The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast and I'm really glad for you to get to know today Amy Dover. Welcome Amy.
Amy Dover: Thank you for having me.
Gordon Brewer: Yes. And Amy and I were chatting a good bit at the beginning as like two Southerners always do. We'd started making connections and realized we had a lot in common, just family and where we grew up and all of that sort of thing.
And so, but Amy, as I start with everyone, tell folks a little bit more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed.
Amy Dover: I have been a therapist for a little over 20 years. And we, I'm not from Alabama originally. I was born and raised in North Carolina, as we talked about before we, we started the interview and got married and through my husband's work, he's an optometrist with the army, and we ended up down here in South Alabama for his work and he's, he's at an army installation down here and we ended up raising our two sons down here.
And we've been down here about 13 years and we we love it. We love being down here. We never thought that we would end up in South Alabama, but we are here and we love it. And I opened my group practice in January of 2015. So about nine and a half years in, I had done some work at a private practice. in another town in Alabama before I opened my own.
And most of my clinical work has been around family work working with couples. I've done a lot of work with, with children. Before we moved to Alabama, most of my clinical work had actually been with registered sex offenders and who were in community corrections in the group setting. And so I feel like I have a pretty good background clinically, but I have definitely moved more into the group ownership CEO seat for the last few years, and I really found myself enjoying that too.
My work has shifted from taking care of clients to taking care. Of my team of therapists and my staff, and I have found that I really enjoy doing that. And so now some doors have opened and I'm doing some consulting work with people who are thinking about opening group practices or scaling to a group practice.
And I'm honored to do the work. I love working with with other therapists.
Gordon Brewer: Awesome. Awesome. And I know from, from your contact with with Whitney Owens at Wise Practice you've got a lot of good experience in, in doing what you do. And so I, I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah.
Amy Dover: Yes. It's been a, I did a little presentation earlier this week on the good, the bad, and the ugly of group practice ownership.
And I, I've learned a lot of things the hard way, much like you, as you say in the intro to your show, I've learned a lot of things the hard way and had some pain that maybe I could have avoided, but I really think that it's made me better too, and definitely. gives me the opportunity to share that with others and, and help and guide them as they make decisions about scaling their practice.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. How many clinicians do you have in your practice now?
Amy Dover: I have 15 clinicians and two
Gordon Brewer: administrators. Okay. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's a, that, that to me is kind of a perfect size practice of just in my mind, but, you know, people aspire to do, I interviewed somebody earlier last week that had they were up in Manhattan, but they had like 300 people in their practice, which just says obviously it's doable, but I mean, it's just a whole different mindset when you get to be that large.
Amy Dover: It really is. And. Last year, this time I was at 16 and some things occurred and I like to say that, that God did a little pruning at, at Dover Counseling.
Gordon Brewer: I
Amy Dover: lost a couple of people, but I hired one back and, or, or hired another one in that place. And so I'm at 15 and I'm with you. I feel like 15, 14, 15 just really works for me.
Gordon Brewer: And
Amy Dover: it works for, you know, just the community of therapists that I have here. It's just a good cohesive group. I don't know what it is about 16 and higher so far. It, it just hasn't worked for me so far. Not to say it won't in the future, but I'm with you. I kind of like, I kind of like this size.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah.
And I think everybody has to find that kind of find their sweet spot, but
Amy Dover: yes.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I know as we, we were chatting about before we started recording, we were talking just talking about as I do with everybody talking about what we're going to talk about. And one of the things that I, I had said to you was just thinking about life balance as a entrepreneur.
And what you said was, I would like to think of it, not as balance, but as rhythm. And so I think that's a good, good place to start and just tell us, you know, kind of your thinking on all of that and just kind of what you've learned with all of that sort of thing.
Amy Dover: Okay. I'm definitely going to be speaking from my lens of being a wife and a mother and I have two sons and they're older now.
My younger one is getting ready to graduate from high school this month. And so my husband and I will be moving into a different chapter as well. It's exciting, but bittersweet, you know, but having My children younger, when I started private practice, there were, there were times when it was very much a challenge and cause you know, you're, you're working hard when you're opening your practice and even when you're solo, you're working hard and it's really hard to find a good balance of what do I give my clients?
How do I shut that off and then go home and get to my family? And for a long time, I felt like I started gave my family the leftovers of me and I, I felt as though I were, I was chasing this, you know, this elusive idea of balance. And everyone kept saying you need to find balance. You need to have a good work, work life balance.
And I could just never find that. And so it was about, It was probably about eight years ago that I read this really great book. I can't even remember the name of it, but apparently it hit me and the author just really talked a lot about, it's not about balance. It's about finding the rhythms of your life and your rhythms will change based on your needs, your family needs, maybe school starting or school stopping.
And you know, if there's a medical issue that comes up, life is full of different seasons and rhythms, and it's important to find. To understand that to accept it and then to change the rhythms of your life and of your work as you go through it. So, you know, as we talked about, as a practice owner, there have been a lot of season or there've been a lot of.
Well, a lot of seasons where I've had to hustle and so my rhythms have changed during that season to accommodate. What needed to be done in the practice and some scaling and some things that were happening, but then I would go into a season of rest and the rhythms changed with that. And once I accepted that and kind of looked at it as this is.
This is my life, like kind of stepping back and taking the bird's eye view. This is life. I'm never going to have the balance that I think I'm supposed to have, but I can have different rhythms based on what's expected of me, what I need to do, what's happening in the practice, what my family needs. And that has just been sort of.
the game changer for me.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah. I like that term rhythm and can you expound on that a little bit? I mean, what you mean by rhythm as opposed to balance? Because I think that's You know, I, in my mind, I think of life balances is okay. You've got everything organized just perfectly. And, you know, just everything just kind of flows well, and you have your schedule and all of that kind of stuff, which I absolutely suck at all of that stuff.
I mean, I just am not good at it. And I I've done all the tools and seminars and stuff, and I still just, you know, but the rhythm strikes a chord in that, you know. To me, rhythm kind of speaks routine, but I don't know that that's what you mean necessarily.
Amy Dover: I think that's part of it because when, again, depending on, I used the example earlier of, again, I'm coming through the lens of a mother and a wife, when my kids would When we were prepared to start back to school in August.
Yes. Kids go back to school in Alabama in early August. It's crazy to
Gordon Brewer: me, but here, here for us too. And
Amy Dover: it's just still summer in my head, but yeah. So we get to the end of July and we know that we're a week out from summer starting. We begin the process of changing our rhythms. So we start to go to bed a little earlier.
We start to change our meal routines. We start to. Change the way that we're doing things in the evening, sort of our bedtime and evening rituals and routines and and we start to get up a little earlier in the morning and preparing for that school day to start. And and I'd like to say that it's always been this beautiful change and rhythm in my family.
But no, that's not the reality. You know, life happens. But to me, that's an example of. It's more of a rhythm with the changes in the season of life, the season of work, the season of school. And so I'm going to change the way that I do work too. This is what this is the schedule of my children. This is the schedule of my husband.
So my work schedule and my rhythms will change to kind of fit around that as much as possible, you know, as a practice. And then as we get closer to. Winter break and Christmas break, the seasons and the rhythms will change again. And my favorite rhythm is the summer rhythm because, which is what we're getting ready to go into now.
And things, things really do sort of slow down in my house. And there's not just this sense of urgency and that carries over into my work. And so I, I love the idea of balance. But I've never found it. And when I gave that up and just said, okay, it's really about how, how do I need to shift my mindset and how do I need to find The movement of my life that's that works for my family and me, and that's where that's where rhythm really strikes me, too.
I can, I can change my rhythms based on needs and based on desires and sometimes within that rhythm, there's going to be a good balance of work and play and personal life. And sometimes within that rhythm, I might be giving a little bit more of my energy to work because that's what's needed and then rhythms of where.
I am able to rest and spend time with my family and maybe step away from the practice a little bit longer for longer periods of time. So for me, that's where I've landed and it has just It's just worked.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah, that, that resonates for me. You know, one of the themes that I've been kind of it's interesting how stuff comes up with our, with our patients or our clients that also kind of parallel our own lives to some degree.
And one, one of the things that I've been paying attention to is this idea of urgency. See. And I think a lot of times we create urgency for ourself when really there's no, no reason for it, you know, like we're gonna like a fear of running out of time or a fear of missing out on something or fear of you know, if I don't, if I don't do this now, then I'm going to miss the opportunity or, All of those kinds of things that I think we can create for ourselves.
And I think to be mindful of that and pay attention to that has been something that's been helpful for me here more recently.
Amy Dover: I agree with that. And I feel like to as as therapist and then practice owners. There's even maybe more of that sense of urgency too. And because there's always a need that needs to be met, there's always something that needs to be done.
There's always something less left on the task list and that needs to be carried over to the next day. And there's not really any sense of closure with things. And we have to balance that, but particularly as a, as a group practice owner, I've had to step back at times and say, okay, what are the priorities here?
What are the most important things that I need to get done? What are the things that aren't as urgent? And then why do I feel that sense of urgency? Where's that coming from? And am I the one that's really feeding that? And if I am, why? And how was that messing up my rhythm?
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah. I'm always, yeah.
I'm always reminded of you might've seen this. I think it's referred to as the Eisenhower time use grid. I think it was President Eisenhower, General Eisenhower that came up with this where you divide it, divide it up into urgent, not urgent, and then important, not important. Yes, and the different things in our lives that are fall into one of those four places on the grid of being important and urgent or being important, but not urgent that sort of thing.
And yes, and the 1 place you don't want to end up too much time and is doing stuff that is not important and not urgent.
Amy Dover: Exactly.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think a lot of times we can. focus too much in that, in that area. And kind of the optimal place to be is in the important, not urgent kind of sector to create your, devote your time to those things.
Amy Dover: Absolutely. And I'll be honest. There are times when I don't know if it's avoidance or just some overwhelm, but I find myself in those unimportant tasks, you know, spending my time in that. And, and I catch myself and You know, have to say, Amy, you have people who can do this for you who want to do this for you.
What are you doing? And I really do think it's because. Again, maybe overwhelmed or, or procrastinating or avoiding the things that I know that must be done that are the most urgent and important. It's funny because I can absolutely empathize with your struggle, you know, with the organization and, and, you know, trying to make things happen.
This is the priority and this is the important task to get done. And I'm, I'm obsessed with paper planners. I don't, that's my preferred way of doing things. My planner has all of my life in it and I still get made fun of for having a paper planner, but I don't care.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, that's, that's what I do. The full focus planner is what I use, so yeah.
You,
Amy Dover: you're, you're my kindred spirit. You understand what I'm talking about,
Gordon Brewer: and
Amy Dover: I'm excited because I found a new one to use. It's similar, it's similar to the one that you have, but I find that when I can lay My days out and my tasks out and, and now that I'm a group practice owner, it's important that I'm, I'm kind of tracking what I'm doing on a quarterly basis to, and then when you add in the component of consulting it's just really need to be able to see things and I'm just much more of a visual paper person than I am a screen or a digital person.
And so that's what works for me. And when I'm able to look at everything in front of me, it helps me sort of it. I think it speaks to my ability to understand if my rhythms need to change, or if I need to kind of change some morning routines or some things that I'm doing in the afternoon. And it helps me track my time better.
And so I'm, I'm very much. Particularly for, for women who are in relationships and have children and, you know, who have just a lot going on, just really making sure that they're intentional with their time and understanding that it's okay to say no to something so that you can say yes to others. And as practice owners and therapists, we're not meant to say yes to everything and that's okay.
And because there are, there are several things over here that need our energy and our yeses. So. Thank you. Yeah, really being intentional and mindful of what I'm doing and what I'm spending my time and energy on is
Gordon Brewer: right. I've
Amy Dover: come to see the importance of that over the last several years.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, well, I think I agree with every bit of that because One of the things that I'm a believer in is that with the, particularly with the paper planner of writing things out, number one, it forces you to slow down a little bit.
And I think our brains, I think our brains process the information differently than when it's on a screen. And so, I mean, at least that's been my experience.
Amy Dover: I agree. But I prefer reading books, like, in my hands. Yeah. I have a Kindle. I love it. They're wonderful, but I actually love to have a book in my hand, to smell it, to turn the pages.
You know, it's, it's essentially a sensory thing for me.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah.
Amy Dover: I definitely think that. The paper stuff, the planner particularly works for me because it is hitting so several of my senses at one time, and I just do process things better.
Gordon Brewer: Right? Right.
Amy Dover: And when the technology goes down, I still know what's going on in my life.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Are there, are the yeah, yeah, you're. The phone loses all its charge and so then you're stuck. Yeah. So so to change gears a little bit, Amy, I know you, you started doing some consulting with group practice owners and that sort of thing. What, what sort of themes are, do you see that come up a lot in your work with group practice owners?
Amy Dover: I do see quite a bit of. Is this the right time? Is this something that I want to do? Some fear because moving into a group practice it can, it can be, I mean, it's scary. You know, there's a lot of unknowns with that. And you hear horror stories and not really sure. What you're doing and what are the right resources for it?
And there is sometimes investment with your time and your energy and finances investigating and researching and deciding what you want to do. And but I do hear a lot of times isn't the right time. Is this for me? You know, I've got a family. And a busy practice. How do I manage all of that? How do I manage employees?
Do I want to manage employees? So those are really a lot of the things that I hear. And then part of that too is how do I get the right paperwork? There's a fear of of the tax burden and just what all of that looks like. And, and I understand because I was there at one point too.
But that's a lot of what I hear just really, can I do this?
Gordon Brewer: Right. And
Amy Dover: should I do this?
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. Yeah. And, and I think it's in the consulting I've done with folks around the same thing is, is that it's none of us was prepared for that. I mean, in our traditional training, you know, just how to manage people, how to I mean, we know how to work with people in therapy, but managing people's a whole different ball game.
Amy Dover: Yes, it is.
Gordon Brewer: And also, and also just knowing how to put all the systems in place and all of that sort of thing to, to make everything run well.
Amy Dover: Yes. And I mean, I, I always say that I chased my tail the first three years that I was in practice. And three months after I opened, I hired my first Clinician to come in and work with me because I didn't want to say no to the work.
And I clearly remember having a conversation with my husband. We were out to dinner and I said, I'm going to have to start turning clients away or turning referrals away because I don't have anywhere else to put them on my schedule. And I was seeing 30, 32 clients a week at that point.
Gordon Brewer: And
Amy Dover: I said, I don't know what to do.
And he said, well, we'll call, call. Call your friend so and so that you worked with and see if she wants to make some beer money on the side. Yeah, all right. She doesn't even drink, right? She doesn't even drink alcohol, but that was the way that, I mean, how nonchalant of a way to make that decision. And that's how it went from there.
And so I really, I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know a lot. And so I was very blessed to have a couple of really good mentors who walked with me through some of that and were very realistic with me too. But in terms of the business side of things, there were some things I learned the hard way.
It was the grace of God a lot of times that that made the decisions work out the way that they did. But through it all, I've I've learned so much and I have, I think group practice ownership just makes us better humans too. And it gives us the opportunity to interact with more people and to stretch ourselves and to hone our leadership skills and, and really bring like, I love, I love being there for my team.
I love knowing that. They know they can trust me. They know that what I say is going to happen. Some of them were just had terrible experiences working in community mental health and all of that. And, and I love showing them, Hey, you can come to work and not dread coming to work and you can enjoy the client work and you can get paid a pretty good living and be able to take the time off that you want to.
And I love showing them that different side of, of therapy work. So, yeah, I. I did not step into group practice ownership in the wisest way. And so when in the consulting work, I definitely try to. To let people know, hey, let's do this wisely. Let's let's take the knowledge and let's apply it and be wise about our decisions so that we can build a foundation that's sustainable for your growth.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. You know, it's one of the things that. As we were talking about, and you've said already, learning things the hard way which is how I opened the podcast and then kind of that little blurb at the beginning, but I think 1 of the things that I think everybody that is successful learns to do well is 1, is like you mentioned, Amy, seek out mentorship.
And get people that have done it before and be able to talk with them about it and get that support along the way. I mean, it's really no different than that's what therapy does. I mean, we, you know, if somebody's struggling with something, you know, not to do it alone, you know, is, is, is the big message there.
But I, I think also there, you know, the accountability piece is there, but as much as anything, having that community around you to. To help support you in all of that is, is so important. And then the one thing that I'm still learning how to do, and it sounds like you've, you've, you've done this, had a little bit of the same struggle, is being willing to take things off my plate and delegate them out and not try to do it all myself.
Yes, I'm still learning that one. Maybe when I grow up, I'll learn that eventually, but
Amy Dover: you can teach me.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. So, but that's, that's 1 thing that I think is real important for people to, to remember, especially as you, as you scale and grow, because what got you to what got you to be a full practice as a solo practitioner.
Getting a group practice full is a whole different, you can't do it the same way you did as a solo practitioner. So it's just learning those new sets of skills and new sets of doing things.
Amy Dover: Yes. And the mindset shifts that have to come because I definitely had to, to do some work on that and really my mindset around money and finances and around abundancy versus scarcity.
And I think a lot of group ownership too is there's a lot of spiritual things taking place. Like I have to trust that. You know, the people who I've hired are doing the work that I hired them to do. I have to trust that they're doing it with integrity and to the best of their abilities. And I have to trust that the clients will be here next week.
Gordon Brewer: There's a lot
Amy Dover: of faith that comes into that. And, you know, with WISe Practice Consulting, we do have that. That definitely sort of influences the consulting. It's, it's faith based practice consulting. And my faith is certainly something that I have leaned on quite a bit as a, as a group practice owner. And
Gordon Brewer: cause you can
Amy Dover: get very lonely.
And when you spoke about community, you were absolutely right and finding the wise practice community. And that's really what kind of helped me out with the loneliness that I felt at times too, as a group practice owner.
Gordon Brewer: That's a, that's such an important piece. And yeah, I think everyone that is in, you know, it's just with the stuff we know, you know, if you're going to be a therapist, get your own therapy.
And if you're going to be a group, you know, group practice owner, or just owner practices, have a group of mentors and trusted colleagues around you that you can bounce stuff off of and, and, you know, And process things with is just really important piece. It
Amy Dover: is. It was a game changer for me. And you know, having having a group of people who just get it.
Gordon Brewer: Sure. It's just
Amy Dover: been really it came at a time when I really needed it.
Gordon Brewer: Sure. I'm so glad we had this conversation and I'm looking forward to are you going to be at the Wise Practice Summit this year? I am. I'm
Amy Dover: excited about it. And I do want to let your listeners know too, Gordon, that I will be starting a mastermind group in July for any solo practice.
owner who is interested in scaling their practice to a group and maybe hiring their first one to two clinicians by the end of this year. So that starts in July and they can go to the wisepractice. com website and look at my information, look at the information about WisePractice community and, and fill out an application for the mastermind group, if they'd like to.
Gordon Brewer: Awesome. Wise Practice is a good organization. Of course, Whitney is a dear friend of mine and I enjoy working with her and we do, we do a lot of neat stuff together. So, I mean, it's, it's a good thing. She's great. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, sure. Well, Amy so good to have you.
Amy Dover: Thank you for having me, Gordon.