The loneliness of the long distance therapist

I can recall back in high school, in literature, we studied a book called “The loneliness of the long distance runner”. The title always stuck in my mind for some reason and I am not sure why. I always thought it was a good name for a book.

The title here refers not to a therapist who is a long distance from the client but the therapist who goes the long distance, that is, is a therapist for many years. Therapy is an odd profession in a number of ways. A long time ago I wrote an article on psychotherapy and prostitution and some of the similarities between them. Both professions require the person to sell them self.

This is unlike the plumber or an accountant. When they are employed by a client it does not matter what they are like as a person just as long as they do a good job plumbing or accounting, at least that matters the most. When a psychotherapist is employed they are employed for their skills as a therapist but also as a person who the client is going to relate to. Indeed the relationship is a significant part of the therapy along with the therapeutic techniques. You can not really separate them in this way.

This has its down side in some ways. Over the years I have seen various therapists who may be changing profession or moving try and sell their practice. And it never is really successful. A therapist can not sell his practice in the same way a plumber could sell their plumbing business. One reason for this, is it is the therapist as a person who relates to the client that makes the practice successful or not. And obviously you can not sell that along with the business.

The majority of new clients who come to me are referred by someone who knows me in some way. Word of mouth is by far the most effective marketing technique for a therapist doing counselling. I do sometimes get randoms or people who found me by looking on the internet but this is a small group. 




They may say they found my name on LinkedIn or came across my blog or these days even more so they say they found my website. I don’t know if I should let out my trade secrets here, but what the heck! My website is not the usual style of website for a psychologist or a therapist. One particularly odd part is the pictorial history which can be seen here.

I can not recall ever seeing a similar thing on another therapist’s website. If a client reports they have seen my website I will ask them what was their reaction to it and invariably they will talk about the pictorial history. Of course they do, as that is where they can get some insight into me as a person. BTW, that was not the reason why I put it their in the first place. It was just something that felt right when I was constructing it. However it is very unusual for a therapist’s website and now I find that it is a good idea from a marketing point of view. Oh well, these things happen.

So I can never really sell my practice, because most of the clients come to me as a person not to the practice as an entity in its own right.




What about the long distance therapist? Well therapists spend their working days relating to people and often the relating can be quite intense. Every person has relational needs, they need to have a sense of being in relationship with others and those relationships must be lived out first hand at least semi regularly. If this does not happen (and thus the person is isolated) then psychological deterioration will occur quite rapidly and can lead to quite severe consequences. Accordingly then therapists must be well supplied in terms of getting their relational needs met and indeed they are, one could say. That could be seen as a positive of being a therapist over time. 

Does this have an impact on relationships in other areas of their lives?
If their relational needs are met in their work maybe they are less motivated to have relationships in other areas of their lives?

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