What is the Therapist's Professional Will™?

NOTE TO CLIENTS AND MEDIA: This section is not designed to address the needs of clients. If you are a client and have lost your therapist and are looking for help, please go to Notes to Clients and Media. If you are a member of the media and not a mental health provider, yet are interested in interviewing Dr. Steiner, please also read Notes to Clients and Media.

The Therapist's Professional Will™
A Therapist's Professional Will spells out your wishes for the continuing care of your clients in your absence. The concept resonates with helping professionals, but the prospect of putting one in place is daunting. By completing such a will you will have done everything possible to assure the continuity of care for your clients, and have given yourself peace of mind.

What would happen if your practice were to be disrupted?
This system minimizes treatment disruption for clients and helps you and your colleagues cope when you are unavailable due to vacation, unexpected absence or terminating your practice.

The Therapist's Professional Will: The Complete Guide™ provides checklists, templates and forms. The latest version, which includes the Therapist's Professional Will itself, plus supportive information to help you make and document thoughtful decisions about what's important to you and your clients, is now downloadable. To order, go to the Order Products page. Developing a professional will is a lasting gift you can give to your clients. For your own peace of mind, do it now.

Did you know?
That the ethics codes of most mental health organizations require therapists to provide for the disposition of their practice? Following are several organizations' relevant requirements:

• The American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association's Ethics Code: "Physicians have an obligation to support continuity of care for their patients. While physicians have the option of withdrawing from a case, they cannot do so without giving notice to the patient, the relatives, or responsible friends sufficiently long in advance of withdrawal to permit another medical attendant to be secured."

• The American Psychological Association's Ethics Code: "Psychologists make plans in advance to facilitate the appropriate transfer and to protect the confidentiality of records and data in the event of psychologists' withdrawal from positions or practice."
• The National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics: "Social workers should make reasonable efforts to ensure continuity of services in the event that services are interrupted by factors such as unavailability, relocation, illness, disability, or death."
• The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists Code of Ethics: "Marriage and family therapists do not abandon or neglect clients in treatment without making reasonable arrangements for the continuation of such treatment."
• The California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists Code of Ethics: "Marriage and family therapists, therefore, maintain practices and procedures that assure undisrupted care. Such practices and procedures may include, but are not limited to, providing contact information and specified procedures in case of emergency, or therapist absence, conducting appropriate terminations, and providing for a professional will."

• Your trusted, hand-picked team of professionals to spring into action, contacting your clients, and following your wishes for handling your practice
• Your clients to get immediate care, with minimal disruption in their treatment plan
• Trusted colleagues to confidentially handle your office matters and records in the way you have specified.
• You to have freedom to focus on your recovery if you are ill or injured, rather than on a disrupted practice
• Your vacations to be truly a time of rest — no more worrying about clients should there be an emergency/crisis

ABOUT THE THERAPIST'S PROFESSIONAL WILL: THE COMPLETE GUIDE™
Dr. Steiner has recently released a downloadable version, which takes the critical issue of providing therapeutic continuity for clients from concept to practical application. To read a short article about the Therapist's Professional Will™, or for more information about the Therapist’s Professional Will™, please see About the Therapist's Professional Will: The Complete Guide™. To order your own copy of the new downloadable version, the enhanced CD, or the audio introduction, go to the Order Products page.

Dr Steiner's Contributions to the Therapist's Professional Will:

Dr. Steiner has been a pioneer in bringing this important, yet challenging issue to the attention of therapists throughout the US, and internationally. In addition to being a national speaker on the topic, Dr. Steiner has published over twenty articles and taught about the important, yet taboo topic of preparing for illness, death, relocation and retirement among therapists. Her work on the Professional Will has been cited in the Wall Street Journal, a textbook entitled Skilled Empathy: Creating Safety through Therapeutic Attachment, (Gollnick, 2005), incorporated into the curriculum for FilmTx, a continuing education provider, her original article was reprinted in The California Therapist, and several of her articles about the Professional Will are featured on the CAMFT website. Her article, "The Empty Chair, Making our Absence Less Traumatic for Everyone" was published in The New Therapist, a South African journal distributed in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia.

Dr. Steiner has been giving Law and Ethics workshops about The Therapist's Professional Will since 2004. Organizations she has given workshops about the Will include: The American Group Psychotherapy Association, California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, Herrick Hospital Dept. of Psychiatry Grand Rounds, International Human Learning Resources Network, Kaiser Hospital, Contra Costa Psychological Association, The Psychotherapy Institute, Berkeley, CA.

Dr. Steiner served for 14 years as an Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of California Medical School, San Francisco and is on the faculty of the Psychotherapy Institute, Berkeley, CA.