Vibrant Therapist Spotlight: Dr. Lisa Herman

The March 2019 Vibrant Therapist Spotlight features Dr. Lisa Herman a licensed clinical psychologist and owner of a telemental health group practice. After hearing that many therapists (including myself!) had a rough winter because of lots of cancellations due to weather and illness, I thought it would be interesting to hear from Lisa about how she decided to get into telemental health. I was also curious about how offering telemental health services fits with Lisa’s lifestyle and how it allows her to be more vibrant. In addition to running her group practice + being a mom & wife, Lisa also co-founded a local charity.

Please introduce yourself to the readers and tell us a little about the work that you do.

Hello!! Thank you for having me this month! I am a licensed clinical psychologist in the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York. Aside from my favorite gig of being a mom and wife, I own one of the first 100% only online, telemental health group practices called Synergy eTherapy! It is very similar to a brick and mortar practice, except all of my Independent Contractors are remote! We all work from home and offer mental health therapy by phone or video to clients who can be in their home, work or anywhere. We currently have 8 of us on the team, all women ironically, and are able to see patients in 7 states at this time. This is always changing and evolving ☺ I’m also co-founder to a local MN charity called Shout Out Loud, which is all about suicide prevention and awareness. Our main mission is to help people learn to talk about mental wellness, suicide, and learn how to cope. We have annual events, this years’ will be on Saturday, October 5^th 2019 at the ROC in St. Louis Park, MN. Our beneficiary is PraireCare Child and Family Fund and our event is going to be like a wellness carnival!

How did you decide to create a practice centered around providing mental health services online?

When I moved back to my hometown of Minneapolis from New York (after internship/fellowship) I wanted to see how I could continue to use my New York license and in 2011, there wasn’t much out there on telehealth for mental health therapy. So, I just created a website and started marketing my services to those in New York even though I was physically in Minnesota. As time went on, the market for online, etherapy, tele-mental health was booming and I learned more and more about ethics, technology/HIPAA and so forth. My Synergy colleague, whom I also worked with at the University of Minnesota in Psychiatry research, Andria Botzet, came to me and said she wanted to do what I was doing. This was awesome, I thought! So instead of me just teaching her how to do it on her own, I said, why don’t I just expand my business? She loved that idea – so now I do all the work helping to bring an online private practice to a therapist who joins my group. I take care of everything for the therapist on the back end of things (legal, ethics, HIPAA compliance, website, brand/logo, SEO, etc.) and they get to focus on the therapy. I do a lot of the social media, posting, marketing, but it is definitely a group effort with marketing.

What additional training did you pursue before offering mental health services online?

Aside from years of research and collaboration with others in specific tech fields, I did the Zur Institute 26 hour telehealth course. Having additional training either from an online course or direct supervision from someone who understands this language, I believe, is imperative. We aren’t taught how to run a private practice in grad school and most of us certainly don’t know all the privacy policies like encrypting your computer and password protection. It is always a learning process!

Did you encounter any challenges as you started offering metal health services online and how did you work through those challenges?

Oh boy, there are soooo many challenges when starting anything new! I could talk for days about challenges, but as our field advances in etherapy/online therapy realm, our knowledge within our profession is increasing so people can begin to feel more comfortable offering clients online options. There are so many tools and apps now that cater to being able to offer online therapy ethically and legally, that therapists can feel comfortable at least offering it as an option. But, to do it well, it takes a village. I have my legal team, my privacy policy team, my web guy (Gabe Valdez from Nerdalert Solutions!!) who have all been fantastic in helping me create a small group practice that people, both therapists and clients, can trust is being run very well. I am always learning as we grow!

How have you designed your practice in a way that allows you and your team to shine as vibrant therapists?

I love this question. I take a lot of pride in the fact that I am so hands on with my company and my therapists. I talk, text, and email each of them individually – I like them to know what their strengths are and how they can become more comfortable in private practice. Nobody teaches us how to “sell” ourselves or our product, which is their academic knowledge and clinical training. Therapists shy away from this aspect of practice often. I help them realize their potential and support them not only professionally but also personally. Life has a lot that happens, from births to deaths to everything in between. I believe in each of the therapists I have in my group – whether I worked with them in the past or vetted them out for months prior to signing a contract…I trust them and I believe they trust me. That ensures a vibrant therapist and a healthy company with healthy work-life balance.

How do you personally manage overwhelm when working on multiple projects?

Honestly, “manage overwhelm” is foreign to me. I could use way more organized, structured help and do often reach out to others to help with projects in my business AND in my life. I have so many floating/working parts going all at once; from my home life, to my other day job, to my Synergy practice (managing the business, my therapists, and my own clients) to my Shout Out Loud charity, to fitting in self-care…it is not easy to manage and often times things in one area will just fall for a bit. I’m lucky to have great supports around me from my handsome hubby (yes, he’s a good one!) to my amazing family and an awesome babysitter…I cannot do it alone. So, to answer this one, how I manage is I delegate and ask for help as often as I can ☺

How do you approach your work and self-care in order to avoid becoming burnt out or depleted?

I am mindful of my stress levels and back off, saying NO to things when I realize I’m getting in too deep with too many things. I love what I do and want to say YES to everything, as it is fun and allows me an opportunity to engage with other professionals and with my community. The desire to help others improve wellness is so strong that I often forget to focus on my own until the lid blows. My husband is great at helping me realize when I’m approaching “take off” and we devise a plan to reduce how much I’m doing. I like to say that I’m a Type A personality with a big desire to enjoy my chill time. I’m a hybrid of sorts, so I vacillate between being bored if I’m not busy for too long of a stretch and being overworked when I’m too engaged and spread too thin.

If you could go back in time, what tip or advice would you share with yourself at the begin of your career?

Enjoy the ride. Go where you think you should go at that time, and it’ll all fall into place. I would never have thought that I would be managing a substance abuse opioid program inner city of Chicago – on my Master’s level practicum no less (um clueless!). But I did it and learned a lot along the way. I didn’t go into the substance abuse field, it came to me. I would never have thought I would be living in Brooklyn, NY after internship and doing a fellowship in child/adolescent psychology at St. Luke’s – Roosevelt Hospital. I said I would never come back to my hometown of Minnesota. And… yet, here I am and loving life. I’m very thankful for my “chill” part of my Type A that it never got the best of me and I was able to follow where I wanted to go AND go where life took me. As my late father-in-law used to sing when things feel tough…Bob Marley’s, “Everything’s gonna be alright!” That is true.

Thank you so much to Lisa for participating in this month’s Vibrant Therapist Spotlight.

I’m curious about whether other vibrant therapists are offering telemental health services and how you see this as part of your larger vision of running your practice in a way that allows you to be vibrant. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Take Care,

Sarah

P.S. If you’d like to learn more about Lisa and Synergy eTherapy you can visit her website or Facebook page.