Part 1
When you think about your client’s journey through therapy, do you wipe your hands as done and dusted once the client is discharged? Alternatively, do you still feel a responsibility to ensure that the client understands they should come back to you if they need a therapist again? What do we do as a practice to ensure that the client returns to you, their therapist if they need therapeutic services again?
On Thursday, we had the opportunity to spend a few hours with psychologist, practice owner and co-founder of Power Diary Damien Adler. As our conversations wandered from the Practice Management Software space to the therapeutic space and back, Damien spoke about his clinicians' responsibility to provide their clients with a “Relapse Prevention Plan.”
As you work through our Client Engagement Course, you'll find we often speak about helping your clients with informed decisions, writing an inactive client letter, and discharging clients in a manner that supports them to come back when they need to.
GOAL: When the client seeks therapy again, they seek help early (before an actual relapse), and they seek out the same therapist, even if the therapist refers the client to a more specialised clinician.
We loved this idea of active clinical care by providing the client with a Relapse Prevention plan. The plan is developed and provided to the client toward the end of therapy, usually at one of their last scheduled sessions. (Hence the importance to talk about discharge and your expectations that they attend their final appointment. We’ll be covering more on that in the future.)
The Relapse Prevention plan can be a simple document (See Sample 1, Sample 2, or Sample 3) or it can be something more complex and clinical.
Whatever the format, the plan should have:
reminders about ways to use the skills they learned in the therapeutic journey
triggers and early warning signs that they need to be mindful of
your contact numbers in case they need to re-engage your services.
Another aspect we loved to hear about from Damien was that his clinicians are provided with the opportunity to discuss their relapse prevention plans in group supervision, and clinic team meetings held at the practice.
You are reading part four of our 11 part series around client engagement.
Want to learn more? In our client engagement course, we discuss the therapeutic journey and aspects to keep in mind as the client moves through their pathway.
Do you want a few tips and tricks to spruce up your waiting room? Check out this post from Power Diary.
