Hello and welcome to the online counseling podcast, I’m your host, Clay Cockrell. I hope you’re having a great day. It’s rainy and gloomy one here in New York. But I’m sure things are gonna clear up soon. Today, I’m really excited about this episode. I recently came across an online therapy practice that just got me really intrigued. Megan Peterson is an online therapist, who has recently launched Second Chance counseling service. They are an online therapy program that focuses on substance abuse recovery, they work online with clients that are either stepping down from in-patient care like detox or rehab. And they also work with clients that are just getting into recovery, and this may be their first contact with a recovery service, and they’re seeking support and therapy as they progress along their recovery journey.
CC: I started my career as a substance abuse counselor, many, many moons ago. And I know really well the challenges that a person faces as they go through the steps of creating a clean life. And I’m sure we have all heard of the opiate epidemic that is sweeping the country, and the lives that are being lost to substance abuse. So it’s very exciting to learn of a practice that is using technology as an additional tool to reach this population.
CC: I’m so impressed with Megan. She has a wonderful entrepreneurial spirit and a passion for both the online therapists that work for her and the clients that are coming to her for, well, a second chance. I’m so glad she was able to speak with us. And quick little commercial about the directory. As most of you know this podcast is associated with the online therapy directory, which you can find at onlinecounseling.com. We are a listing service that has the mission of helping therapists grow their online therapy practices, in combination with educating therapist about the ethical and legal requirements for online counseling. Very similar to psychology today’s directory, we highlight the specialties of your practice and then market them to clients who are looking specifically for online therapy. We want to be a huge value to this growing and changing field, so please tell us what we can do better. We always like hearing from you, you are the ones that we are trying to serve. Unlike some other corporate sites out there, this is a grassroots effort. We are designed for therapists by therapist and… Well, I guess that’s it. There are a lot of new sites coming out that are how to make a lot of money off therapist and other helping professionals and we’re out to help people.
CC: So if you’re interested in listing your practice, just head over to onlinecounseling.com, click on List my practice. We have two programs, one is $24.95 a month, and you can stop at any time. And the other is a year-long membership that brings the price down to around $12.47 a month. Again, trying to make it as affordable as possible in helping you. End of commercial.
CC: Now, let’s get to the fun stuff. I hope you enjoy this interview with Megan Peterson, of Second Chance counseling service.
CC: Hello and welcome to the online counseling Podcast, I am thrilled to welcome Megan Peterson, of Second Chance Counseling Service. Megan, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
Megan Peterson: Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here.
CC: So tell me a little bit about… Just a brief bio of you and how you got started with this type of work.
MP: Okay. I graduated with a Criminal Justice degree, and fell into drug and alcohol counseling from there. And I was drug and alcohol counselor for about 10 years, and after that, I was recruited from Indivio now. I worked as a pharmaceutical representative for about eight years. And my husband and I decided that we were going to make some life choices, and in those life choices, it didn’t allow me to work from the place that I was working from prior. I started to take a look at basically online counseling online therapy, and how it could help patients and even help some of the patients that my physicians that I was working with, how it can help them, especially the ones in the rural areas that were having a hard time getting therapy in order to get their medication. So that’s kind of where it all started out for me. And in the interim it was about a year and a half. I thought about going nationally. But obviously, that’s a big feat, and anybody that knows or owns their own business knows the challenges. And I wasn’t quite ready to dive into that yet, but I kept on having that nudge that you couldn’t ignore, where it was like, You need to do this, you need to do this, you needed this.
MP: And finally, my loving husband said, either create this online therapy program or be quiet about it, ’cause I’m tired of hearing it. So that’s when I decided to take this more on a national level and open this up, that all people from all 50 states would be able to have access to addiction therapy.
CC: Right. Online.
MP: Yes, correct.
CC: I completely relate to having a baby of having an idea. This is my little baby and I either gonna do this or just not. And you jumped in and you started this and you started this six months ago.
MP: Yes, we launched nationally in December, yes.
CC: What kind of lead up was there for you, of getting the website and the business model, and what kind of time frame was that?
MP: Oh, gosh. Well, a lot of that could be challenging, just navigating around that landscape.
CC: Yeah.
MP: The website was not difficult. I did a lot of research on website development and SEO and a lot of other things, and even our website now needs some help, but the challenge that I found in that is just in that space, a lot of people give you a lot of different answers, but no one can distinguish what each other does better. And there are a lot of money. So I actually just got a WordPress site and I taught myself how to do it, so if I can do it, anybody can do it.
CC: You taught yourself wordpress.
MP: Yeah, I designed our own web page. Yes, yes, I did.
CC: It’s beautiful.
MP: Thank you.
CC: It’s really beautiful.
MP: Thank you.
CC: If you’re listening the website is 2ndchancecounselingservice.com, and that’s second as in starts with the number 2, the letter N-D, chancecounselingservice.com. So tell me about 2nd Chance Counseling Service, what is it that you do?
MP: So we do online video therapy for patients that are suffering with addiction.
CC: Okay. And you have multiple therapists?
MP: Yes.
CC: In multiple states?
MP: Yeah.
CC: And the idea is, do they come directly to you or are you working with in-patient IOP services? Tell me a little bit about that.
MP: We’re doing a little bit of both. We have direct referrals, online therapy patients that just need help, that are calling us up and saying, “Hey I’m in real need of your service because I’m in a rural area and it’s really difficult for me to get to my therapist.” Or, “I need therapy for my medication, but I work a full-time job and it’s become very difficult.” All the way from that to inpatient facilities, where we’re partnering with inpatient facilities and seeing the patient before they even get discharged, ’cause typically there’s a huge gap there, and that’s something that’s never been done before. Typically patient gets discharged to an aftercare provider may not even see their therapist for a week afterward, and has that week in between where they go home and they’re back in their home environment. Well, now we have our therapists meet with the inpatient provider. Talk about the patient experience, while they were there, what some of their aftercare goals are. What the therapist feels would be in the best interest of the patient as they leave. Patient gets to know that online therapist while they’re still there. Basically, we kinda say that they take their therapist home with them then.
MP: So the day that they get discharged when they get back to their house, and they’re in front of all these triggers and everything else that happened, ’cause this was one of the places that they previously used. They can literally get a hold of their therapist right then and there, while they’re in the room and say, “Look I’m staring at my dresser where I used to keep my substances and I’m having a really hard time with this.” So it’s alleviating that gap, where that’s where a lot of the times we lose patients too, to recovery is within that gap, because they get back to their environment and they’re overwhelmed and it could be very stressful.
CC: Absolutely. I started my career in adolescent substance abuse, and can completely relate… Parents say, I’m just gonna send him away to 30 days or whatever, which is fine, but they’re gonna come home and they’re going right back with the same friends and the same environment and we know the triggers. So to have that step-down care in place, within hours of getting back into that environment, it’s gotta be pretty powerful.
MP: Yes, it is. And we can also involve the families with that too.
CC: Yeah.
MP: When they get back home, you can involve the family, mom and dad might work and it may be really difficult for them to get off work to go to therapy and be a part of this. Now, it’s not as challenging.
CC: So when you say they meet with the client while they are in patient you mean they meet through a telemental health platform?
MP: Yes, correct.
CC: Okay.
MP: They met through the online therapy platform that we use, that’s how they meet with them.
CC: Okay.
MP: Sorry, it’s so fluid to me that I feel like video therapy is so similar in many ways that a lot of the language is used interchangeably at this point.
CC: Absolutely, I completely agree. And it is meeting. But I just wanted to clarify for the listeners. You don’t have somebody in every state, traveling around the state for that first session to be face-to-face.
MP: No correct.
CC: Okay. And what platform do you use?
MP: Right now we use WeCounsel platform.
CC: Okay.
MP: So I did… That was the other thing is researching a lot of different platforms out there, figuring out what is HIPAA compliant, what is in, what type of services do they offer? I picked them because of their customer service, and they’re constantly evolving things with their program. What I really liked is when we first started, when I started this over, jeez, a year-and-a-half ago, myself, one of the things that they reached out to me was, is what can we do for the providers in this space, how can we learn more about what you’re doing, and then what services we can provide for you? And I think that’s a huge thing in the customer service industry right now is that you want to find out what your customers need, and then build it for them, and that’s one thing that they do. And I’ve been really happy with a lot of the additional things that they’ve brought on to their platform. It’s been really useful.
CC: Good. So you’ve been pleased with WeCounsel?
MP: Yes.
CC: Okay. Good. ‘Cause I’ve talked with Harrison the CEO over there a few times, and one of our goals is to have all the leading telemental health platforms come on the podcast and we just did a podcast with Doxy.me, and Harrison said, he’s going to be able to come on the show. So we’re looking forward to that. Tell me a little bit about the bells and whistles and the things that they’ve added recently.
MP: Sure. Which by the way, it’ll be really interesting to hear your conversation with him because he also has a really good story on why he started the company which is really powerful as well.
CC: Yeah.
MP: But when I first started, it was a lot of just video therapy, back and forth, but since then, they’ve added a really good billing and coding feature. They have messaging back and forth on the platform, everything’s done securely within there. Messaging from a standpoint of it’s more of an email messaging that our therapist utilize, where… I’m the therapist and I think constant communication or being able to do that is valuable. It was very frustrating to me to… Even myself in my experience, in my career, I’ve sought out online therapy for various family issues and it’s a struggle sometimes when you meet with somebody, and then you can’t talk to them for two or three weeks in between, and obviously things happen in between there.
MP: One of the things that we wanted to do is make sure that if a patient talks to a therapist, that’s fantastic, but then that they still have a way of communicating back and forth with each other in between. So it’s more fluid of a conversation and it’s not so disjointed if that makes sense.
CC: Yeah, absolutely.
MP: So one of the features that he has in there, is that our patients go on and they can say, “Hey I finish that stress management worksheet that you asked me to complete, I thought about it, X, Y and Z.” And then the therapist will get a notification to log on to their platform that their patient gave them this message and they can log in and respond to them. So it’s more of a continuous care than so disjointed, so to speak.
CC: Yeah, absolutely. So what’s the feedback that you’re getting from clients about the service?
MP: I mean they love it, it’s convenient. I have clients that meet with me at lunch. We’ve had clients that meet with therapists before they both leave for work, we have patients that meet with their therapist after they get done putting their kids to bed. So it’s a lot more of a convenient way of meeting together, than it is trying to fit it in. It’s not more about fitting it in any more it becomes more about just a fluid part of your life, which it should be.
CC: Absolutely, especially for recovery. So you’re taking these clients through a process and as they step into recoveries that go through the process, making sure there supports are there working on their triggers, if they’re going through the 12-step, are you going to your meetings? That type of thing. That’s what you and your therapist, or are working with them?
MP: Yes.
CC: So what kind of feedback are you getting. First of all, how many online therapists do you have working now?
MP: I think we’re up to 42 right now. And I had about five other interviews yesterday, so we’re expanding.
CC: You’re hiring.
MP: Yes, I am hiring, yes. But I will tell you, we’re really selective. But I’ve been really blessed too. You know when I first did this, I thought it was gonna be really challenging finding good therapists, and I haven’t actually found that, I have found the latter. I found that engaging patients and meeting them where they are and getting them to engage in therapy is much more of a challenge than getting really good therapist. So I’ve been blessed in that manner. But we’re not acting as like a matching agency. We don’t have thousands of therapists. And the only way that we ever would have thousands of therapists is that if our therapist obviously their case loads are at that point that I need to hire more. I wanna have a good personal relationship with our therapists and we act as a team, and we all see the vision in wanting to make this space better and making sure that we give really good care to the patients. So, typically I’ll have a select few online therapist in each state. And there’ll be multi-state license to give the patients more variety, but it’s not that I’ll have 20 or 30 therapist, for instance, in the state of Texas or something like that.
CC: Right.
MP: And it’s a pretty rigorous process. Some of our therapist go through assessments and things like that, so that we all know where everybody is right out of the gate, that we can communicate effectively and how we’re gonna communicate with the patients and things like that.
CC: Okay. Online therapists that are coming on to your platform, do you like them to have some kind of experience with telemental health or are some of them those hardcore substance abuse counselors that have either been in community mental health or whatever? And this is their first time using technology.
MP: Sure. I’ve dealt with both. I actually thought that we would get a lot of people that were very computer savvy, saying, “Hey I wanna do this.” But I’ve actually gotten a lot of therapists that we’re in retirement, or are in retirement still and want to do this because they believe in doing something extra, and wanna give back and wanna utilize their skill. And they may not be as technically savvy, as maybe somebody who just came out of school that obviously has to use a computer all the time. But I stepped them through everything, every step of the way. And WeCounsel has a really good support network that if somebody’s struggling with something, you can call that number and somebody will help you through that, both on the patient side and on the therapist side. And then obviously all of our therapists have access to myself as well, so if they’re struggling or if they’re having a problem, I’ll hop on the computer, I’ll guide them through it.
CC: Wow, that’s great. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about what is the service, how often do your… Let’s say, okay, I’m an opiate addict and I’ve gone through maybe an inpatient detox. I’m ready to step down. I’m gonna sign up for your services, what am I gonna get?
MP: Sure. So right now we are a membership site service.
CC: Okay.
MP: So what that means is we’re not a one-hit wonder, I believe in obviously making sure that we’re giving good therapy, but it is on a consistent basis. However, with that being said, we do meet the patient where they are. So if a patient comes on our platform, and they need services for two or three months, because they’re having a hard time at that point, and at that point both the therapist and the patient feels that they’re good. Then I’m all for; Yes, absolutely. Let’s have a successful discharge. So, therapists will come on the platform with us. And I totally lost my train of thought.
[chuckle]
CC: That’s okay, I do that all the time.
MP: It doesn’t happen very often. [chuckle]
CC: Hey, all the time, it’s Friday afternoon here so…
[laughter]
MP: That doesn’t happen very often. I was like, “Wait, I totally lost that question.” See, this is what happens to you when you’re an online therapist for a really, really long time.
[laughter]
CC: Let’s go back. We are talking about… It’s a membership site.
MP: Yes.
CC: Okay. Go ahead.
MP: Got it. In that membership, patients get an hour and a half of online therapy and unlimited messaging back and forth with their therapist. Now the patient can do and the therapist can do whatever they want with that hour and a half. If a patient feels that they’re stable enough that they just wanna meet with their therapist for an hour and a half at one time during the month, and then just have messaging back and forth that’s fine. If patients wanna meet with their therapist a half hour or a week and then have a week in between, and then message back and forth, that’s fine too. It’s really whatever the patient feels that they need at that point in time, we have the therapist basically meet them where they’re at.
CC: Okay. So you get an hour-and-a-half and that could be three half-hour sessions, and this is a monthly membership for… And then that’s a recurring fee, right?
MP: Yes, correct.
CC: So from the next month, they would get another hour and a half, and unlimited messaging and support and etcetera.
MP: Yes.
CC: The scheduling is pretty flexible. Like you would say, you don’t have to lock down into; here are my three half hour sessions, it’s…
MP: No, absolutely not. It’s whatever the patient and the therapist feels where they’re at, at that point in time.
CC: Okay. And what’s the monthly fee for the patient?
MP: It’s 175 a month.
CC: Okay. So 175 a month, they get an hour and a half session spread out over the month, probably, and then unlimited back and forth messaging for support and guidance and that type of thing.
MP: Right.
CC: Okay, great.
MP: And this is all by video too, this is not pre-recorded, it’s not text-based, this is all live, just like you and I are trying right now with each other, having this conversation. You’re able to see the patient, the patient’s able to see you, that means we could read body language, expressions, really get a sense of where the patient is and how we can most help them. In my experience, because I’ve been doing this for a while, I’ve actually found that in many instances, the patient is much more comfortable too, because they’re talking to you in their own environment. So they’re at their house, they’re in their car, they’re somewhere where they’re comfortable with to begin with. So sometimes once you get through that initial barrier of like I’m talking to somebody on video. [chuckle] Which some people are not as familiar with than others, it becomes a very fluid conversation, almost like you’re just sitting next to them.
CC: Right, right. Yeah, I’ve worked with so many people that they went back into their environment, and they felt incredibly isolated and alone, that they don’t have family members in recovery, they don’t have family members that are sober, to have access to someone to walk them through this process and give them support and remind them of some of the tools that they learned in whatever kind of treatment program they were in, or really to take them… Scratch and walk them through some of this process.
MP: Right.
CC: Yeah.
MP: Well, I think online therapy is really important, just in general. A lot of us, we talk to our family members, and we talk to our loved ones, and just as human beings, we talk to people because a lot of the times, we wanna be self-validated, right?
CC: Absolutely.
MP: But a lot of times when you talk to those individuals, they’re so close to you that they can’t really give you a non-biased opinion and help you.
CC: Yeah. Absolutely.
MP: So I think, in many instances in life, it’s good to reach out to other people and get a secondary opinion, or somebody that has an outside view to kind of guide you and give you a different way of maybe doing some things.
CC: And you’re doing everything right from what I’m seeing, you’re using a HIPAA-compliant platform.
MP: Yes.
CC: You are using licensed, certified, trained, educated therapists, they are respecting state lines, so you’ve got a lot of therapy… Is it hard to find therapists that are multi-state, licensed?
MP: I have about a 50-50 mix, I would say.
CC: Okay.
MP: So, no.
CC: Yeah.
MP: No, I think that, that number is not that bad. [chuckle]
CC: Yeah, that’s the thing. When we started the directory, we were contacted by… At first it was only one state that they can go, “Which state are you licensed in?” And then so many people said, “I’m licensed in four states, I’m licensed in whatever”.
MP: Yeah.
CC: So we had to make that where you could put multiple checks in that box. And so that you can get pulled up in searches in the states that you’re licensed at. ‘Cause I think people get licensed in one state, and then they move or like me, I live in New Jersey and work in New York, we’re right here on the border. And a lot of people in DC, will get licensed in DC and then Maryland and Virginia, and what have you. Yeah, I think it’s pretty common these days.
MP: And we encourage our therapist to get multi-licensed, depending on how they wanna work with us on the platform. If they wanna work part-time, then that’s fine, but if they wanna do this more on a full-time basis, and they wanna get an additional license in another state to pull from some different patients from across those state lines, I absolutely encourage that.
CC: Okay. Good. Well can we talk a little bit about your business model of how you are paying… Is it a contract work with these therapists, some people are comfortable, some people aren’t, but…
MP: Sure. It is contract. I hope as we continue to build this thing that I can change that one day. But of course, that’s not now. So for right now, it is contract employees. And I was an online therapist myself and I have a lot of value in our therapist. I understand that if I have really not great therapists, we’re not gonna be able to provide really good care and it’s not gonna be a successful business. So I really value our therapists as more of a team, and we have more of a teamwork mentality that everybody has a kind of a say in what happens. We talk about what’s working, what’s not working, how can we make it better? I’m always open for new ways of doing things to make things better for the future. If somebody has an idea, absolutely tell me, let’s try it. The worst thing that can happen is, it doesn’t work and then that’s the worst thing that happened. So, our online therapists that come on the platform right now, as long as I get paid, they get paid. So I don’t believe in withholding money if a patient doesn’t show up for therapy or if a patient has a problem, I don’t believe in that, that’s not their fault, they should not be punished from that.
MP: And myself as the owner, a lot of people would keep that for themselves. I don’t keep that for myself, I have a family. I understand how important it is to be able to budget and know what you’re getting paid every month. So as long as I get the membership from the patient, then the therapists get paid, and right now they get $65 a month, per patient. So at the end of the month they can literally look at their platform and say, “Okay I have 10 patients, so I know I’m gonna get this. I have 20 patients, so I know I’m gonna get this.” And then therapists get paid once a month that we either do direct deposit for some and others we’ll just send, cut them a check.
CC: Okay. And you’re not a matching service, the client can pick whatever therapists that they want that is eligible to work with them, correct?
MP: Sure. Yes, they can. Any patient that comes on the platform talks to me first, so we don’t use an algorithm, it’s me. Because I know all of our therapists really really well, if you called me up and you told me why you were meeting with us today, and why you were seeking out therapy. I would tell you, “I have X, Y and Z available to see you right now. These are what their strengths are. Do you have a preference? If not, my suggestion is, I would put you with this person.”
CC: Okay. Wow. It fascinates me that you are so hands-on and you have a selective process to bring these therapists, and you’re creating a family here.
MP: I guess so. Yeah, it feels that way. I have really great therapists. I tell them all the time, and I still think I don’t tell them enough.
[chuckle]
MP: But it takes a village. And I think that just in general, if you treat people well and you acknowledge the good that they’re doing and that we’re making a difference, that’s what we’re supposed to do to begin with. So I never wanted to be that company where I didn’t know who was working for us, and I didn’t wanna have any interaction with them. They all have my personal cell number, they all can reach out to me at any time. And I’m sure at some point there will get a time where that may be overwhelming but I totally embrace that time and I’m ready for that. By that time, I’ll be able to clone myself, and then it’ll be okay.
[chuckle]
CC: Yeah. And that you’re all learning from one another. Because my experience, you get 10 therapists in a room, you’ll have 10 different opinions on how to proceed. [chuckle] And I think the substance abuse community is a little different. There’s a bit more of a roadmap towards recovery, but every therapist has their bag of tips and tricks and their ways. And some of my greatest mentors, were substance abuse therapist that I could just sit at their feet and just soak up all the things, and to watch them work and group and that… It’s like a masterclass.
MP: Learning is a big part of this. I’m a big advocate for learning and continuing education. Obviously being contract employees, I can’t tell them to do anything, I can certainly ask them or provide them a service but it’s still up to them to participate. But one of the things that we’re starting to launch is every month I’m gonna have a guest speaker on, that is somebody of an expert in the industry, whether it be a medication that patients are taking that they can get more education on. Or somebody from recovery, or whoever at that point or even if they have suggestions that they wanna learn more about a topic, I will reach out to that person and ask. And then we’ll have a basically a Go-To-Meeting forum where they can hop on and listen to this speaker for an hour, let’s say, the first Friday of every month. So we’re looking at providing that. ‘Cause I think that’s important. It’s important to share as much information as you can. You don’t have to adopt it, you don’t necessarily have to like it, but if you know about it, I think you’re already ahead of the game.
CC: Absolutely, absolutely. Wow, this is incredible. So now it’s been a good… I’ll age myself, but a good 20 years since I’ve been doing substance abuse inpatient and partial hospitalization, and all that kind of stuff. In that time, there’s been a huge epidemic of opiate abuse across the country. Pain medication, heroine, etcetera.
MP: Yes.
CC: Talk to me about what you are seeing, your boots on the ground out there and your frontline, what are you seeing?
MP: It’s definitely a problem. I think the challenge right now is just getting more patients to and engage in therapy and realize that there’s help, Denial. [chuckle] What did they say, it’s the longest… [chuckle] The longest stream, right? So it’s tough, it’s tough to get a patient to actually get there and say, “Hey, I have a problem and I’m ready to engage in… ” I just had an employer that I talked to yesterday that had a patient that tested positive on a urine screen for opiates and the patient came in, and this wasn’t the first inclination that they were using, and the patient came in the following week and he said, “Look I really wanna help you, what can we do? I know some therapists that could absolutely help you in this journey.” And their response was, “No, I’m good, I don’t have a problem, I’m okay, I stopped.” [chuckle]
CC: Yeah, right.
MP: Which we all know as therapists like “Okay”. [chuckle] It’s really difficult to stop that particular drug, too.
CC: Right.
MP: So I think that’s the first hurdle, is just we stigmatize in this country so bad, we really do. I think in a lot of ways, we do it wrong, and that’s where we’re trying to do it right. We’re really trying to meet the patient where they are, not set up those barriers and hurdles and other things that a lot of the times are set up for them. We’re really trying to meet them where they are and support them in any way that we possibly can. Because you know what, for any lack of chance that could be your mom, your brother, your loved one, or even yourself. I think a lot of people are like, “Oh that can never happen to me.” Well, guess what, have an injury and have a surgery, and that can absolutely happen to you.
CC: Absolutely.
MP: I think we need to be a little bit more compassionate for this population, and not be so stereotypical that they’re horrible people that can make better choices, because that’s not it at all.
CC: No. No, absolutely. I am fascinated by what you do. I can tell just getting to know you in the last few days that you have a strong heart for this. This is certainly a business, but it is more than anything, it’s a service, and there are people that are going to get out of rehab and go sign up for once a week, one hour therapy and they have the resources to do that and then there are people that are not gonna do that. And you are certainly filling that gap and giving an alternative option. A convenient one and that I keep… I’m the Pied Piper out here saying there is a different way. There are other tools and services out here. We can use technology for good and you certainly seem to be doing that.
MP: Thank you. I definitely I’m not of the model that I think our way is the only way, I don’t think that at all. I think that it takes a village and I think it takes a lot of good people to collaborate, to try to find the best way for that individual patient. ‘Cause again, I think a lot of our missteps are that we try to take a group of 20 and put them in the same type of therapy, in the same type of treatment and then had outcomes that this is absolutely a solution, this is gonna work, but there’s no way. We are all individuals, we’re all cut from a different… We all have different DNA. We all have different motivations. We all come from different families. So what works for one is not going to work for another, and that’s okay. It’s our job as therapists to figure out what is gonna be the best way that we can meet this patient where they’re at and give them the really good treatment that they need, and that’s where things need to change.
CC: Yeah, I think that was the first lesson that I learned in social work school. No, the first one was, “this is what a system is” [chuckle] ’cause it was system, system system, social work, system. The second one was we meet the client where they are. We don’t expect to always to come up to us. Well, Megan Peterson…
MP: And so many people say that, but it doesn’t happen.
CC: Yes. Exactly.
[chuckle]
MP: Yeah.
CC: We’re here doing that. So Megan Peterson, of Second Chance counseling service. Just to remind you, and it will be in the show notes, but it’s second chance, and it’s second starting with the letter 2, then N-D, like second, chancecounselingservice.com. What’s a good way for people to contact you if they wanna learn more about your online therapy program? Your email, you wanna provide that? Or maybe an info contact something?
MP: Sure. Yes, we have info@2ndchancecounselingservice. They can find us on Facebook, on Twitter, if they call the business line, they will get me, so be nice.
[chuckle]
MP: But yeah, however you wanna reach out, we’d love to hear from you.
CC: Good. Thank you so much for spending a little time with us.
MP: Thank you so much for having me, I really appreciate it.