Episode 10: Peeing Your Pants & Other Private Practice Startup Fears [featuring Jeff Guenther]

Show Notes

Private Practice Startup fears are real, but have you thought that you were peeing your pants during your sessions?

In this hilarious but very real episode, I talk with Jeff Guenther, the owner and founder of Therapy Den and a TikTok influencer, about the very real fears that exist when starting your private practice.

I talk about my own fears of leaving my agency job, including the infamous question: "Will people ever call me, and am I qualified enough to help people?" AKA Impostor Syndrome...

Jeff talks about starting his private practice in Portland Oregon, marketing via Craigslist and hanging flyers on telephone poles, and considering quitting the career of mental health therapy due to the stressors.

We talk about:

• Startup Fears and how normal they are 
• Jeff's very real fears of "phantom peeing himself" during therapy sessions 
• My fears and imposter syndrome when taking the leap to leave my agency job
• How to work through the fear and anxiety, and learn to trust your instincts and skills

More about Jeff:
Jeff Guenther, LPC, is a therapist in Portland, OR. He has been in private practice since 2005 and currently leads workshops on how health and wellness practitioners can build their digital brand and attract more clients online. Jeff is the creator and owner of two highly ranked therapist directory sites, Portland Therapy Center and TherapyDen.

Check out Jeff's Website & Join the TherapyDen Directory: Therapyden.com

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Transcript

Season 1, Episode 10 – Peeing Your Pants and Other Private Practice Startup Fears (Featuring Jeff Guenther.)

PATRICK CASALE: Hey everyone, I am Patrick Casale on the All Things Private Practice Podcast. Today we're here with Jeff Guenther, Co-founder of TherapyDen. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Portland, Oregon, doing some really cool stuff out there. Also, has a incredibly truthful and hilarious TikTok account that I recommend following. We are going to talk about private practice fears today, startup fears, funny stories that have happened to both of us along the way, and experiences that were really real and really terrifying at the time. But we pushed through them and got to the other side. If you're listening, feel free to download, subscribe, share wherever you listen to podcasts. Jeff, I'm really happy to have you on after we did that webinar series the other day.
 JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. I love talking about private practice and being in the private practice. That's the main thing I do, even though there's a ton of other things that I like to do in the mental health community. But being a therapist and having a private practice is the thing that grounds me every week so that I kind of know what I'm doing. I'm seeing the same clients over and over again. It's probably the most fulfilling part of my career.  I'm really happy to talk about it.

PATRICK CASALE: Great. Wow, the most fulfilling thing in your career. That's a big statement. I think that's really true for a lot of us in small business ownership. Jeff, how long have you been in private practice? When did you decide you wanted to do this? And how long have you been doing it?

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, well, I got my degree in marriage, family therapy from USC in Southern California in 2005. It's a little tricky, a little cumbersome to start your private practice, launch a private practice in California. There was some appeal moving outside of California up to Portland, Oregon. I got my degree in 2005. Two weeks later moved up to Portland, Oregon, and you just have to rent an office space, hang up a little shingle, and say that you're open and get a supervisor, of course. I started my practice back in 2005, and it's been a while now. 

PATRICK CASALE: Wow, yeah. So, in 16 years, it's still the most fulfilling thing that you've done?

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, it's the most fulfilling thing. It's the thing that I've learned the most, when it comes to learning about myself, or just therapy skills, how to connect with people. And also, it's more fulfilling because you can actually see the growth in people, and that feels really good. Although, when in grad school at USC, I kind of focused on working with kids and teenagers, mostly middle schoolers. When I was in California, and I had my first little internship, I worked with these Venice Beach punks. These little tiny IMO kids that had hair in front of their face, and they're little turds. But I liked them. They just didn't want to go to school. And so they talked about that, yeah. 

And then, when I moved up to Portland, I was like, “I think I'm going to start focusing… I'm going to continue to focus on kids and families.” That eventually changed. But very early on in the practice, I was dealing with a lot of anxiety that we can get into since we're going to be talking about anxiety [CROSSTALK 00:02:56] practice. You want to go for it?

PATRICK CASALE: Let’s go for it. You're getting into private practice and you're having a lot of anxiety. You're leaving California, you're moving to Oregon. What's going through your head? What's happening in that process?

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, I moved to Oregon and I don't know anybody in Oregon. I'm just here, seeing what it's like, not connected. I don't know community. I find a supervisor, but it's the kind of supervisor or she’s like, “He seems super competent, but I don't connect with him.” There was just wasn't a trusting relationship that was ever built with him. So that was part of the problem, is that I felt like I really couldn't talk to my supervisor, or I don't know what was going on there. But I start my private practice. I put my ads on Craigslist. Did you ever do that? Did you ever advertise your practice on Craigslist?

PATRICK CASALE:  I'm going to say no to that. I want to say I graduated with my master's in 2015. I definitely did some stuff on Craigslist, but it was never business-related. It was like, “I'm looking for a place to live. I'm doing other things.” So, you're advertising on Craigslist? 

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, I decided to advertise on Craigslist. Craigslist, I guess has always been creepy, but it was not as creepy or as more okay in Portland in 2005. I don't know. But my main sources of advertising were Craigslist. I got clients there. And also, I made flyers and hung them up on poles [CROSSTALK 00:04:20] and the flyers were very on-trend. They're like, are you stalking your boyfriend on MySpace? How do you feel about that? Lots of MySpace references. Anyways, I start my private practice, get some clients from Craigslist, they start coming in I have like four or five clients. And I have somebody who can suffer from anxiety here, there. I'll get a little sweaty or my heart will start racing, like real normal run of the mill anxiety symptoms, and I start seeing my clients, and all of a sudden while I'm seeing them, I think the first session, I'm just like, “I have no idea what I'm fucking doing here.”

This is like I have prepared. I saw these little middle school turds, these 12-year-olds, where I just had to listen to them bitch about school, and I was like, “Yeah, school sucks. Sorry, you're 12.” But I had these adults, these actual real adults, and I never saw adults. I only saw children and it never crossed my mind that it was going to be a completely different experiencing an adult. An adult was sitting across from me, and they're telling me about their suicidal ideation. I was like, “What?” I had no idea. This sounds like I should have known this stuff. And it's true, I should have known this stuff. But I didn't really understand that I was going to deal with these sorts of problems until it was right in front of me. And I thought that maybe if somebody came in and talked about their suicidal ideation, I'm like, I got that. I had a whole course in that, but obviously, for a lot [INDISCERNIBLE 00:05:51].

PATRICK CASALE:  Yeah, three whole months of listening, and learning about suicidality. Now, you're hearing these stories, they're intense, they're very different than I don't want to go to school, right? And we can all relate to that damn statement. And these people are telling you about their stories, and you're having some doubts, some insecurities coming up. Are you thinking you should go see a therapist? You should call someone?

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, I feel like that's one of the most common thoughts that a new therapist is having, is like, you need to see a therapist or real therapist. I obviously don't know what the fuck I'm doing here. Clients are coming in. These adults with real adult problems are talking to me. I'm starting to feel anxious, whatever, fine, racing heart. But it got weird because my anxiety started to manifest in this way that had never manifested before, where at first, it just felt like the neediness is common, but it just felt like I kind of needed to pee. All of a sudden, I was just like, “I really need to go to the bathroom.” Was like, “Whatever, I'm going to hold this.” The end of the session happens, I go to the bathroom, not much pee comes out. But I'm just like, “All right.” I feel like I'm empty. 

And then, I go into the next session. Again, I feel like I need to pee. For that whole first week, the anxiety was manifesting in this way where I felt like I needed to pee. And I kind of put it together that it wasn't actually my bladder. It was anxiety, because I didn't have anything to actually pee out. I was like, “This is weird. But okay.” And then, I go into the second week, and it starts to get even worse, so bad that it's not like I need to pee anymore. It's like, “I think there might be pee that's coming out.” And it was this real, genuine sensation of me peeing my pants. I had never peed my pants before as an adult. I was kind of freaking out. Like, maybe I'm peeing, maybe I'm not peeing. It is just sort of this like phantom pee. But I was so convinced that there was pee coming out that I'd have to look down at my pants, because I was just like, “They must be soaking wet.” And this client that's sitting in front of me for some reason is not telling me that I'm peeing my pants.

PATRICK CASALE:  That sounds so horrifying, it sounds so traumatic in the moment. 

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, yeah. 

PATRICK CASALE:  How were you holding it all together when you're doing therapy, also thinking that this is happening? 

JEFF GUENTHER: Well, I'm like crossing my legs just sort of holding in what I think is pee that's coming out and I'm having total freak out, so I cannot concentrate on what my clients are saying. I can kind of nod along making it empathetic facial expressions, but to actually track them and do deeper analytical work. That was not possible as I feel like I'm peeing my pants. And I was just paranoid the whole time that eventually after that second week of feeling like I'm going to pee my pants, I was like, “Okay, you know, I'm not going to. I know that I'm not going to.” But I thought that somehow eventually it would tip over into me losing control of my bladder and that I wouldn't know if I was or wasn't. I was starting to not drink water on those client days. I was trying to pee as much as I could before clients to convince myself.

I was going in dehydrated, I was dehydrating myself and still it wasn't going away. And so, then it was third-fourth week I'm getting really upset, really anxious. I'm not telling my supervisor for whatever reason, because I'm super embarrassed, shy. And there's other colleagues that are sort of in the office that I'm renting from, but I don't feel safe or close enough to talk to them. I decided all I really need to do here is convince myself that even if I did pee my pants it would be okay. I decided that I was either going to wear a diaper to session or what I thought was also a really good idea is I'd somehow put a condom on, so that if I peed I just go into the condom or pee into the diaper, but I was, “Is the diaper going to crinkle when I sit down?” What would you think if this 24-year-old baby therapist sat down and you heard like a little diaper crinkle, and you’re a client? How would that make you feel? Anyways, if you had the choice of wearing a diaper, or a condom, or something else like what do you think you would have done?

PATRICK CASALE:  Oh my god, if I have to start rationalizing between those two choices to think about, like, what is going to protect me and the embarrassment that's happening? I think I’d go diaper. I think I could go all-in on diaper. Because condom to me feels like, “All right, if I pee in this, it starts leaking out onto me.” That is going to make me freak out even more. Which route do you go? Do you just talk yourself through it and think to yourself like almost catastrophizing, like worst-case scenario? What happens if this happens?

JEFF GUENTHER: Yeah, I also thought a condom could not hold all the pee, and would it expand into a water balloon that I could trust, or would it just sort of come back at me.

PATRICK CASALE:  And then, if it does expand and then it… I mean, that is the bigger fear in my mind.

JEFF GUENTHER:  Yeah, yeah, that was a huge fear. I decided that I was not going to get diapers and I was also not going to get a condom. And that this is a lot of feedback from my body that, I don't know what I'm fucking doing. And I need to stop. And so after like four or five, six weeks or something, I decided to stop, because I was just sort of going crazy in my head. I couldn't control the fear and control this bodily sensation. So that was really depressing and upsetting. I thought about quitting mental health altogether. I was like, obviously, it's clear that I don't have the capacity mentally, emotionally, physically. There's no way I should do this. And I just spent, whatever, 60, $75,000 whatever, undergraduate degree and moved to Portland to do this. I felt a lot of shame, and a lot of embarrassment, and tell any of my friends or family back home. 
And I instead decide I need a job. I was like,” I'm going to apply to the Apple Store.” Big fan of Apple computers, love Apple computers, have been working on them since I was a kid. I applied to the Apple Store, which was in the Pioneer Place, Portland Mall, just right downtown. Got an interview, and I couldn't show up for the interview. Because I was just like, “I can't work in the fucking mall. Like, I just got a graduate degree, I can't work in the mall.” I already worked at the mall when I was a teenager, so it felt like a real step backwards. So that's my story.

PATRICK CASALE:  So that feels really, really painful. This existential crossroads too of, I'm feeling this shame, I'm feeling this embarrassment. I don't even know why I got into this profession. I'm questioning my competency. And yeah, I'm going to go work at the fucking Apple Store, and sell MacBooks to hungry kids who don't want to be in school. So it comes to full circle. That's a really, really real story, though. And I appreciate you sharing that, and just being open with it, and being able to laugh at it. Because obviously, by knowing you and it's no longer 2005, you're clearly still a therapist. How does that happen then when you work through this fear, and this embarrassment, and the shamefulness of, “I'm really overwhelmed. I'm feeling really panicky about this career and this career choice.”

JEFF GUENTHER:  I should have just gone right into therapy, although, I also was very poor in 2000. I just didn't have any extra income to go to therapy. I decided not to work at the Apple Store, went home. And I just started to apply to agency jobs, where it’s just like, I need a team of people around me, and I need to try to find a job where I'm working with middle school kids, because obviously, those are the only clients I should ever be talking to. I just need to play UNO with kids every session, and destroy them at UNO. I also never let them win.

PATRICK CASALE:  What is that about? Is that really competitive edge coming out? Like, “I have to crush these kids?”

JEFF GUENTHER:  Uh-huh (Affirmative). Yeah, I really enjoy winning. I also have this, I believe in the phrase, this sounds horrible, but if you're not cheating, then you're not trying, so I'd also do like, they're cheating, obviously. I'm going to do some cheats, too. It was a whole thing. That's a different podcast episode. But instead, I did get a job working at a middle school where I was seeing little middle schoolers. And so, I really just sort of decided instead of growing in a way where I'm just going to try to grow and see adults, or see different types of clients, or couples, or whatever it was, I was just like, “I'm going to stick with the people, with the kids that I know.” And I worked there for a couple years, just seeing middle schoolers. And then, it naturally like I would talk to their parents, and I would do like one-on-one sessions with their parents. I had a supervisor and other counselors in the office with me. So it was just sort of like a natural progression and I felt more comfortable. 

And then, it turned out that I also started teaching parenting classes, and I really enjoyed that and doing family therapy, but through that family therapy, parenting classes, I like soon-ish found out that I hate working with parents, and it wasn't because I was not good enough. It was just like, “They suck.” You feel me on that? Parents-

PATRICK CASALE:  I feel you on that. Parents are the worst. I always think about why do I not like working with kids or teens, or even young adults who parents are paying for their therapy? Because parents are the fucking worse. I don't want to deal with it. So you're working and running these parenting groups, you're working at a school, okay? You're building your confidence up in this way.

JEFF GUENTHER:  I'm building my confidence up in that way. But I'm now getting sick of playing UNO with the kids. I'm too good at UNO. I've peaked, this isn't interesting. It's like Michael Jordan. I was the Michael Jordan UNO. Everybody heard about me in Oregon, I was amazing. But I was like, I don't want to play UNO, I don't want to work with these kids. I also don't want to work with parents anymore. I really just want to work with young adults in their 20s or maybe 30s, that are having these existential crises, or my life isn't what I thought it was going to be, lots of relationship, anxious attachment, sort of things. And that's what I eventually went into. I was freaking out at first. Thought I was going to pee my pants, eventually, just stuck with the clients that I knew, that I felt competent with. And that just sort of naturally started opening doors for me to work with different clients. And I also, finally, got my own therapist and was able to work through my own shit.

PATRICK CASALE:   Yeah, it's a really wonderful story, and coming full circle to that, too, of like, I took a leap of faith. I left California, I moved to Oregon, I'm posting on Craigslist, looking for clients, potentially, about to get murdered. I start to have this major panic, anxiety, and experience that makes me question my identity, and my added existential crossroads. I've got to go beat some kids that UNO and draw [INDISCERNIBLE 00:16:36] over and over and over again. And now you're here, and you've been in private practice ever since. And it probably never happens if you don't take that leap of faith and embrace that fear in the first place, I imagine, because moving out of state is scary enough.

JEFF GUENTHER:   Yeah, moving out of state was scary. Being a therapist in the first place was scary. And it prepared me for, obviously, there was more fears and anxieties that I felt as I continued to be a therapist, and that I'll still feel to this day, but I know that I've gotten through them. Eventually, I stopped working with the middle school kids, went back into private practice, and started my own thing. And there were some surprises there that I wasn't expecting. And it usually came up in the form of a client would present something to me, and I'd be like, “I got nothing for you.” Or I was really scared, a client would be like, they would admit that they did a murder or something. I was just like, “What?” I don't know how to deal with somebody who's killed somebody. That was a real thing that happened.” I was just like, “Nobody prepared me for that in grad school or any supervisors.” So it's just sort of this panic of like, “I can't treat them.”

And I don't know if this is a good idea, or what you have done yourself. But whenever I was scared, I was like, “I'm just going to go back to my core competencies and try to work with clients that I know that I'm really comfortably fit for.” Which sounds like a good idea, but even if you work with those clients that you feel extremely comfortable with, they're going to bring in shit that you're not prepared for, and that you have to grow for, or refer them out if you're really not a good fit, obviously. But it's just like being a therapist, even seeing the ones that you feel like you can treat the most, you're going to grow, whether you like it or not. What usually happens first is that I panic, I'm afraid, I don't feel like I can do anything. And then, I learn and I feel a lot better.

PATRICK CASALE:  Sounds like that panicking and shame response really takes over too. And I do think going back to core competency for sure, I think that's really common, especially, for newer clinicians who are still growing and evolving. I think we lose sight very often that we're really holding space for people. And if all we can do is just show up and hold that space, and just be there for that person, I don't think we always know the answers, right? We don't know the answers in some of those situations, and some of them really take you by surprise, like murder, and other really intense events that happen to humans. And this field is so fucking hard. Your ability to go through your own shit, and work through it, and show up, that's a testament, and that probably created more authenticity, and more rapport with clients who are also really struggling for you to say, “I know what it's like to have a hard time.”

JEFF GUENTHER:  Yeah, I don't know if this is a real stat or where I heard this stat. But there was something I heard probably in grad school that like the relationship is 80% of the healing, that literally, you just need to have a really good relationship. And then, the 20% or the techniques, and the interventions, and all that stuff. So, like you're saying, if you can just connect with your client and hold space, there's so much healing. When all else fails, I just fall back on my relationship, my good trusting healing relationship that I have my clients, and voila.

PATRICK CASALE:  Yeah, it is good enough. I think we lose sight of that so often because we're constantly critiquing ourselves and holding ourselves to standards that are unrealistic, but I think it also is humility, too. Like, I want to be able to do a good job for my clients. I want to be able to show up and not do harm. And I think if you're thinking that way, then you're not doing harm. If you're intentionally being mindful of, “I don't want to harm my client, I want to be the best version of me for them.” Then you're already doing the right things. It's just about being more comfortable with hard conversations. And that comes with time.

JEFF GUENTHER:  Exactly. I'm interested for maybe your perspective on this, I don't know if this is changing the subject a little bit. but one of the things that I've been feeling anxious about just in this past month in my private practice, like you mentioned at the top, is my TikTok account. On TikTok, you can go and you can find me. You can search for TherapyDen, and it's just sort of like, it's me being me. And I'm just being a person and sometimes I'm trying to be funny, sometimes I'm trying to be informative, sometimes I'm sort of ruffling feathers. And it's really an authentic version of who I am. And that's really funny, and it's a great outlet. And also, kind of like you, I've been on podcasts. I'm sort of in the mental health community, people know about me, but my clients have never come across my work until TikTok.

Half of my clients are on TikTok and scrolling through TikTok, and there's this one week where this like one video I did went sort of viral and five of my clients came in that week, and they're like, “So, I saw you on TikTok.” It was one of the more anxiety-provoking experiences I've had, because I knew that there was a possibility that my clients could see me, hear me or read some of my blogs or whatever it was. But five of them saw me come up on their phone, and I was like, “Well, how do you feel about that.” And all of a sudden, I was just like, “I'm just like this little fucking clown on TikTok.” Or, “I'm being a little turd on TikTok. This is not how they know me. And I ruined the relationship.” Like, they are going to see me differently, or think of me differently, or they're going to be scared that I'm going to somehow reveal things that we've talked about in here on TikTok. 

And so there's just sort of this, “Wow, my public persona is now being shown to my clients. And there's a bunch of therapists in our community that we need to be really careful about what our public persona is.” And there's a big part of me that's sort of like, “Hey, therapists are people too. But then another part of me is just like, “Oh, how authentic should we be out there?” What do you think about that? It's a big question.

PATRICK CASALE:  It's a big question. I would love to know how you responded to that in a second with them chiming in and bringing that up. But yeah, you're so right. There is this balancing act of, we are expected to act in a certain way as mental health therapists in our industry. I think society expects us to act a certain way, our profession does. And for those of us who are trying to do things differently, and be more authentic, it can certainly create and elicit a response from people who are like, “You're definitely doing things unethically or wrong.” Right? We love to throw the unethical word around. I always think like, it's a balancing act. Even in terms of disclosure, I'm not telling clients my entire life story for the purpose of self-serving, but if I can disclose my story so that they feel supported, normalized, validated and have a light at the end of the tunnel, then I think it's a positive. Same thing for TikTok, right? You have other outlets and personalities other than, “I am a therapist, and I work for my private practice, and I own TherapyDen.”

You have other hats, and you have other roles in society, and you're a human being. I like the statement you just made, like therapists are people too. Therapists are out there doing crazy shit on TikTok anyways. So why does it matter if therapists are also talking about what it's like to be a therapist in the therapeutic setting? Because I think that is really real. And some clients may get a little frustrated about that, and they may take it personally. But I do think that it's a balancing act.

JEFF GUENTHER:  Yeah, I think it's a balancing act as well. Luckily, my clients, all five of them that came in were just excited, and I thought it was really cool, and really funny, and they responded really well to it. But it definitely seems like something I'm going to have to keep on checking in with them about every once in a while because I think it would be if my therapist was on TikTok, and they're being all in your face, or authentic, or funny, I am subscribing to that channel. I'm going to be watching every single one of those videos just out of curiosity, because it's sort of like, you get to find out what your therapist, or what your middle school teacher is like, what their life is like. It's just sort of like, “Oh, you don't really ever get to know that.” 

There's a debate sometimes in Portland, very progressive, sex-positive, and there happens to be a good amount of sex clubs here. There’re lots of people love to do sex in Portland. There's a lot of sex therapists in Portland, and there's some sex therapists that are just like, “Hey, we like to go to the sex clubs, and we're going to go to those sex clubs, and if our client sees us having sex, that's okay.” And other sex therapists or non-sex therapists are just like, “No, this is so not okay.” And if you're ever going to go to a sex club, go up to Seattle. Get out of Portland or go down to San Francisco. And it's such an interesting debate where a lot of those sex therapists that go to sex clubs here in Portland are just like, “You know what? I'm a person too. I like to do this. If a client saw me like, that's okay, or that's something we could process, or I'm going to let my clients know that they might find me there or something. But there's a lot of debate around that. I just find it fascinating that [CROSSTALK 00:25:30].

PATRICK CASALE:  I don't think it's black and white. I think that we do such a good job of compartmentalizing and making everything black and white, and failing to remember that there's gray area in life, and there's gray area in our profession. I always bring it back to client harm. If we're not intentionally trying to do clients harm, and we're not revealing their secrets, and keeping their confidentiality, at the end of the day, when do we get to also be human beings, and also go out in our communities, and do the things that we enjoy doing? I work with addiction. If I go out to have a beer, and my client works at the restaurant, because it's a small city, it's these weird things that happen. I don't acknowledge the relationship. I've had clients try to buy me rounds at bars that I've gone to, and I'm like, “No bartender. Please don't allow for this round to be purchased on that person.”

But then how do I have that conversation with the bartender? Like, “Why are you turning this down?” Well, I can't have that conversation. It's just, our work is messy. I think that what you're doing is really valuable to the community in a lot of different ways. You run a platform that is really geared towards inclusivity and anti-racism, and sex-positive population. I think it's really important to have what you're offering, because we need those spaces too to combat the other side of it, which is like absolutely fucking not. We're not here for any of this.

JEFF GUENTHER:  Yeah, exactly. Also, I run TherapyDen, and we have that mission. And we also have a voice, and I get to be the voice of TherapyDen. And I love how I'm just really putting it out there, and all the other therapist’s directories, or maybe at least most of them. They don't have an authentic voice. It's fucking boring, or just real standard, or something. And that's not interesting, that's not attractive, that's not the way the world is going.

 PATRICK CASALE:  It's not and it's not the way the air and world of psychotherapy is going, either. If you were to say, who's the founder of Psychology Today, or Mental Health Matters, or whatever? I don't know the answer to that. 

JEFF GUENTHER:  No. 

PATRICK CASALE:  But people know the answer of TherapyDen because you're out there, you're in the communities, you're responding to things that are controversial. You're being real, and you're walking the walk because you're backing it up. I think that is really impressive to put yourself out there like that and say, “I also run this thing that a lot of you use.” I think we attract and repel, and we attract what we put out, we attract when we're working within our value system, and we repel people who don't feel that we are in alignment with theirs and that's okay. Keep doing what you're doing. I always enjoy talking to you and you make me laugh a lot. This is the podcast where I've had to cover my mouth for the last 10 minutes laughing and I appreciate that. I love your sense of humor, but tell us where we can find you, tell us what you're doing in the community so that people who are listening can find your stuff. 

JEFF GUENTHER:  Yeah, they can go to therapyden.com, if you want to check out my therapist directory. You can email me personally at [email protected]. Find me at Twitter, which I think I'm hilarious on Twitter, not enough Twitter followers.

PATRICK CASALE:  I don't think I've ever read a tweet in my entire life. Probably need to get into that world.

JEFF GUENTHER:  Twitter, honestly, it's not the place for therapists go. It's hard to create a brand, go viral and connect. It takes a lot of work. Don't find me on Twitter. Stay off that fucking dumpster fire of a site. Find me on TikTok by searching for TherapyDen. Yeah, and I love doing podcasts, especially, with you. You can find me on lots of different podcasts out there too.

PATRICK CASALE:  Very, very cool. Everyone, please try to check out TherapyDen. Great, inclusive listing and directory page for therapists. There's a free version, there's a paid version where it's a sliding scale, pay what you can for the premium. I just learned that the last time I talked to Jeff, so please take advantage of it. Be more visible to your ideal clients, especially, those who are more vulnerable, who don't feel like they feel safe going on other platforms looking for therapists that are in alignment with their values too. I think that's really important for our client’s well-being and for the world of psychotherapy too. 

Listen to these podcasts anywhere you listen to podcasts. Download and subscribe, feel free to share. I also have a Facebook group, All Things Private Practice , and if you want individual or group coaching, allthingspractice.com. Thank you so much for listening. If you like authentic conversation, things that are going to go against the grain, and probably piss people off, then you're in the right place. Thanks, Jeff. I really appreciate it. 

JEFF GUENTHER:  Yeah, talk later. 

PATRICK CASALE:  Thanks, man.