Finding Referrals

Hi, this is Dave Kats with Therapist Consultants and I have a tip for you. You know, if you're looking for referrals, there are specific places to look for referrals. They say if you want to find some more water, go back to the first well where you found the water. And I'm saying if you want to get referrals, go back to those places where therapists say it's easy to get referrals from.   The first place is from schools. You know, it's probably a good time of the year to go in and talk to the counselors of the schools and see if they want to work with you. I had one school counselor say, well, yeah, occasionally I'll have a therapist send me a letter, said you can send people to me. But she said, I'm not gonna send my students to therapists I don't even know.  So if you'll just go in and meet with those school counselors, you probably have to ask the school secretary first, say, do I have to go through the principal first or can I go directly to the school counselors? And go to the school counselors either one way or the other and sit down with them and talk to them about giving you referrals. And I think that you'll find that you'll have a great benefit there and you'll start a referral system that may virtually never stop.   The second place you can look for referrals is from psychiatrists. You know, psychiatrists are always looking for a therapist to do talk therapy. They don't want to do talk therapy. It's a rare psychiatrist who does any talk therapy at all. It's mostly just medical management of the drugs and prescriptions. And so, the psychiatrist will be willing to refer to you, go talk to them, they'll have time to see you.   And then the third type of person that I think you should get referrals from are holistic practitioners. In fact, that seems to be the big boon right now, getting referrals from holistic practitioners. And who are the holistic practitioners you could get referrals from?  The chiropractor, there's like 70,000 chiropractors in the United States. You get referrals from chiropractors. They'd probably be glad to refer to you, especially those people that are leaning on them for mental health care, and they are equipped to do it. Then the next place you could get people from is from massage therapists. They see a lot of people and they talk to them. That'd be a good place. Acupuncturists would be a good place.  And even though this one, oh by the way, Naturopaths is another very good place if you have Naturopaths in your state. And then I wanna give you one that isn't an alternative medicine type group, or a holistic practitioner. But the other people you want to talk to is the people in the cosmetology areas. We had one hairdresser say, well I talk to them and try to help them, but if they get too far for me, I send them on to you. So there's a little unofficial counseling that she's doing, I guess, but at least she knows enough to send them on to our therapy office if they have a problem that she feels ranks that high. Now, she probably isn't the person to make that decision, but we're just glad she sends them to us.   So, think about those people, the schools, the psychiatrists, and the holistic practitioners, with holistic practitioners being very close to the top of the list. This is Dave Kats. Thanks for listening.