Making Access More Affordable

An interview with Michael Blumberg, LCPC, about mental health care as a basic human right. Curt and Katie talk with Michael about the tension between access and therapist financial stability. We look at ideas to support access while being thoughtful about your own financial needs.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. We are human beings who can now present ourselves as whole people, with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Especially now, when therapists must develop a personal brand to market their practices.

To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

 Interview with Michael Blumberg, LCPC

Michael Blumberg is a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor and group practice owner in the Chicago suburb of Glenview. Michael founded and manages Glenview Counseling Group, a multi-disciplinary psychotherapy group practice, where he treats clients with OCD & complex anxiety and manages the daily operations of the practice. Michael also co-founded a business focused solely on the business aspects of group practice ownership called Group Practice Builders with his friend and colleague Maureen Werrbach. Together they plan and facilitate an annual conference called the Group Practice Owners Summit which draws attendees from across the US and abroad.

In this episode we talk about:

• How Michael defines Mental Health Care as a Human Right
• The idea that all people, regardless of ability to pay, have the right to be emotionally and psychologically well
• Pushing back against mental health and wellness as an extravagance
• The conflict between access and running a private practice
• The concern that if this is a human right, clinicians might be conscripted into service
• If large organizations can’t make access available, how can small therapy practices do anything?
• Ideas for how small therapy practices can make a difference in providing mental health access
• How to make the choices in how much you make, how you increase access
• The importance of individuals making these decisions for themselves based on their own needs.
• Advocacy as another way to increase access and work in prevention
• The tension between access and time or financial stability for individual clinicians
• The Starfish Thrower
• How the education system promotes sacrifice by the therapist
• Do what YOU can do and be thoughtful about it
• How to get creative and dismiss preconceived notions of what SHOULD be done
• The balancing act if you open yourself to the idea that you should personally provide access
• How these principles fit into the #moderntherapist ideas