Practitioners

When the relationship with yourself is in place you have the skillset to differentiate between your patients’ experience and your own. You learn to be really curious about what your patients go through, and you dare to bring up and discuss sensitive matters.
When a patient feels safe, we receive the best information to be able to truly help them. Both treating and being treated requires vulnerability. A safe environment ensures that feelings of shame and fear – our basic human emotions – won’t stand in the way. Your patients know that whatever they say will be used for their benefit and never against them.
Every healing journey comes with its own ups and downs. What can feel like a down to a patient -i.e an old symptom returning- can be recognized as a leap forward for the practitioner. Rather than defining every step as a success or a failure we can learn to use language which emphasizes what we have learned so far, and what we still want to achieve. This will help us and our patients to keep going , stay resilient during setbacks, and stay focused on the healing process.

Whether you receive patients in your practice or visit them at their homes, you always need a place you can call your own to make your plans, plan your dreams, and decide on the best treatment for your patients.
With organized surroundings, it is easier to arrange your thoughts and feelings. You can keep your focus on what really matters: your patients, the treatments and your own well being.
When our time and space are organized we can be a pillar of calm during the turmoil of helping others. Organizing is a way to create safety by offering your brain predictability, so calm and collected becomes your default.
With the deep knowledge that without you there is no practice, we learn to organize our time and space while first prioritizing our own needs. When those are in order, you can take the very best care of your patients, who will benefit immensely.

Money can easily bring up uncomfortable feelings. In our society, money is all too often treated as an end rather than as a means. When we define our self worth through the amount of money we make, we can feel lousy about ourselves when we don’t earn what we would like. With our self esteem low, it becomes even harder to request payment for our services.
Money is all about boundaries. In caring professions, if the relationship between practitioners and patients is not defined in advance, interactions can easily turn fuzzy. It is the practitioners’ job to create this clarity and the patients’ right to choose whether the conditions suit them or not. The exchange of money clarifies that the relationship between you and your patients is professional.
By writing down what you charge for your service(s), you clarify – first for yourself and then for your patients – what you can both count on. With expectations in place you create the safety and freedom for your patient to choose your treatment, and for you to ask for financial compensation without feeling awkward.

It is easy to get confused and believe that as a practitioner you ‘need’ patients. Traditional marketing techniques will encourage you to reach out to people with discounts and package deals, anything to lure patients to your practice. I feel that this approach does not leave anyone’s dignity intact, not ours and not our patients’.
It is our job as practitioners to practice the art of making ourselves known and learn to share with others what is special about us and the way we work. It is the patient’s job to check if we suit them.
When patients feel your enthusiasm and you orient them about what your treatment is like – the time involved, the way you approach the patient practitioner relationship, the cost, what they will gain from your treatment – they get all the information they need to make their own informed decision.
Both when you start out as a newbie and when you have worked for a while there are moments in your practice when it is just down right quiet. Here you are, ready to work, with an empty agenda. You can either panic or focus on proactivity. Building and maintaining a thriving practice requires your commitment to show up professionally every day – even when your agenda is not yet full. Together we learn how to transform panic into productivity.

Knowing you are not alone can be a big comfort. After you have studied all the relationships – those with yourself, your patients, your physical surroundings, marketing and finance – it is lovely to share this knowledge and bring it in to practice together with your colleagues.
In ‘creating community’, you can choose to deepen your knowledge together with me in other subjects that interest you. Even a small group of four can be a community from which you can grow on a personal and professional level.
As a group, you might choose to touch on all or part of the essentials in each meeting, or decide to learn other relevant subjects together. I can help facilitate both.