Beyond Unhappy Customers

May 20

The first time I fielded a complaint from someone against me, I cried for two days. It wasn’t even a client. It was someone who I had a consultation with (for free) and overstayed their time with me. When I met with the attorney appointed to me by my liability insurance company, he said that at least in Colorado, a therapist can expect to receive eight complaints over the course of their career. Of course not all of those result in disciplinary action, but all consumer boards are unpredictable, so every complaint that is made has a reasonable chance of resulting in some sort of disciplinary action. In Colorado, the committee that hears these complaints is composed of professional members, and two just regular folks—often these are attorneys, but not always. While therapists tend to try to be understanding of what their fellow professionals deal with every day, they aren’t always that compassionate or reasonable, and any decision reached is the result of a compromise, not logical thought.

This is a particularly personal and vulnerable topic for me to post about because after that first complaint, I received a second one during the start of the pandemic because of someone on BetterHelp that wasn’t pleased with me. That was incredibly stressful because all the exchanges were over email “counseling” and I think we all know how poorly things can go with emails. I could go on a rant about the many problems with BetterHelp, but let’s leave it at: if you’re a therapist, don’t work with them. It’s too easy to set up your own telehealth practice without them taking a chunk of your earnings and overworking you. Also, their screening process is nonexistant. Many of the clients they have on there are high-risk and contrary to what BetterHelp claims, if you are a therapist who has a client on your caseload that is a bad fit or is paying but not using the service for months, you can’t just have them removed from your caseload. I also gather that the latest word out on them is they use clients’ confidential chat data to train AI. Fun, right?

Anyway, what I learned from that beyond never working with BetterHelp again is do not ever have clinical exchanges over email, text, or secure message. If anyone takes something the wrong way, it’s with you forever and can be sent to the board where it’s open for interpretation. Also, clients can alter documents like that (which happened to me) and try to make you look worse. On top of it all, therapists in Colorado have no voice in the proceedings other than the statement issued by their attorney (or more accurately, the attorney’s paralegal.) If the board offers a settlement, they refuse to change any of the wording even if you call and ask nicely. For extra fun, if you ask “too many questions” about this document that will follow you for your ENTIRE career, they threaten you with criminal charges.

Honestly, criminal charges might almost be preferable because there’s a higher standard of proof and they can be expunged after you’ve completed whatever was required to remedy the situation and an adequate amount of time has passed. Since consumer complaints are “civil” law, the standard of proof is more like, “Well, we think you probably did it.” For criminal law, it’s beyond a reasonable doubt.

Things to keep in mind:

Have clear policies about contact methods, hours you can be reached, and don’t see a client until those are signed.
Only conduct initial consultations via phone and only do them for 15 minutes. Never have a prospective client fill anything out beyond contact information for those calls. If they haven’t signed your disclosures, they’re not a client so if they get weird on you, it’s much easier to nip in the bud.
Don’t reply to emails that upset you. Probably a good general policy. I still have room to grow on this one. When it comes to clients, if they send you something that seems to have a bit of ‘tude, ask to set up a call. Better yet, just call them and say you would like to discuss what they sent you. Also remind them that emails are not where discussions take place.
Texting is a huge problem. Scheduling only.
Nobody is perfect 100% of the time and that’s ok. Everyone makes mistakes. Most of the time, people are reasonable and it all works out. If you ever should get a ding on your record, it probably just means you’ve seen a lot of people and you pulled the sort straw. Take it as one to grow on and resolve to do better next time. Also, never assume that just because someone has disciplinary action on their record that they’re a bad therapist or that they did something horrible. If you’re concerned, ask about it.