Book review from Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, Vol 32(2), Sum 1995.
Kathleen Worsley Reviews the book
Succeeding in Private Practice: A Business Guide for Psychotherapists by Eileen S. Lenson (1994). "Lenson, a social worker, has produced a usable and well thought out overview for any psychotherapy practitioner considering private practice. She suggests more than a dozen points such as freedom from routine, the need to be an energetic self-starter, and ability to delay gratification to determine fitness for private practice. After reviewing the various forms for a business (solo, partnership, corporation), Lenson outlines setting up an office and arranging for necessary supplies and services. Only a paragraph or so is allotted to each item, including computers, and the use of consultants such as accountants and attorneys.
Lenson's real strengths are in the thorough and detailed discussion she provides for the business of doing business, including record keeping, fee setting, personnel issues, taxes, and marketing. She has drawn extensively from her own experience as well as from Psychotherapy Finances and Practice Builder, two specialized publications for professional practitioners. Chapters on office paperwork, insurance, and collections could stand alone as procedures manuals, they are so well-organized and comprehensive. Sample forms included are clear and attractively laid out. Succeeding in Private Practice is well-organized, attractively laid out with short paragraphs, thorough indexing, and numbered or bulleted lists. It lends itself well for use as a handbook since topics can be found easily.
Let this book by Eileen Lenson be the first or second on a list for the beginning practitioner who must then go on to read many other works and seek advice from experienced psychotherapists in his or her own field." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)
“. . . this text should be considered by those practitioners contemplating private practice and it should be a book included in the libraries of applied psychology and psychotherapy training organizations.”
–Clinical Psychology Forum
“I find this book to be a very comprehensive primer about how to go about setting up a private practice. Coverage is very inclusive ranging from what kind of furniture to purchase and how to arrange it, to excellent information about how to market the practice, something most practitioners loathe to do.”
–Michèle Harway, California Family Study Center, North Hollywood and coauthor of Battering and Family Therapy
“This is a thorough, complete, and readable discussion of everything a therapist who is considering, starting, or building a private practice would need to know. It contains a wealth of information for which those in the mental health field are poorly trained but badly need to know, as well as many hints that would otherwise take a great deal of time as well as trial and error to discover.”
–Anne H. Seiler, Health Counseling Associates of Columbia
