The debate around the problems associated with social networking for therapists has been heated and complex (see Google and Facebook, Therapists and Clients by Dr. John Grohol). Regardless of this ongoing dialogue, the reality is many therapists are engaged in social networking and that’s likely not going to change any time soon.
What I’m curious to know is not the problems with social networking — there are loads of comments on Dr. Grohol’s article listed above if you’d like to sound off there — but why you are networking in this way in the first place?
Whether you’re active on Twitter, Facebook, Google Buzz or any other of the growing list of networking spots sprouting up all over the online landscape, what are your goals in doing so?
Here are a few reasons that come to mind around why therapists might be socially networking…
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Reasons for using Twitter are none of the above: I like to express myself without the need to care for the feelings of others to the abnormal degree required in the therapeutic relationship. I’ve enjoyed micropoetry and haiku encountered on the network. When appearing without a pseudonym on Facebook I found myself being stalked by one ex client and approached by others who recognised my name. I couldn’t just ignore these people whom I knew, let alone block them, some were quite vulnerable – individual messages had to be sent to explain why I couldn’t be their friend. It became work all over again. Although surprised and flattered at how much better known my name was than I’d supposed, I deactivated that account and haven’t returned.
On Twitter I don’t have to work. I can relax and for someone who works with words the 140 character limit is a huge relief. It’s also a very good writing discipline. Wading through blogs is unnecessary unless I choose to read them.
I use Tweetie and the column sits at the side of my screen providing light relief between sessions. It’s something that’s just for me and reminds me I have a brain and a life outside of my work.
MargyBargy – It sounds as if social networking is a place of exression of your creative side, totally aside from being a therapist. Using a pseudonym provides a natural separation between you and your clients. Thank you for sharing a reason I hadn’t even considered – and a wonderful one!
I use facebook because everyone else in my generation does too. I love it. It connects me to my friends. It connects me to my church. It’s how I know about parties, and how my friends and I make plans. Heck, it’s the only way I talk to my sister these days.
My cat uses twitter to rant about how little I feed her and how much she hates that I don’t wake up early enough in the morning.
I don’t intend to give up either of those things simply because of my chosen career path. These things are only going to become more and more apart of life and my boundaries are just as firm there as anywhere else.
Awakeanddreaming – Now that’s a good kitty. Nice to see she’s benefiting from the social networking outlet too.
As I build my private practice, I am torn about using social networking outlets. It has been deemed by many, an important and effective marketing tool, yet I grapple with the ethics and confidentiality of using this medium for this purpose. I work with teens and can’t imagine the posts or messages that I could potentially receive on a regular basis. I would like to see it more as a professional networking outlet, but still up in the air.
Thanks for posting on this topic!
Darla – Yes, it’s a complicated matter for sure and I suspect many therapists are torn as you are. It’s challenging to know how to navigate the new online landscape – that keeps changing too!
I’m still working with this. I’ve had a website and blog since I began my practice, but am intrigued about using the blog/twitter world towards other ‘non-therapist’ pursuits, i.e. foodieness. Do I pursue some kind of anonymity? Blend the two or keep them separate? It can feel very casual but I’m very aware of how vigilant I have to be to keep it clean. I like the anonymous twittering idea, sounds fun.
I use facebook probably for the same reasons anybody does. Your first two reasons above apply. I have found some friends from high school and junior high, and have also been able to get to know some of the cousins that I never knew very well because my family moved a lot and I didn’t grow up with them. And it is a way to stay in touch with (and monitor) my teenage children who are on facebook (such as catching my 16 year old’s publication of the date and time of her birthday party to her 378 facebook friends, and whichever of their friends they might have passed it along to, in time to prevent the party from becoming much larger than intended).
I also enjoy following and chatting with colleagues online. It gives us a chance to relax a bit and get to know each other in ways that we otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity to do. Some of my FB contacts are definitely using it to generate business, but I am not, as I am not in private practice.
Creativity, also. I spend more time than I want to on the games and applications, but I do enjoy them and interacting with my online neighbors. I enjoy experimenting with colors on my virtual farm, aquarium, etc.
Being a therapist can be very lonely. Before I was a therapist, I turned to social networking (back then it was email listservs, and changed as the technology grew) for social support. That need has not changed. I’m still who I am.
“So called mental health professionals and psychiatrist are just as human as anyone else, capable of doing, thinking, feeling, needing, wanting exactly the same things that any other human being is capable of, and then competing in our world of elite to masses to get them, don’t say that isn’t so. Still while you are at it, know this, some will get addicted to psychotropic or mind altering drugs and some won’t including some doctors and nurses, that is a fact. This isn’t about some having some “severe mental illness” that needs drugs or to be medicated, and some not. Because no matter what someone has been through, or not, they may not be able to handle whatever it is at the moment or even temporarily, and the more that is piled on the camels back is the more that one has to deal with, and maybe the camels back just might eventually break?”
The only thing is that others don’t have the power of the courts to make a living off of the most vulnerable individuals in our society at their most vulnerable points in life. That is really a sad shame, they are not God, Gods, nor do they have any Godly powers. What they do is very sadly wrong and they hurt many individuals and then they call themselves treating them. That is the joke, isn’t it?
“But, this isn’t really about drugs, this is about why people are the same and different as human beings and that is something that no one can or will ever totally understand. So if you have never done anything wrong in your life be thankful, if you haven’t ever done anything you said you would never do be glad, and if you think that you have the power to understand everything that happens in life then I suppose if you could verify that and prove it then you would be the wealthiest person in the world. When I say this story is about all psychiatrist then I am doing the same thing they do which is to label people, I am stereotyping. That isn’t what I want to do. I want to make it clear that stereotypes are wrong and that they are flawed and that they don’t work, not today and not ever. That false and untrue projections are just that, that false accusations are just that, that you can’t make a mountain out of a molehill, and yet they do and they feed off of their own personal need and the greed they have, on the weakest individuals in society mostly at the weakest points in their lives. What about that? It that conducive to our society becoming a better place within which to live? I don’t agree.”
From my writing, okay, I use this internet because I am a human being just like any other, and I think that the game of the mental health business needs to be stopped or it needs to be seen for what it is and have some honest and fair competetion not produced by court orders!
Erin – It’s clear many of us would like to enjoy the new online landscape for a number of possible outlets – not only as a therapist socially networking but perhaps blogging about food (in your case)!
Rapunzel – Great point about the lonliness of being a therapist, particularly those in private practice. This is perhaps a reason I hadn’t even considered as to why I enjoy the therapist interraction so much in this way.
Janie Lee – Clearly a lot of passionate ideas and you’ve found the internet a way to express them. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Just to let folks know there’s an outstanding discussion of the ethical issues of psychotherapists and social media right here at Psychcentral from a month ago or so.
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2010/03/31/google-and-facebook-therapists-and-clients/
I even chime in on it.
Please tell me how your facebook account is locked and private. I am a piano teacher, and have a facebook group page for my students so they can watch videos. One mom is a therapist, and is very concerned that her clients can find her on Facebook, and won’t join unless I can guarantee she is unsearchable. I can only suggest to her that she use a pseudonym, but this is “illegal” in Facebook land. Thank you for your help.