identify how that’s impacting the entire group.
[JOE]: Oh, no, that’s awesome. So let’s talk a little bit about kind of marketing a group because I know a lot of people are like, “Well, how do I even get a group off the ground?” It’s one thing to get one client, let alone to get six or eight clients that we’ll meet together at the same time over Zoom, or however you’re doing it post pandemic. How do I even get people to come and to come at the same time and they’ll be the ideal client for the group. And so how do you think through the marketing of a group and what do you typically suggest to people?
[CARRIE]: What I suggest is number one, most people try to market to clients like by setting up flyers or sending out information posting on a community board, things like that. And I find that that usually isn’t very effective, that groups are intimidating for most of us and especially therapy groups or therapeutic psychologically related groups. I think sometimes like joining a yoga group or something may be a little more sought after people are looking for that. But I think a lot of times therapeutic groups can be harder for people to self-select into them. So my two top tips for marketing groups would be number one, to look at your own caseload and see who in your caseload already could benefit from group work and to start talking to them about it. If you are starting your first group, I’d say, start with three or four of your own clients that would benefit from a group, and then you can market it to your colleagues.
And that would be my second tip is to really market to therapists instead of to the clients. Because what I find is we have relationships with our clients and number one therapists are not going to refer to you if they don’t know you. We care about our clients. Unless you have a great reputation for that group, like we don’t want to refer somebody we really care about and have a great relationship into something that we’re uncertain about. But if I say, “Oh my gosh, I know Joe, he’s great. This is his personality. This is what you might get. I know that this group would be perfect for you.” My client is much more likely to follow through with that referral because they trust me and they know that I trust you and I recommend you. So I think marketing to therapists and especially the ones that know you, or get to know other therapists in your community, build relationships, let them know who you are and your style and you’re going to more likely get referrals into the group that way than trying to market to clients.
[JOE]: Yes. And do you really, with other therapists kind of say, “Hey, I’m not looking to steal your clients.” Like, do you, do you expressly say that just so that they know like, “Hey, this is just for the group,” or do you feel like that’s implied?
[CARRIE]: Absolutely. I make it explicit that I won’t take on any clients who they refer to the group that sometimes that does come up in group and it’s a therapeutic thing. I mean, I will, of course talk to the client if they feel like they’re not in a good relationship, but generally I make it a point to say, “I just want to work with you. It’s really important that they continue with you individually and that this is just an adjunct. How can we stay in communication?” And I also really want to keep them informed about what’s going on in the group so that they can feel like we’re on a team together because we are, and that we’re partnering for the client’s best interests. We don’t want like some competitive vibe. We really want to be in collaboration and partnership for the best outcome for the client.
[JOE]: Yes. Yes, totally. Now you started your Art of Groups podcast, and I know you could have just kept doing groups, kept doing your clinical work, but now you’re going to this kind of new level of teaching people about groups, interviewing other people about groups. Maybe share a little bit about that experience of launching a podcast. we have, I think we’re at like 200 people who are going through Podcasts Launch School right now. We just hosted a Q&A today and I love seeing clinicians take their passion and take it to the world beyond their clinical work. Like tell us about the podcast, how it launched, how it’s opening opportunities for you, just anything podcasting and the Art of Groups.
[CARRIE]: Yes. Yes. Oh, that’s so exciting that you have 200 people going through. That’s awesome. So cool. I know some of those people, which I’m excited for them from the dreaming bed. So it’s nice to still be supporting each other and I’m excited for their podcast to come out. But yes, I decided that I really feel that, I had this shift in my career where I realized that my biggest impact that I could have is not on facilitating groups of clients anymore, but it’s actually of teaching, training and supporting healers and therapists on getting their group offerings out into the world. I felt like I was gifted with this amazing training and support and mentorship and I have it to offer. And so I found that the biggest barrier that we have in group work is the lack of training and mentorship and support.
I don’t see a lot of places, there are places around that you can get some group training, but it doesn’t feel as accessible and available. And it’s definitely not available in our graduate programs. So I thought, how can I reach as many people where I can just give away what I know about groups, because ultimately I believe the world is such a better place when we can be connected to each other, when we can know each other and feel seen. And with what’s going on in the world now with the pandemic, racial injustice, climate change, all the stuff, it’s like, I feel like we need each other now more than ever. So I believe so strongly in it. So the podcast is just my way to reach as many people as I can and empower them and serve them to stop waiting.
I hear so many therapists like, “Oh, I had this idea for a group, but I couldn’t get anyone to sign up.” And it’s a great idea. Or I see them kind of struggling with their confidence or feeling like they don’t know the first step. So the podcast has been fun. Of course it’s been very humbling. It is not, you know you’re a pro, I’m just starting, so I definitely feel like a lot of vulnerability in it because being this far in my career, it’s not like I’ve had to learn new things, but there’s a whole new world out there. But I’m just trying to show up and like be as authentic and genuine and just remember that ultimately I just hope that people will take something from it and feel inspired. And it’s so fun because I get to connect with people doing amazing group work and they get to just share about what they’re doing and the magic that’s happening in the work they’re doing. So it’s been really fun and exciting for me.
[JOE]: Yes. Any tips just from being an early podcaster for other therapists that want to do podcasts and things they should think through or kind of understand before they start a podcast?
[CARRIE]: Hmm. That’s a great question. I think for me, it was really helpful to get some help with it. Like I have a virtual assistant that is helping me with some of the editing and making sure the show notes and just, if you’re a person who likes doing all of that stuff great, but I’m not. And I think really thinking through the systems and having that stuff taken care of within whatever way, just so you understand it. Because I think once the technology and all of that stuff is taken care of, you can really shine, which is the point. That stuff kind of fades into the background so you can shine and show up and really be your best health during the episode. So think through that before you start recording, like, “How am I going to edit? How am I going to write my show notes?” That kind of stuff I think would be, it was really helpful for me. What else would I say? Oh, and —
[JOE]: Well, let’s say like, because you just mentioned that our team, if anyone out there is listening and saying, “Oh my gosh, I want to do a podcast, but the tech, I hate we have a whole team of sound engineers. Now we have Sam who is our podcast producer, pretty much whatever level of help you want. We’re able to help you now. That could be all totally done for you, or just like a little bit of just show notes. So just reach out to us, if you have any questions about that since you just brought that up, Carrie.
[CARRIE]: Yes, yes. And don’t let the tech stop you, that, “I’m not that person. I can’t do that.” Like give yourself, again, it’s the same advice I give for groups, give yourself the opportunity, get some support and then see what you can do, because that’s the thing. We say, “Oh, I don’t know how to do that.” It’s like, you can learn or you can get support and then you can do that. And that’s what I found. I thought, “Oh, that’s not my thing,” but it’s been fine once I got the support that I needed. And the other thing is just lots of self-compassion and working with like, it’s okay to be imperfect. We don’t want, I could see the tendency to rerecord, rerecord, rerecord and I just have to fight myself and say, “You know what, next interview I’ll ask that question that I wish I would’ve asked.” Things like that.
[JOE]: Yes. Yes. I mean, all of us have areas we can improve and if you just listen over and over and try to make it perfect, you’ll probably sound robotic, like you’re reading off the script. You lose all of it. So, also, I know you have a training coming up in April. Will you share a little bit with us about that training and kind of who it’s aimed at and how people can get more information from you about it?
[CARRIE]: Yes, absolutely. So I am offering, it’s more like an experiential process group for therapists. So I find that the best way to learn, like I’ve said is being a client. So this training is online and what it is me and another co-therapist are going to be facilitating an online process-oriented group. There will also be embodied pieces because another piece of my journey that I haven’t mentioned is I did a lot of training in ritual and music and movement and just bringing the body in. I felt like those pieces were missing from my process-oriented training. So I’d like to bring that stuff in and it’ll be a 12-week commitment with the opportunity to continue, we’re kind of looking at that, but where you’ll meet with, well, seven other therapists to do your own work and a process group. And the first 90 minutes will be all experiential and the last half hour will be teaching about what happens so you can learn why we did what we did and get your own experience and bring that to the groups that you facilitate.
[JOE]: Wow. How can people read more about it or get in touch with you to just see if it might be a good fit?
[CARRIE]: Yes, they can go to my website at artofgroups.com and. Yes, we’re also on, there’s also a Facebook community, Art of Groups, Facebook community. So I’d love for people to come and join us there. I’ll be posting a lot about the experiential training coming up and they can also reach out to me by email.
[JOE]: Awesome. Well, the last question I always ask is if every private practitioner in the world were listening right now, what would you want them to know?
[CARRIE]: I would want them to know that the healing work that you are doing individually and that’s making a difference for your clients can be expanded and that not only if you step into that to reach more people, not only will it benefit you in your practice, but you can touch more people in the world. So I would encourage any private practitioner that’s even a little bit curious about group work to really consider challenging yourself, to broadening your scope in that way, because the world needs our healing right now. And the more people we can touch and reach the better for all of us.
[JOE]: So awesome. Well, Carrie, thank you so much for hanging out with us. Thanks for letting us into your ears and into your brain. Thank you everyone for listening. This has been amazing. Today’s show is brought to you by Therapy Notes. Don’t forget to use promo code [JOE] at checkout. You’ll get three months for free. They’ve been a longtime sponsor and are the best electronic health records out there. So again, therapynotes.com, use promo code [JOE] so that you can get that three months for free to check it out. They also have support if you’re switching from another EHR that you’re just not happy with. They have actual support. They’ll help you import the data and work through it. I was actually talking to their head of marketing and he told me that they spent eight hours with one of our referrals recently to help them do that. I mean, you don’t see that kind of customer service anywhere else. So again, therapynotes.com, promo code [JOE] at checkout.
Carrie, thanks so much for being on the show today.
[CARRIE]: Thanks, Joe.
[JOE]: Special thanks to the band Silence is Sexy for your intro music. We really like it. And this podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.