Jennie Lannette, LCSWHow to Write Your Psychology Today Profile: Make Your Client The Hero
Updated: Dec 9, 2022
Struggling to find the right words for your therapist profile? Use this guide.
You have 250 words to prove your worth as a therapist. If you don’t do it right, your entire future as a clinician could be in jeopardy. Go!
That’s quite an exaggeration, but I know plenty of people who feel this way about writing their online therapy profiles. Not to worry—help is here.
Want to skip ahead? Get this free worksheet with prompts and a sample profile, or learn how you can hire me to do it for you.
A Psychology Today profile is used by many therapists to advertise their services. This listing is the largest directory of mental health professionals in the world.
It’s an opportunity to market yourself in a place where people are actively seeking you out. It can also be challenging to compete with a wall of other profiles.
This article covers the basics of writing your profile and includes examples of how you can connect with your ideal clients and start expanding your practice.
Article Highlights
Case Study
Part of the struggle is that most therapists weren’t English majors as undergrads. Who knew so much writing would be involved in having a private practice?
With my therapy and journalism background, I help therapists write or edit their profiles while maintaining their own sincerity and personality. Here’s the secret sauce I use to attract attention and get calls.
This method is based on the popular Storybrand marketing strategy by Donald Miller. I particularly like his book Marketing Made Simple. Experts around the world use this process, which I'll touch more on below. I’ve adapted this practice for writing PT profiles.
To illustrate how I put these together, let’s consider Sally’s case. She’s been trying to write her profile for weeks, but has been putting it off. Finally frustrated enough, she asks for help.
First, here’s a little background about her.
Background
Sally recently completed her licensure and is opening a private practice. Sally has the following qualifications:
Top of her graduate class
Completed two practicums in family counseling and is trained in The Gottman Method
Worked three years at a counseling center with individuals, couples, and families
Focus
She has the following interests:
Working with young couples dealing with the growing pains
Helping couples learn to deal with conflict and resentment
Helping families going through grief or trauma
Her “Why”
Sally has these motivations:
She enjoys seeing couples make breakthroughs
She particularly likes to work with couples who’ve been together or married five years or less
She likes to provide evidence-based therapies like The Gottman Method
Guiding Prompts
Knowing this information, I would ask Sally the following questions to help her develop her profile. I’ve included her answers as well.
Q. What are the most common problems your clients come in with, or what do you imagine they will be struggling with?
A. They’ve been trying to avoid conflict and fighting in their relationship, but eventually blow up at each other. This has become a pattern. They fear the relationship won’t work anymore.
Q. How do you help with this problem?
A. I teach them about resentment and how to work through conflicts in a healthy way. They will learn how to talk to each other differently. They will learn to enjoy each other again.
Q. How will your client feel, or what will they experience, when your services help them?
A. They will have a closer relationship. They will stop arguing all the time and understand how healthy, successful relationships work.
Q. What is your own clinical personality like? Are you fun and creative, energetic, blunt, etc.?
A. I’m told I have a calming effect. I can stay calm during a very difficult session and provide comfort.
Planning
With this targeted information, I can help Sally develop her profile. We need to work the relevant information into a limited space while structuring the content in a way that attracts clients and doesn’t have them moving on to the next profile.
It might seem counterintuitive, but this is not the place to list all of your credentials, degrees, and qualifications. For one thing, the space is too limited for that. And for another, people respond to how you can help them with their problems, and how your service will make them feel.