Navigating Men’s Mental Health Breaking Barriers with Courtland McPhersonEp.80

Episode Overview

• Episode Topic:
  In this episode of Mastering Counseling, host Becky Coplen welcomes Courtland McPherson, the founder of Little Red Telescope Psychotherapy, to discuss the pressing issue of men’s mental health. Courtland shares his journey of building a psychotherapy practice dedicated to helping men overcome challenges such as anxiety, depression, and addiction. The episode delves into how men can benefit from a deeper exploration of their mental health through psychodynamic therapy combined with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Courtland also touches on the importance of tackling the societal stigmas that prevent men from seeking help and how supporting men’s mental health can have a positive ripple effect across the community. Throughout the conversation, Courtland provides insight into the therapeutic process and the evolving modalities in the field of mental health. He explains the significance of providing a safe, welcoming environment for men to discuss their struggles openly. This episode is an eye-opener for both mental health professionals and listeners interested in understanding the complexities of men’s mental health and the broader impact it has on society.
• Lessons You’ll Learn
• This episode offers valuable lessons on the unique challenges men face when it comes to seeking mental health support. Courtland explains the deep-rooted societal stigmas around men’s mental health and how these barriers can be overcome through effective therapy. He highlights how his therapeutic approach combines the depth of psychodynamic therapy with the practical tools of CBT, helping men not only understand their immediate symptoms but also explore the underlying causes of their mental health struggles. This episode provides key insights into how long-term healing is possible when therapy goes beyond surface-level treatment. Listeners will also gain a broader understanding of how addressing men’s mental health is not just a personal issue but one that affects the community at large. Courtland discusses the connection between untreated mental health issues in men and societal problems like addiction, crime, and domestic violence. By helping men become healthier and more connected, the effects are felt far beyond individual lives, making a significant difference in society as a whole.
• About Our Guest
• Courtland McPherson is a psychotherapist and the founder of Little Red Telescope Psychotherapy, based on the West Coast. His practice focuses on helping men navigate mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, and addiction through a combination of psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapy. Courtland’s unique approach stems from his personal journey, growing up in a rural, blue-collar environment where he experienced food insecurity and the challenges of a single-parent household. These early life experiences, along with the guidance of key counselors during his youth, inspired his path into mental health care. Currently working on his PhD, Courtland’s research focuses on midlife men and their experiences with social connectedness. His dedication to improving men’s mental health is deeply personal and professional, as he seeks to provide lasting solutions that address not only the symptoms of mental health challenges but the deeper, systemic issues men face. With over 15 years of experience, Courtland continues to make a positive impact by advocating for better mental health care for men.
• Topics Covered
• In this episode, listeners will learn about the journey behind Little Red Telescope Psychotherapy and the story of how Courtland McPherson created his practice. Courtland shares his personal background and the experiences that shaped his approach to therapy, including his struggles with depression and loss during his teenage years. The conversation covers the importance of addressing the societal stigmas surrounding men’s mental health, and how therapists can create an inclusive environment that encourages men to seek help. Additionally, the episode explores the therapeutic modalities Courtland uses, focusing on psychodynamic therapy’s ability to dive deeper into mental health patterns, in conjunction with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Courtland also discusses the broader impact of men’s mental health on societal issues like addiction, crime, and domestic violence. Listeners will gain insight into the business side of running a psychotherapy practice, from using telehealth platforms to managing a small practice. Lastly, Courtland talks about his PhD research on midlife men and social connectedness, offering a glimpse into his future work.

Episode Transcript

Becky Coplen: Welcome Back on mastering counseling. Today we’re so grateful for those who have joined us, and we are really thrilled to have Courtland McPherson with us today. Hi, Courtland.

Courtland McPherson: Hi, Becky. Thanks for having me on today.

Becky Coplen: Thank you. I think we will be excited to hear about the work that you’re doing. Courtland is the owner of the practice Little Red telescope psychotherapy, and he is a psychotherapist. , out on the West Coast, but possibly beyond there. Thanks so much for joining us. And whenever, as I told you, there’s a creative name for a practice. I love to start there. So tell us about where you got this fun name.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. So the name is Little Red telescope. I think there’s two parts to this, right. And I think this as we talk further into, into our discussion today, we’ll get probably into some deeper parts, but when I was building my practice and was thinking about what do I want to sort of convey to folks, I looked back at my own childhood, and when I was a kid, I had this little red telescope and a little red record player. But I always was fascinated with, like, exploration and being in the woods and exploring things and astronomy and geology. But I had a little red telescope as a kid. And so when I was building my practice, you know, a lot of people use their own name. So they’ll say, like, you know, Courtland McPherson psychotherapy practice or something like that. And I didn’t want that. I wanted something that had a little bit more meat and branding to it, but also that conveyed sort of how I looked at the people I’m seeing. So the idea was, you know, we look at life through different lenses and we can sort of explore from there, hence the telescope. But it really was a childhood toy that sort of sparked some of the thinking around it.

Becky Coplen: I love that. The imagery. And then , going back to history because you’re doing what you are today, partly because of your childhood at that time. So thank you for sharing that. I love it. You look at your website, you work predominantly with men and try to help them be unstuck and get going. why don’t you talk about who your target audience or not audience, but who are the clients that you’re seeing and helping?

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. So I always like to preface this right with, with a statement that my practice is an inclusive practice. I work with anybody who feels like my services might be a fit for them, but I work primarily with men, right. So they range in ages from, you know, college age all the way up to, you know, 70, 80, whatever. And, you know, I chose that direction over time. It was an iteration. And some of it is sparked by my own experiences as a man and a, you know, ever complex world. And also because of the research that I’ve been sort of doing as I’ve been navigating a PhD process for the last.

Becky Coplen:  awesome.

Courtland McPherson: A long time, actually. But really, there’s been a need for men supporting other men. And, you know, it really just speaks to how I think about sort of the world around us. So the way I see it is, you know, we can support women’s mental health and, you know, other allied mental health spaces by helping support men. Right? Because we know that when men have issues, it translates into greater issues for the world around us. So, for example, when we look at crime rates, things like that, most of that is perpetuated by men. A lot of domestic disputes and violence is perpetuated by men. So if I can help men be better men, basically, I think that that helps reduce, you know, sort of the impact on the world around us. That’s really why my focus is there.

Becky Coplen: I love how you bring out, like, the broader scope of Society and then how you feel. It infiltrates your work with men who want to change and have things improve. So thank you for that outlook and for sharing that. Would you like to share a little bit? We talked about the little red telescope, but a little bit of your personal background and what brought you into this career in the field? Sure.

Courtland McPherson: I’ll try to be as brief with this, with this as possible, you know. So when I was a kid, you know, I grew up in a rural sort of coastal community. And, you know, part of that was, you know, you have these beautiful surroundings, you know, beaches and all that kind of stuff. And there was a lot of wealth. But for my family, we were very blue collar and very poor. You know, my mom was a single mom, you know, struggled to really sort of make ends meet, those kind of things. And I think she did the best she could. But there was a lot of, you know, food insecurities. There was times in you know, New England, East coast winters when there was no power. And you’re struggling to stay warm. And, you know, my mom is working three, four jobs, those kind of things. And it really made me think a lot about stuff, you know, as a kid. And then as I got older, you know, I got into high school and things like that, and it was just a lot of struggles. You know, I lost a friend when I was in my teens to a drunk driving accident, and that sort of spiraled my own mental wellness down a not so great path. And, you know, I got into this space where I was, you know, struggling with depression, those kind of things.

Courtland McPherson: And, you know, I didn’t think there was a future for myself. And so I had some really great counselors along the way who sort of sparked some interest and ideas. And so that led to some of it. And I also should say there, I was a high school dropout, you know, after my friend passed away, school was just not really a great thing for me. Yeah. And basically what happened from there is, you know, I dropped out of high school, tried to find my own path and then decided to go back to school. Got into college and a bachelor’s program, and I had a psychology professor, and I just distinctly remember being so interested in exploring the mind and things like that, that it led me down sort of a path, you know, and there’s other things along the way. As I got into my master’s program when I was about 29 or so. But, you know, there’s just a lot of unique sort of points around different counselors. I remember being 23 and being in the therapy space with this counselor who said to me once, you know, you don’t have to do that. You can choose something different. And it just stayed with me. So there was these sort of points along the way in my own mental health journey that led me here.

Becky Coplen: Yeah. That’s so special. I don’t know that that’s the best word, but that you shared with us how you went through some pretty significant struggles to now having an advanced degree after , wanting to leave high school as losing a friend at that time would be such a crucial and tough experience. So thank you for being transparent about that and giving possibly someone listening, some kind of hope of if they’re in a really dark place, , that they can come out of it with the help of counselors and therapists. So thank you for sharing that. What? Let’s, , I know you said it was kind of an iteration. , the practice you’re running now, , over time. So let’s kind of talk about the history of how you landed in the niche that you’re in and, , who you were working with originally and all of that.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. So I guess the good part about this is I’ll start back a little bit that what led me into private practice. So, you know, when I got my master’s degree in clinical social work, you know, I started in child welfare, right. So that was about 22,009 ish or so. You know, I was doing my internship and that kind of stuff. And, you know, there was just a need for a male therapist or a male provider to work with boys. So I started working with boys in the child welfare system, and then when I sort of moved up a year, we’ll say, I then went into college, mental health, and I got this pretty amazing, you know , internship at this college, mental health space. And they needed a male therapist. And so I got to work with all these young college men who were struggling for their first time in college, things like that. And so that sort of started the trajectory. I then go on to move to Boston. Right. And I am now licensed, and I go to work for this community mental health clinic in a pretty impoverished, pretty struggling, struggling area right outside of Boston. And I get there and guess what? It’s no, there’s like one male therapist, and we have all these children and children’s programs that are sort of part of this bigger, you know, nonprofit and things like that. And they say to me, we don’t have a male therapist to see this seven year old boy, can you do this? Now, mind you, I had not worked with children at all really, at this point, you know.

Courtland McPherson: I had worked with some teens and stuff like that, but seven was pretty young. And I said, you know what? I’ll do this. And then it just really sparked the passion for working with young boys and male mental health. With all that said, it didn’t stop me from seeing other people. You know, I worked with people of all different backgrounds, you know, race, ethnicity, religious identities , gender identities, sexual identities, all of those things. And when I decided to build my private practice, I started with a broad sort of stroke. It was like, okay, well, what am I going to do here? And, you know, the idea behind it really was I really wanted to work with people in their 20s, 30s and 40s, who were just trying to navigate some sort of transitions in life. , think about what the next possibilities were. And as I started to do that, the iteration started to happen where I started to notice more men were reaching out and it was like okay, How do you build a practice that is sustainable? And we all know sometimes that we should sort of niche down a little bit. So then it started to niche down and niche down. And then here I am seeing mostly men at this point.

Becky Coplen: Yeah, yeah. And you I know you talk about on your website in the frequently asked questions, you know, some men, especially even 5 or 10 years ago, were so resistant. I think one of your questions is, why don’t I just talk to my friend or I’m a guy, I don’t really need to do this, but it seems to be opening up more. And so, , I think that, you know, a lot of men would want to talk to a male therapist. And there, you know, I don’t know the data across the country of what is offered. But I would imagine there are a lot more women. So I think it’s awesome that you’ve been able to focus on this way and with a certain, you know, type of people and what they’re looking for. Do you help men with all sorts of issues? Is that a little bit broader still, or are you focusing mainly on transitions, like would you do like addiction help or trauma, or is it how broad or specific are you at this point?

Courtland McPherson: It’s an interesting question because I think one thing can lead to another. So if I were to really say sort of what my bigger picture focus is, I work with a lot of men who struggle with anxiety and depression. Right. I think anxiety and depression go hand in hand. You don’t really have one without the other. And then for those two things, I think in particular, just because it’s the population I serve. But for men, when you have those things, we have a lot more addiction. Right? And then there’s a sense of being lost when you have some levels of addiction. And we know that with addiction we need more connection, right? Because the opposite of addiction is connection, not my words. I heard that somewhere. And, you know, so what I get to do is I try to take an overall holistic approach to the wellness of the men that I see, which is we’re looking at, well, are you struggling with depression? Are you struggling with anxiety? And then we ask the question, why? And then we look at that and we say, well, are you taking care of yourself? Are you using substances to mitigate the symptoms of anxiety and depression? And then what do we do with that? And then we try to look at the bigger picture in the overall wellness to support men and sort of find ways to manage all of that.

Becky Coplen: Gotcha. Yeah, definitely a journey. And they could initially come to you with, you know, anxiety. And then it turns out there are some things possibly they kept more hidden that are coming out. And the whole approach is so super key for sure. So thanks for clarifying that. What are some of the current trends in counseling as far as on your end of helping people that you’re using with your clients that you’re seeing a lot of success with?

Courtland McPherson: When you say current trends, can you tell me a little bit more and help me clarify the question?

Becky Coplen: Sure. Yeah, I did make it really clear. Got it. What are some of the, , like resources or types of therapy that you’re providing that you’ve seen success with your clients? Is that bette

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. That’s better. Yeah.

Courtland McPherson: So I think that, you know, the reason why I asked for a clarification, because I think it’s an interesting question. You know, we have a lot of modalities that exist, right? There’s over something like over 400 modalities of therapy now. Right. So we’re talking about things which the common one is cognitive behavioral. So CBT and you know I do use some of those things. But I in particular am a Psychodynamically and psychoanalytically trained psychotherapist. What that really means is that I try to really dig under the surface with people. So with CBT, we might be looking at automatic thoughts and stuff that comes up on a surface. But what I’ve noticed. So when we’re talking about trends is we can do those things right. So we can use sort of a ten step process for cognitive behavioral work. And that can work in the short term. But I always want to push and nudge people into some depth psychotherapies and psychology based things. Because when we do that, we’re talking about longer term healing and we use them both in conjunction. Right. So what we can do is we can look at things like, you know, people’s attachment history, and we can look at their, you know, family of origin histories and the stories that come and their traa histories and things like that. And then when we start to dive into that story a little bit further, we start to uncover a lot of things.

Courtland McPherson: And in psychodynamic work, we start to look at the patterns. And then how do those things that we’re just talking about, attachment, those kind of things impact those patterns and then shift us. And then we try to break some of those patterns, you know. So from a trend perspective, you know, we’ve moved from this old model of say like Freudian analytic things. And we know that that wasn’t so great, right? We know the history of some of that. You know, we have to acknowledge where it started. But then we started to look at sort of these psychiatry practices and just medicating things. And then we started to move into these sort of cognitive, behavioral, short term treatments. And I think we have to come back to some of the depth therapies, because we need to get a little bit deeper with people. The world has gotten more complicated and their issues are complicated. So we get to dive further into that and what I’m noticing. So this is just sort of the trend piece of this too, is people might start with a model of like cognitive behavioral therapy, and then they realize they need a little bit more, and then they come back to a place of depth, I think.

Becky Coplen: Okay, , that was a great explanation. And of course, with every client it’ll be very unique. But that was a great way to understand your work that you’re doing. We also love to talk on here, kind of like about the behind the scenes and business side of the therapy that people are getting. So just talk about maybe your practice makeup a little bit. Do you have admin support, scheduling any of that? Are you handling it all or are there any types of apps or tools that you really appreciate? At this point?

Courtland McPherson: It’s me.

Courtland McPherson: I am doing it all.

Courtland McPherson: All right.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. So I think but I think the reason why that is and I can only speak for myself, I have a small practice and a smaller caseload and, you know, so I see about 20 people per week, right, in a, in a, in a five day span. But I do that over three clinic days or clinical hours. I call them in sort of a space of like a Monday or Tuesday and then a Thursday, and then I have my administrative days. What I love about how things have changed, right, is that we now have some really good electronic medical record and health platform systems. Right. , I’m not going to name them because people have different opinions about them, but I use a specific one that I actually like that has all the integrated pieces into it, right? It’s got my billing system inside of it. It’s got the telehealth platform so I can do video telehealth. It’s got the scheduling component in it. And, you know, we’ll just say pre-pandemic they sort of existed, but they’ve just gotten better with time. So from a tools perspective, I think things have actually gotten easier to manage a practice. You know, prior prior to the pandemic, I was doing, you know, a lot of, you know, paper based scheduling and those kind of things. And with the new EHRs that have come out, it’s just gotten so much better. Yeah. And, you know, now we’re moving into a place of maybe saying AI systems to take notes and things like that. I haven’t got there yet. I still like to write my notes, but.

Courtland McPherson: That’s.

Courtland McPherson: Something for me more than anything else.

Courtland McPherson: So yeah.

Becky Coplen: , no, that’s awesome that you’re doing all of it and really utilizing the resource that can cover all those parts. And we have all different kinds of people on the podcast, huge practices to people running everything on their own to some people having a few assistants. So I love hearing the perspective of what works with people. Like some people love doing all of that and knowing every little detail of their whole practice. So I commend you for that for sure. You mentioned AI and that you’re not letting it write your notes. You want to write your own notes. Are you using it in any other fashion yet in your practice?

Courtland McPherson: I am not, and the reason for that is I think there’s so many different pieces of it right now that I would like to let the dust settle a little bit, right? You know, I know that a lot of folks.

Courtland McPherson: Have.

Courtland McPherson: Moved in a direction of using it to do notes and things like that, and even even my own doctor. I went for a checkup recently and he was like, I’m going to record you on my phone to take the notes. And I was like, okay, but where is that going? You know, and I know some of them are compliant and all that stuff, but I just am not quite there yet. And again, I think what happens sometimes is you know, at least in my experience in doing this for the last 15 years is something new and shiny comes out and we jp on it, right? And it’s not necessarily a bad thing. We need people to test these things and see what it looks like, but I tend to move a little bit slower in some of that stuff. And, you know, I want to see what it all sort of looks like before I dive in. And then, you know, we all get to do our own research and see what works for us, right?

Becky Coplen: I appreciate in talking to you that you’re definitely enjoy the process of things observing, which is very refreshing in this very cell, you know, fast paced world of get everything done, do a lot and just the reflection in time that you’re willing to have patience, you know, with the way things can be done. So I really like that. On the marketing end of things, are you mainly word of mouth? Are you doing a lot to share your practice? And I also want to discuss as well. I believe you’re in San Francisco Are you mainly working in that area or branching out a little more?

Courtland McPherson: I could probably, you know, I could probably do some more marketing. However, one of the things that I discovered, I talked about sort of the process when I first started the practice, you know, I was trying all kinds of things. I was trying to run Google ads and using, you know, the Psychology Today directories and therapy den directories and all these things. And what I’ve learned over time is the niche is really the important part, right? So whoever is starting a practice, they get to think about who they are and what is unique to them. And what do they bring to the table to then provide to the client? Right. And if you can market that in some way by sort of explaining that to people right, in your marketing words or in your website or whatever, that’s sort of your start point. And as I got into it and started to narrow sort of my focus down and change the language, stuff started to change in terms of referral basis. And, you know, do I think the directories are good? Yes. We should be out there because I think that helps with like algorithms and things like that.

Courtland McPherson: But what I’ve really discovered is that communicating with the therapist in my own area and getting to know them over time has really been the base of my business. And, you know, there’s so many great therapists here who do you know, things that I just don’t do and, you know, they will provide a better service than I can to specific clients. So we have a back and forth sort of system of things. I also think sharing in a community, you know, where I am technically, I’m across the bay actually from San Francisco outside of Oakland. But what that means is I’m in a smaller community, and I’ve just gotten to know some of the community people around here and the town and things like that. And, you know, that really helps. You know, when I got here, I joined a chamber and sort of jped into some of that stuff and got to know people. And, you know, it’s really helped with a steady referral stream for me.

Becky Coplen: So I think what I hear you saying is, you know, if let’s say there’s a family practice focus a few miles away, but, you know, the therapist there, and if someone in the family, if the dad decides, you know, I really have to work on myself individually and then they may refer them to you and then you’ll work with them. And then, of course, maybe be in communication as they want with the family therapist. That’s kind of the been the main modality. Is that correct?

Courtland McPherson: Yes it is.

Courtland McPherson: And you mentioned something before about, you know, you know, the stigma maybe for men coming in, some of my referrals come from like, you know, somebody who is in a couple space and inside of the couples space, they’re like, well, you should see your own therapist. And then, you know, usually they’ll refer to me because sometimes the men are a little resistant to it, which is, you know, understandable. It can be hard to talk to somebody and share things about yourself that you might not have shared with anybody else before.

Becky Coplen: Yeah, yeah absolutely. And, you know, it’s just common knowledge in general. Women want to talk a lot more and they are gonna share more feelings and all that. It is just not always as typical for men. But I do think that’s, you know, changing a bit. And I’m sure they appreciate just, you know, I don’t know, just like kind of the calm and very relaxed approach that you seem to bring it just in talking to you on this podcast. I really like it. What do you see with your practice or your work in general over the next maybe 5 or 10 years? Do you have any kind of big ideas, any shifts that you see? What does it look like for your career path?

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. Well, one, I’m going to try to finish this PhD that I’ve been working on forever so that.

Courtland McPherson:  yeah.

Becky Coplen: Tell us more about what’s the focus of that. I forgot about that. So yeah share about that for sure.

Courtland McPherson: So I’ve been working on that for a really long time. And I’m in the dissertation phase at this point, which is basically, you know, I’m building a study and my study is focusing on understanding the experience of midlife men and social connectedness. So, you know, you’ve probably seen in the news in the last couple of years that loneliness is becoming a problem, right? We have seen it sort of spiral into this epidemic. And, you know, I just, you know, because it’s a PhD, you have to sort of specify and get very deep in your in your sort of niche of that as well. So I’m looking at midlife men and I’m trying to understand what does that mean for them about, you know, connectedness to the world around them. The statistical model basically says that men have maybe one close friend, and we know that friendships and relationships are really important to our well-being and our health. So I’m just trying to understand that. So as you asked about what my sort of trajectory forward is, well, one is to finish that. So I’m working on that. And then, you know, I’d love to continue to build on my work with that research to then help figure out for men? How do we have a more integrated model of wellness? Right.

Courtland McPherson: You know, we need to find ways to help men connect. We need to find ways to help men, you know, treat their bodies and their, you know, their minds a little bit better. And I’d like to do more of that work and see where that takes me. I envision myself staying in private practice. You know, I really enjoy that flexibility and the ability to make my own schedule and choose the clients that I, you know, I’m the best fit for. And, you know, and by doing that, I can provide the best care for people. So those are sort of the ways I see things. And who knows? I have a project in the works right now with some much younger guys who are in college, who they reached out to me recently. They’re looking to build a young men’s coaching model that is not focused necessarily on therapy, but it’s going to be probably app based and things like that. And, you know, I’m sort of mentoring and coaching them in understanding of the psychology pieces of that. So that’s hopefully going to be in the next couple of years and see where that takes us.

Becky Coplen:  yeah, that’s very exciting I love that. We haven’t gotten to talk much on here about someone working on their dissertation. So if you don’t mind, I would just love to ask a few details about it when you are working on this and, you know, men in kind of midlife and loneliness, are you obviously you’re reading a lot, but are you also having to do some of your own sampling and surveys for all of this work, or is it mainly what you’re reading from others?

Courtland McPherson: So what will happen is I am putting together the proposal. So basically your proposal, at least in my school’s way of doing it, is that’ll be my first three chapters. So chapter one basically is why are you doing this study. What’s sort of some general research on this. Chapter two is the lit review. Right. So it’s all the literature that exists. And you compile all of that which takes a long time to see what’s out there. And then that becomes more of a basis for your study. Chapter three is the methodology. So I’m doing what they call an interpretive phenomenological analysis. So it’s an IPA study. What that looks at is trying to understand somebody’s experience right. So it’s a very specific sort of way of doing research. Once this is all done, hopefully this month actually, you know, if that gets approved, then I get to do the research. That’s the exciting part. And what will happen from there is I will interview men in sort of the mid life age range, you know, and that will be defined in my work and ask them questions. How do they connect? What does it mean for them? Do they have friends those kind of things. And then take all those transcripts and then we’ll see what we get.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah.

Becky Coplen: Well, thank you for laying that out. I love hearing about the process of the work and how, you know, people always throw around the word dissertation, but not so many of the population has done one. So seeing we know there’s a lot of raining, but seeing the way that it goes and the fact that you need approval at certain points before you go to the next step is really helpful. So thank you for sharing that. One thing we didn’t get to talk about in your practice is are you primarily online only, or do you see clients in person and what’s your take on that?

Courtland McPherson: I was so resistant to online work originally, and then we all know that the world shut down for a while. And I distinctly remember in March of that year, I said to my my wife at the time, you know, hey, I may be home with this all goes awry. And it did, you know, I went to my office because I had an office and I got there and it was like, nope, got to cancel everything. And I thought,  my gosh, this is this is so taxing and challenging. You know, we’re used to seeing people in person. And, you know, at the time, you know, EHRs had sort of started to do some video things and people were using zoom and that kind of stuff. And, you know, I moved in that direction and I found a good, good EHR electronic health record that has the system that I like. I am now primarily all online. I have an office. I don’t always, you know, I go there to check my mail at this point. Do I see myself going back in the future? Possibly, I think, but it will be more of a hybrid model. It’ll be like one day a week in person for folks who really want to, you know, see that sort of space and be in that space. But I think for the population, I see, you know, you know, men in particular, at least in my experience, you know, find that the the online platform works really well, right? Especially if they are, you know, trying to duck out of a meeting at work or, you know, I have some men I see who are, you know, taking care of the kids. And, you know, it’s really easy to, like, drop their kids off at school and then jp on a zoom. You know, I’m not using zoom, but they’ll jp on a video.

Courtland McPherson: Call.

Courtland McPherson: And, you know, I have a lot of guys who are in the gaming sphere and they’re used to this platform, like, you know, platform. Yeah. And so I think it works really well. I think it also allows for, you know, still allows for intimacy. Right. I get to see inside somebody’s world a little bit more. You know, if they’re in their home, I can see a little bit more into their space and see what that might mean for them. So there’s some goods and some of that. Whereas the office it’s a little bit more controlled. I’m controlling that environment.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah.

Courtland McPherson: Do I miss some of that. Sure. Because you can feel something sometimes when you’re in a space with somebody and they’re not saying something, you know, you can sort of feel the presence of that. So someday I might go back, but, you know, it’ll be more of a hybrid model.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah.

Becky Coplen: Well, I’m glad, even though you were resistant, that it worked out. And now you’re more on that end of what works best for you. So that’s very cool. What would you share with people who maybe would have been in your shoes, you know, 10 to 15 years ago , either in their early on of study or maybe just wanting to start their practice.

Courtland McPherson: I think I.

Courtland McPherson: Think the first part is early on. I think we have to and this is just my opinion of it. You know, we have to go into spaces like community mental health clinics and things like that to really get a robust experience of and learning about, you know, different disorders and different populations. You know, I would not trade my community mental health work and the work that I did in child welfare and college mental health for anything. It really helped shape my clinical practice. And, you know, as I’ve gotten older and, you know, had to do more things for my own self and my family, being able to go into private practice allowed for that flexibility of what I sort of needed, while also now providing really good care for a very specific population of men. And, you know, I think that as I were to say to somebody now starting a practice, you know, I think the nber one thing that really set me up for success was I sat down before I started my practice, and I thought about all the different intricacies, and I wrote a business plan, and I tried to think about what is it that my practice needs and what is it that I need, and put those two things together. And then inside of all that was about it was about patient care.

Becky Coplen: That’s great advice for sure. And, you know, a lot of times people come on and share how they were fairly well trained to be a therapist or counselor or social worker, and then they jp into private practice and then they’re just swarming with bills, insurance, all of it. And there’s a great deal of frustration. But I can tell, you know, you had the method and slow down, consider and get all that in order. So I think that’s really great wisdom for anyone first starting out for sure. So yeah.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. One of the things that as you were saying that comes to mind is anybody who I think is starting in this is, you know, it’s really easy to get lost in the.

Courtland McPherson: Noise.

Courtland McPherson: Because there’s so many different, you know, medical record systems, new AI tools. There’s so many different modalities. There’s, you know, you know, different, you know, services and systems that we can purchase and things like that. And it’s like you really get to think about what’s going to fit you and your practice. And we try not to get again lost in that all the noise of it. We can try to tune stuff out and sort of look at ourselves and go, what do I need here? What does my practice need here? You know, you asked earlier if I, if I had admin support and things like that. It’s like, no, I didn’t need that at the time. But I tend to be a pretty well organized individual who, you know, can keep my schedule in line and pretty good about that. Some people might not be, we might need some different support services. So we just get to sort of figure out what fits us.

Becky Coplen: Yeah, absolutely. Just like all of the clients will have their own kind of plan and what they need. Everyone running. I think everyone who we’ve interviewed here has something completely unique from another therapist or practitioner. So yeah, I love that you’re bringing this perspective. Is there anything else you feel like you wanted to share today that we didn’t hear about, or you felt like our listeners would need to know about?

Courtland McPherson: Yeah. You know, I think the important thing for all of this is we were talking about trends before. What I’ve noticed is there are more practitioners leaving the field. And, you know, this is hard work, right? So I always encourage, you know, especially if I’m supervising somebody, you know, how do you take care of yourself, right. How do you build a practice that is going to be sustaining. Right. And also, you know, because we’re always thinking about patient care. And that’s sort of the nber one thing. But we get to take care of ourselves too. And you know, as practitioners are leaving the field, we need to find ways to stay in the field and then, you know, advocate for the field. And then the other thing that I was thinking about is, you know, for the population I see in particular. So if there’s any men who might somehow somehow get on this and hear some of this is I like to tell them that we can think about therapy as going to the gym in some way, right? Except it’s for our mind. You know, just because you know you’re having an issue doesn’t mean that therapy from the stigma perspective is bad. It means that we get to exercise it. And by doing that right, we build our capacity up. We build up our, you know, ability to regulate ourselves differently. And we do that if we’re just going to the gym or something, right? We’re just trying to strengthen ourselves so that we can function better in the world around us because it’s complicated.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah.

Becky Coplen: No, that’s a great comparison to the gym for sure. And I, I do love that you shared earlier. You know, this may not be your schedule every week, but you said a lot of the time it’s seeing clients Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. And then you built in plenty of time Wednesday, Friday for all the behind the scenes things, because I think it’s easily lost. And there are many therapists and counselors taking in, you know, 6 to 8 clients a day. And then, I don’t know, I guess they’re doing their admin work unless they hired someone, , at 9 p.m. and it’s just overwhelming and, , not sustainable for the long haul, for sure. So I think it’s a really great schedule that you built. And, , thanks for bringing that out.

Courtland McPherson: So scheduling is important. I was listening to a podcast not that long ago. And the therapist, her name is Katie Vernoy, and they have a really great podcast, but she said that she doesn’t schedule people at 3 p.m. really anymore. This is what I remember anyway. And she likes to tape it, take a cappuccino. And I thought to myself, thought to myself, what a great thing. And I no longer schedule people at 3 p.m. on on any of my clinic days because there’s like a lull in my energy and I’m not at my best in that moment.

Courtland McPherson: So yeah.

Courtland McPherson: Scheduling is really important.

Becky Coplen: Yeah. We interviewed Katie, , I think in the last few months. So that’s fun that you brought it up. And a lot of people come on here, have their own podcasts as well. So. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your time today. And, , I just love your kind of calm, patient approach. And we just appreciate you giving us your wisdom.

Courtland McPherson: Yeah.

Courtland McPherson: I was happy to be here. And I do appreciate the conversation because, you know, I think there needs to be more talk about mental health and how we can support each other as practitioners. But also that then leads itself to, you know, higher outcomes and better patient care by talking about all this stuff. So I appreciate being here.

Becky Coplen: Yes. Well, thank you so much, Cortland. , to our listeners, I’m mastering counseling. Thank you for being involved today for tuning in. We’d love to hear from you on your thoughts, questions that you have or ideas for the future. Hope you have a wonderful day tuning off for now.