When future psychologists and psychotherapists come to study, they are usually attracted by the solution of their own problems and the desire to help people. After completing his studies, the young specialist suddenly realized that he still needed to earn money. And there are interesting twists and turns in his outlook on life. So, I propose to think about the fact that psychotherapy is not only a treatment, but also a business, the results of which are economically interesting both for a psychologist / psychotherapist and for society.
As for the evaluation of the results of the activities of clinical psychotherapy, the following opinion turned out to be unexpected:
“Engaging in communication with severely deformed people is an absolutely pointless exercise. Although, perhaps, very humane. 🙂 In this regard, I do not understand psychotherapy at all. A person must unlearn for ten years, and then treat 10-20 people for several years. And what are the results of his efforts? These 10-20 people, at best, will be able to somehow exist in this world. Economically, it is completely unjustified.” (Iskander Nagaev, clinical psychotherapist).
And how attractive (first of all, financially attractive) is therapeutic activity for the psychotherapist himself, if the therapist can work in different approaches? Here, his satisfaction with the success of the treatment of his clients, and the amount of his monetary reward are also important. Indeed, in terms of money, what is the best way to earn money — as a psychoanalyst? or conduct constellations according to Hellinger? Or maybe lead therapy groups in the tradition of the Gestalt approach?
So let’s consider —
Business models of the main therapeutic approaches
The success of a particular therapeutic approach is determined not only and not so much by the success of the cure, but by many other factors. What? This is:
- Efficiency — success and speed of cure
There are few or no objective, serious studies here. However, in terms of immediate effectiveness, as more effective methods can be noted: methods of cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnosis and Hellinger constellations. The least effective, at least in the short term, is classical psychoanalysis.
- Attractiveness for the client
It is important. It is lonely to sit and think seriously, even if it is effective — women are sad. Lying down, relaxing or dancing is much more pleasant, and here the cognitive approach is in the red, art therapy and gestalt, using such forms, are an obvious winner. Women are the main contingent of a psychotherapist, and the addition of any mysticism, the ability to be in the spotlight and worry about such eternal topics as infidelity, childbirth, abortion and death for most women makes the therapeutic process more attractive. This moment is especially intensively used in Hellinger constellations and transpersonal therapy.
- Mass character of the therapeutic process
If the approach allows group forms of work, it immediately becomes more business-justified. For the participants it is cheaper and more fun, for the therapist it is more profitable. While Fritz Perls worked in the mode of individual work, he was a man of modest means and little known. When he developed forms of group work at the Esalen Institute, a Gestalt approach appeared interesting for therapists. There was a business, there were numerous followers. However, in the Gestalt approach, groups cannot be more than 10-12 people; in system constellations, several dozen participants can participate in the therapeutic process. From a business point of view, these are more attractive forms of work.
- Mass training of specialists
The Cognitive Behavioral Approach is easy to teach and can be taught in a large group. To teach psychoanalysis or gestalt is longer, more difficult, the study groups are smaller. In this respect, their business is more problematic. Specialists who know how to conduct mass hypnosis are easier to find than to train, so classical hypnosis in therapy, as a business, exists sluggishly.
- Duration of therapy
If the approach is not popular, not promoted, then the duration of therapy is its minus. If the approach is popular and people tend to go in this direction anyway, then the duration of therapy becomes its business advantage. The psychotherapist with each client feeds longer. Two years in psychoanalysis is the norm, especially since two years is a typical time when most problems go away on their own, and without any treatment. The most beneficial is the treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts. There are many of them, relatives are ready to pay big money, and the probability of a complete cure is low, and many of the seemingly cured clients return to the next course six months or a year after treatment.
Let’s change people more slowly… It’s business, it’s profitable!
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- Advertising resource
Advertising is done both by the therapists themselves, creating literature around their approach (Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson, Eric Berne, NLP literature group), and by the participants themselves, creating «word of mouth». In this regard, individual and anonymous psychotherapy has a minimal advertising resource, and the most effective (from a business point of view) models of an advertising resource are used in Life Spring and Hellinger constellations. In Life Spring, the trainer obliges the participants to recruit some new people, making this a practice exercise during the training. In Hellinger constellations, the members of a large group during the constellations usually arrange some kind of joint action, reminiscent of a «Greek choir» around the center of experiences, which involves all participants and especially the participants.
- Involvement in the psychotherapeutic process
There are more clients in those therapeutic approaches where the system of involving future clients in the psychotherapeutic process naturally works. In this regard, group therapy has a huge advantage over individual therapy: «sharing» before each regular session, in which participants each talk about their feelings and problems, often starts the process of infection, after which group members discover problems in themselves that they previously did not address Attention. Further, in the process of work, since the participant “with a problem” receives the attention of a psychotherapist, and the participant “without problems” is deprived of attention, then in such a situation, most people begin to naturally-unconsciously look for their own problems. Sooner or later this happens, after which the person has new problems, and the therapist has new clients.
- Spread of an infectious virus
More business-successful are therapeutic approaches that, having cured the client, simultaneously infected him with a long-term contagious virus, from which, after some time, several (dozens) more clients will become clients. The role of such a contagious virus is usually played by theoretical principles that quickly cure the problem, and in the future work to create new problems. See →