Badass Therapists Creating Practices That Thrive
Welcome to Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive, the ultimate resource for mental health professionals ready to step into their power, grow their practices, and create a career they love. I'm Dr. Kate Walker, a Texas LPC/LMFT Supervisor, author, and business strategist who's here to show you the path to success.
Formerly Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, we’ve rebranded because, well, we’re way too big for Texas now! This community of badass therapists is growing nationwide, and we’re here to help you create a career and practice you love, no matter where you are.
Every week, you'll get practical advice, proven strategies, and motivation to help you build a thriving practice—one that gives you the freedom to live your life on your terms. From mastering marketing to designing scalable systems and becoming a clinical supervisor, this podcast is your roadmap to leveling up without burnout.
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Badass Therapists Creating Practices That Thrive
122 The Impact of Coherence Therapy with Josh Killam, LPC
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
Hey, I'm Dr Kate Walker and I'm excited to present another finalist for our 2024 practice grant giveaway. This is Josh Killiam, with Becoming you Counseling, and this is part of our Share the Love series in February. So remember, as we do, this part of this is learning how to connect to our fellow counselors, learning how to refer to our fellow counselors. Right, it's not about competition. There's plenty to go around, and so how do we connect clients with our exceptional colleagues? So, josh, thank you so much for letting me interview you, and we'll get started.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:All right, I'm putting the glasses back on. So, number one, where are you located and how can our listeners refer clients to your practice?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in Austin, texas. My practice is in South Austin. I have a virtual practice and also an in-person practice and, in terms of referring clients, the website is best.
Speaker 1:Becomingyoucounselingorg is the easiest way, the website and it's beautiful, I mean it's an absolutely beautiful website and so it's really clear to see like if you are trying to refer someone for individual therapy or play therapy, couples and family or intensive therapy. So if you're a counselor, listening to this, it's easy to help neighbors, colleagues, friends get at least onto the website and understand what to do next. Plus, it's cool it looks like you've got some blogs going on here, so very, very easy to navigate and so very easy to refer to you.
Speaker 2:So thank, you for that, thank you.
Speaker 1:What do you love about your business? And before I hit record on this, you've got more than one iron in the fire, right? You've got some other things going on besides just your counseling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think the initial piece, outside of just being a counselor and a helping professional, is owning my own business, making my own schedule. I have three children that you know. Being a business owner gives me the opportunity to spend time with my family, have a good work-life balance, and so that's a big priority of mine outside of being a counselor. But in terms of being a counselor I'm. You know. It's an honor to sit with every client that comes in and ask for help. It's an honor to be able to offer them help.
Speaker 2:I practice mainly coherence therapy. It's an experiential therapy, and the deep work that that type of therapy guides us into is just extremely rich and profound, and so that's a main. Really, just what drives me is being able to, you know, have a client. Typically, my clients are those that have struggled, been in therapy for many years without any results. They find coherence therapy and through coherence therapy they'll reach out to me, and the you know message with coherence therapy is that we can offer you transformational change, and so it's a real rich experience to be able to sit with clients and guide them to that change.
Speaker 2:Another aspect is I've recently become a trainer for the Coherent Psychology Institute, and that's just been a gift to be able to share what I've learned about coherence therapy with other therapists. We offer trainings from the Institute. I'm a part of a workshop we offer every two months, and so that's been recent. Over the past 18 months, I think, and prior to that I just was in private practice seeing clients Monday through Thursday kind of that typical private practice schedule, and then the past 18 months I've added in this training aspect and so that's been pretty awesome, new, some learning edges there in terms of wait a second, I'm not with clients every day, I can shift myself. It's not quite supervision, obviously, but it's more of that training. I'm with other therapists and so that's been a new, fun experience that I'm looking forward to growing in the future.
Speaker 1:So getting out of the therapy room has kind of enriched your whole professional experience, sounds like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been different. I didn't seek it out, it wasn't an aim of mine. I felt value from seeing clients and I kind of just felt my focus was on being a better therapist. That was my focus and how do I offer the best experience to my clients? And through my own learning, this opportunity kind of fell in my lap and I took it and it's been extremely enriching in terms of helping myself grow and with my own learning. I kind of realized, wow, there's a difference between really practicing this but then being able to teach it, and so that's really challenged me to grow. It's also added a shift right there. I have wonderful days, enriching days with clients, enriching weeks with clients but then I have the challenging weeks, the challenging days and the ebbs and flows, and so having that trainer aspect is a real. I'm really appreciative of it. It's been, it's been. I feel very grateful for that opportunity and I plan to take full advantage of it.
Speaker 1:And has that helped with the flexibility, the work-life balance, or is that something? You were had to kind of reinvent it once you started training? Yeah, I think I've had to reinvent it a little bit.
Speaker 2:You, yeah, I think I've had to reinvent it a little bit. You know I make my, you know, in terms of the training. You know I get to make my own schedule there, but it's an interesting mindset to be in trainer mindset and therapist mindset and so I've had to kind of navigate okay, wait a second, what are my client days, what are my training days? But also I don't want to add on to my schedule because I value my time with my family and my children, and so that was a kind of a learning curve for me, because I will tend to take on more and then kind of feel underwater a little bit and then look around and wonder what's going on. So I kind of found myself there.
Speaker 2:So I've had to reinvent it, as I've added on the training because, as I said, it wasn't I didn't seek it out, it was not, you know, a goal of mine. It graciously fell into my lap and it was, and I just kind of ran with that opportunity. And you know, I'm in a place now where I've got a good balance of clients and training and I'm very happy with where I'm at.
Speaker 1:Sounds like I mean, I guess I hear this theme a lot with entrepreneurs right, it's that creativeness you know that we have and just like, oh, this could be great, this could be great. But it sounds like work-life balance is a real priority for you and you're going to fight to establish that.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, very much. So. Yeah, I love my work, um, I'm, I love every most things about it. I think it would be incorrect to say everything about it, but I'm very grateful to have become a therapist. It's very enriching, um, and I, you know, I know this about me, that I will give too much to my work and with my children. It's just something I've had to learn of wait a second. This is also valuable to me and, again, owning my own business has given me that opportunity that I'm extremely grateful for, to be able to, you know, wait a second. You know what this thing is going on with my family. I am able to prioritize that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a nice aha moment. I kind of remember the same thing with my family. I've got three kids and I was talking with my husband like, well, I just can't get Mondays off. He's like who makes your schedule? I'm like oh yeah, that's right, it's me All right. So where do you struggle? You kind of alluded to that a little bit, but where do you struggle? And maybe what suggestions or what could even listeners help with, or what could people give you feedback on, or what would you ask for feedback?
Speaker 2:about out. Yeah, um, my struggle is yeah, that's a good question I, I don't. I don't market very well I, I, my struggle is, um, online platform, social media. You know my way. I got my website done at the beginning because I was invigorated to get it done and I had help doing it. I actually kind of was a part of it but had somebody else help me put it together. I am such tunnel vision on providing valuable therapy in the therapy room that I kind of let everything else in terms of marketing and advertising fall to the wayside. I'll have moments where you know, I'll try social media for a while but I just I find that I can't get into it and then if I'm not into it and it's not enriching to me, it just falls flat. So I would say that's my biggest struggle is just the marketing aspect of the. You know, my presence, my marketing presence out in the world, would definitely be a growth edge of mine.
Speaker 1:Okay, and sometimes I find that people who struggle with marketing I mean it's really because they're satisfied with their client load right, because if marketing works, you're going to get more clients right, and the pipeline will be full. So do you feel like you're pretty satisfied with? Well, this goes back to work-life balance again, then, doesn't it? Are you happy with that client load and what you've got on your plate right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say that I am. I think it's been an interesting. I have this conversation quite a bit with colleagues about kind of that organic word of mouth referrals, which is where I get majority of my referrals and I'm very happy with my caseload. I think becoming involved with the Coherence Psychology Institute and Coherence Therapy has also helped with that. But again, so yeah, I do think that the motivation is not necessarily there to really dig into marketing and dig into advertising, because I do feel pretty comfortable with where I'm at in terms of the referrals I get and the caseload I currently have.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this might, this episode actually might fit into your strategy, because this is like a word of mouth referral right. This is everybody being able to refer to you now because coherence therapy and this is something you offer and clients who are looking for that you know, what side hustles, and we kind of talked about that.
Speaker 1:So what side hustles can you promote to your audience? Can people consult with you? So, in addition to your practice, in addition to your training, what if there's a counselor listening to this who wants to know more about cohesion therapy or becoming a trainer or the Cohesion Institute? How could they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so getting in touch with me, me personally. My website's a really good place to go to becomingyoucounselingorg. I have some trainings coherence therapy trainings on there. I host a workshop every two months, an introductory workshop. It's a really good place to get started. My side hustles are training.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Those workshops and we'll do. There are different types of trainings with the Coherent Psychology Institute. They have a website as well. It's a really good. There's a lot of information on the website in terms of specific trainings. Way to get started, the book Unlocking the Emotional Brain by Bruce Ecker is Bruce Ecker is the one who came up with coherence therapy. So unlocking the emotional brain, which I would assume some of your listeners have heard about, that's a good place to start heard about. That's a good place to start. And in terms of consulting, whether it's with coherence therapy, I have a monthly consult group that I host that the focus is ct practitioners who are wanting to refine their skills for coherence therapy. I also have the trainings that I do through the web to the institute and then that that workshop, and that takes up a lot of my time, a lot of my kind of outside therapy time.
Speaker 1:I think that's so awesome. I'm actually so. I'm back on your website looking and said it looks like to me there's a couple of places. So if you went to services, in the navigation bar, it's very clear where the coherence and executive coaching is and when you click that, it's a great description and then a link to schedule your initial consult. And when you go to contact us, I see a form and I love this. Choose your preference. You're able to click a dropdown menu and not only select your name, but you can also select coherence or executive coaching. So you've made it really really clear for people to find you for the right reason, right, or at least you know what they're looking for. You're not having to kind of ask questions that might get them or you off track.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Awesome, it's beautiful, it's a great website, all right. So what are your goals for 2025? And what are your plans for meeting them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, just a little bit, staying in line with what we've talked about a little bit. Our goal, my goal I have a partner who I do the workshops, with six workshops this year. That'll be a. That'll be our goal. We had three last year. We would like to double that this year. So six workshops, introductory coherence, therapy workshops, and then I also would like to get my supervision status.
Speaker 1:So the plan is to take your course.
Speaker 2:That's in the pipeline for me this year. For me this year, um, you know, I, because I've, you know, like I mentioned, training wasn't in my horizon, on my horizon, supervision wasn't on my horizon. I felt very happy with where I was at Um. But since training and seeing how enriching it is and how, um, how much I'm learning and the value that I'm getting, I've decided that, okay, you know, I kind of hit my mark this year. I was able to I actually just hit five years in January renewed my license and I'm eligible for to be a supervisor. That you know. I'm going to kind of put it on my to-do list and the goal is to have that done this year at some point and see where that goes. I don't know that I have a plan to really jump in and build a, develop a group of supervisees right off the bat, but it's a next step, it's another door to open and see what opportunities will show up there.
Speaker 1:What a great specialty. I mean, if you're an associate listening to this or if you're a grad student listening to this and this type of therapy appeals to you. You know, I'm always trying to make sure that we highlight supervisors with a specialty, right, whether it's play therapy or EMDR or something that they can offer that guidance, because you know it, unfortunately, right, some people, some supervisors right, they think they can do everything and supervisees connect with them. Then it's disappointing and they go to another supervisor and it just gets complicated. So if you are a graduate student or associate listening to this, then look for Josh's name on the supervisor roster here and hopefully in the next 12 months or so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be that. That will be the plan. Is that coherence therapy? I am, I drink the Kool-Aid. I am in it, it is I'm.
Speaker 1:I gotta read more about this?
Speaker 2:I know nothing about it, I mean you have piqued my interest, yeah it is. It's fascinating, I love it, I'm all, I'm all in, and so when I do become a supervisor, if I find myself with supervisees, that would be the initial conversation hey, here's really. What I'm able to help you learn about is coherence therapy, and so if this is something you're interested in, wonderful. If not, I might not be the right fit, but it is. You know, it is in my bones at this point.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. Yeah, josh, thank you so much for letting me interview you today and hopefully we can get some connections to you, either referrals from clients, potential clients who might be listening or colleagues who may be listening, and again, your website. Your business is Becoming you Counseling, and it's virtual and in person in South Austin. And thanks for entering 2024 Practice Grant Giveaway.
Speaker 2:Thanks again, thank you for the opportunity.