The Practice of Therapy

Greg Goodman: Hello there. My name's Greg Goodman. I am the founder and head creative at Goodman Creatives, and I am really excited to be here today on the practice of therapy, talking about ai, specifically AI in marketing, and what an untapped resource it is for mental health professionals to do so.
Many of the things that used to require an agency or a marketing degree in honestly, very little time at all, with some effort for sure, but not nearly as much effort as it used to take.
Gordon Brewer: Perfect. Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast and I'm, I'm really excited for you to get to know Greg Goodman and I really have enjoyed just chatting just a little bit before we got started.
But Greg, as I glad you're here, and as I start with everyone, tell folks a little more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed.
Greg Goodman: Sure. The, the age old question the elevator pitch. But yeah, as you said, my name's Greg Goodman and I have been working in the mental health industry in marketing and web design for about 20 years.
I never intended to be in this industry. I, I'm not a therapist. My father was a therapist, and so I definitely had a, an introduction to the world from a young age and. You know, without going into my entire life history, it was not the easiest of childhoods. And I really just, it, it really always, I don't even know that I had the words to articulate this as a 7-year-old kid, but he really just, I always felt safe and heard and seen and not judged when I would lay my head on his lap and share some, you know.
The tr the day's traumas and try to process them in the best way that I could as a young child. So just sort of that kindness. So, and I didn't even know what a therapist was. I just knew my dad helped people, and then of course, his life went on. It was in the universe or God or fate, or whatever you want to call it.
Put me into this field. I was like, this feels right to be able to do this work to support the work my dad was doing. And so many other people. But yeah, I wanted to, I I, I had a marketing degree. I knew I wanted to be a businessman. I wanted to move to Hollywood and become the CEO of a major motion picture company.
'cause I liked movies and I liked business and I didn't know what that meant. I was in high school. Yeah. And, but I also loved websites. And about 30 years ago in a high school class, I, I got into the world of web design. And I haven't looked back since as an artist. It's like this incredible digital canvas too.
To create magic, to create literally anything. You're even before decades before ai, it was already a place for like infinite potential. And, and tech, I always like tech. Mm-hmm. And then I was doing that and then, you know, people were like, oh, Greg, can you make a website? Can you do this? And then a family friend had a group practice in New York City 20 years ago, was like, can you run Google Ads for us?
And it was a lot easier then it was like, choose a couple keywords, do anything. You already are ahead of 99.9% of the other therapists out there. Like nobody was doing it. And just more therapists found me and, you know, the snowball effect. And before I knew it, I was like, okay, I guess my career is mental health, marketing and web design.
Yeah. And fast forward to today, I'm no longer a freelancer, Goodman Creatives. We've grown, we've expanded. We're a international team of 10 Wonderful creative. Human beings around the world who each have their own part of the shared vision of, you know, the, our, our vision is to improve the mental health of a million people around the world by the work that we do.
Completely non-quantifiable. 'cause how can I count? Mm-hmm. I really believe like the butterfly effect, the, you know, the proverbial pond in the, in, you know, the pond. The pebble in the pond. That, yeah. Within the effects, like where we help helpers the, the effects magnify. Infinitely, and I don't need to measure it, but that's kind of like our guiding principle for everything that we do.
As a, to wrap it up, full service, digital marketing agency, we provide all of the, the, you know, the scope of digital marketing services in one place for the folks who aren't done for you. And what I'm really excited about and what we're gonna chat about today is mm-hmm. How in this world, you don't even need folks like us half the time anymore.
'cause. AI can do so much of it for you, right,
Gordon Brewer: right. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's amazing how marketing has changed over the, over the years, and I've always, people that listen to the podcast, always hear from me. Really, the way I like to think about marketing your practices is, is really, there are more than enough people out there that need your help.
And so marketing is just a way to help them find you. Yes. And that it's not, it's not about sales necessarily. It's just making yourself discoverable and standing out to people and, and really giving your, giving your personality to things. But yeah, so, but, so to jump in, you know, I know for me, AI has been a huge game changer, particularly with copywriting and, and just really coming up with ideas about things and.
That sort of thing. And I know one of the things that a lot of people are concerned about, as you mentioned Greg, is just the whole ethics around using AI and just thinking about that. So yeah. So what, what are your initial thoughts with AI and hopefully it's not beating you out of a job with with all of this.
Greg Goodman: You know, you know, it's, it's funny, those are the words you used. 'cause what you said before, I totally resonate with that and, and I agree is, you know, there's this, there's always been in, in, in the two decades I've been in this industry, sort of a stigma with so many therapists about marketing, putting yourself out there, selling yourself, being inauthentic, being pushy, all these things that I've heard.
And the reframe that I was offered is, it is. Sales as a service. 'cause it is sales at the end of the day. Like we're selling your services, but a therapist isn't an iPod. It's not, it's not Nike, it's not Macy's. It's not a major conglomeration. Right. It's selling transformation and a better life. And to, to ship that narrative, to soulful sales, to heartland sales, to sales as a service, I think is so important.
And, and with that mindset, you know, to me like. I don't see it as like, oh, the mental health marketing industry will be out of a job. There's always gonna be people who don't want to do it. But again, what I love about it is, you know, the most heartbreaking sales calls to have are with folks who are just getting started, who cannot afford any kind of marketing service, and it is getting more and more competitive.
I heard somewhere that there's gonna be like 50% more licensed therapists in the states within the next five years because of all the folks. Connecting the dots myself, but who during COVID were like, oh, this seems like a great profession. I'm, you know, insert reason here. Mm-hmm. And it's, and there's more need for relatively free marketing help.
Than ever, but to directly address the question of the ethics and the concerns, there are ethical concerns. Mm-hmm. Like there's no way around it. Like there are some questionable things that are being done, and I'm not even gonna touch the, you know, the actual using AI for mental health. Like that's not what this conversation is about.
Mm-hmm. Not as a substitute for therapy or AI mental health chat bots and CBT chat bots, that's a whole other podcast, right? Mm-hmm. Just in terms of simply like where the data is sourced from, like how AI learning models, they just steal, like no sugarcoating it. Like they take copyrighted material and the, you know, the, the folks who run the tech companies, and I don't need to make villains out of them, but they say like that we can't help it.
Like they just, they source what's out there. We can't put a buffer on copyrighted material or not. And there's lawsuits by Facebook. There's, there's lawsuits. I get saying it's against Facebook by New York Times by there's so many major like authors are coming together to, to form these class action libel suits and because people's work, my work, probably your work mm-hmm.
Is being used to train these LLMs, these large language models. It's just they're, they're getting for free. What has taken you, Gordon, like on your website and your resources, like years and thousands of hours and your own money out of your life to create these resources and then chat, GPT and Claude Philanthropic.
It's like, whoop, we're gonna use 'em. Thanks. Thanks buddy. Enjoy that Uhhuh. So to me that's like, that's a concern for sure. Yeah, sure. There's the carbon footprint. A AI uses a ridiculous amount of energy. And ev every tech company we're offsetting it with solar and this. But you know, I, I think, and it's great that you asked that first 'cause we can't talk about how amazing AI is without at least acknowledging the ramifications that it has on.
Humanity on individuals and on the globe as a whole. Mm-hmm. So with all of that said, I think any use of AI needs to be looked at through that lens. Like this is where we are. And I had, I did a presentation some months ago for a, for a large group, and I presented all of this and even more. And at the end, you know, I'm like, drop in the chat.
Is AI ethical one yes. Two no. And even with all the stuff and even a longer laundry list that I'm sharing here, it was overwhelmingly, one, it is ethical to use it. A few people had a caveat like. Mm-hmm. That was, that was what I got from a group of mental health professionals was even in light of this still.
Yes. Right.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. So that, that begs the question, how do we make it ethical? And just given all those things. And I'm sure there's more than more than one answer to all of that, but mm-hmm. Yeah. As you, as you've, as you've delved into this, what, what are the things that you are recommending or seeing that we can do to make the use of AI.
More ethical?
Greg Goodman: Well, I'll, I'll put the question back to you for a minute, Gordon. Like, Uhhuh, what, when we're talking about ethical right? Uhhuh, like this word means so many things to so many people. Right? Right. So you like, what, what are, let's, let's clarify the, the constraints of the conversation. Like, what are we talking about?
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's a really good question. And I think, you know, I just think about my own use of AI so far. One of the things is it's a huge time saver. Mm-hmm. And then it can write stuff that, what would take me, you know, if I were to write a blog, for example, on a particular topic mm-hmm.
And I've already got it kind of formulated in my head, but I've actually gotta write it out. I could put a prompt into AI and say, I wanna write a blog post about five different ways to deal with anxiety in your life. Give me some ideas about things that you wanna, that, that I could write about. And so it would spit those out.
And then, then it usually asks, do you want me to write the blog post for you? And then it writes it, and then you go back and look at it and you think, okay, yeah, this is kind of what I would say as well. And they've, they've already typed it out for me. So to me that's an ethical use with if you're vetting it and, and it matches up what you.
Kind of your own voice or whatever. Sure.
Greg Goodman: Yeah. And, and that I think is an easier. I don't wanna say easier, and that, that is a, the more clear, like, because AI lies, like AI is known, hallucinates as they call it. Mm-hmm. It just makes stuff up. So like to me, ethics is like, first of all, where are you getting your information from?
Like ask the LLM, like, where are you getting this from? Are you just stealing the, like in theory it doesn't verbatim. Copy, you know, plagiarize somebody else's work, uhhuh. But there, there are like plagiarizer checkers out there that you can run your work through to make sure AI plagiarize your checkers.
Of course. Yeah. Right. To make sure that it's not doing anything. AI likes to make up sources. So if AI is confidently saying 37% of Americans that suffer with anxiety, you know, go, go on to have more severe. Insert thing here. Like, where'd you get that stat from? Show me the, show me the stat it's going to, it's be like, oh, this is cited from G gb ET all 2017.
And then you look for that service and it doesn't exist or for that mm-hmm. Study, it doesn't exist. So I think ethical use is everything you said, it sounds perfectly in line with ethics, right? Like not just taking it face value and copying and pasting, but doing the due diligence to make sure that.
Whoever, wherever it got its information, it is now coming out through you, Gordon, right? Mm-hmm. Like you write that blog post, you put it on your website, your potential clients or complete strangers who never become clients are reading it. It is now your ethical responsibility to accurately portray the thing that you are putting out to the world.
So really just checks, checks and balances. And that's separate from the ethics of where does that stuff come from? From a, like how the entire AI ecosystem is trained or anything else.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. And so what are, what are some of the other things that come to mind for you? And just thinking about the ethical use of ai.
So,
Greg Goodman: there we go. I feel like I was on my harsh lighting. So I, those are, those are really the big ones, right? Like, I think as, as far as it's concerned, like, to, to keep it at more of a macro level for the sake of this conversation I think the biggest ethical concern as it directly relates to mental health marketing.
Of AI is what I just mentioned, is just really because there's, there's bias. Like we don't know what data sources it was trained on. When you do that, and I do it all the time, it's, you know, it's the most wonderful gift. Like I use it for my own business. I use it for, for good and creative clients, like using AI to just.
To do the heavy lifting. And I always say like, AI is, you never publish straight outta chat, GPT or whatever your chosen model is. Mm-hmm. Like that is the first draft. It's gonna save you two to three hours of writing, but that it's only taking like 60% and I don't believe it a hundred percent, but your responsibility to get it to the 80% Right.
Like that's, that's, and, and it's a conversation and it's like. Checking and keeping the AI model in check at every step. Like validate, validate your words. Mm-hmm. And that's, that is really the ethical use is making sure that whatever it is, whatever good or. Not so good sources. The AI got, its, its data from that it is in alignment with your beliefs, your values, and that you, if someone were, if someone to come to you, like, they're like, I use it with ai.
That's why it was wrong. Like, it doesn't matter, the damage is done. So like, can you, the therapist authentically put this piece of content out into the world and know that it is going to do good To me, that's sort of, you know, ethics and it's, you know, and I. Trained in all of the philosophers of the world, but to me, like if I'm talking about ethics, it's like it's the most pure to break it down into like concepts that Tyler can understand, it's like, is it good or is it bad?
Obviously it's infinitely more nuanced than that, but like, can you put this out and you'd be like, I feel good about putting this out.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Then to me, that is
Greg Goodman: ethically okay with a million caveats behind it.
Gordon Brewer: Sure, sure. Yeah, that, I think that's helpful. Very helpful to think about it that way, and that we still need to.
Like you said, have our due diligence, fact check, all of those kinds of things with what you receive from, from those platforms, regardless of which one you're using. So, yeah. So to switch gears a little bit, Greg in, in your world of marketing, what are some of the best uses for AI in, in the marketing world?
Greg Goodman: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you, you hit the nail on the head really for. One of the greatest uses is in all of my years of working with therapists, you know, and, and any therapist marketing person you go to, like, what's the number thing everyone says, like, everyone wants to focus on search engine optimization.
How do you do search engine optimization? One of the key, one of the keys of SEO is creating content and yes, creating content that has keyword that solves, that solves user queries that is actually valuable, all of that. But regardless of what route you take for content, there's something simply about the, the, the.
Active writing that in my experience, ha paralyzes a lot of therapists with all sorts of limiting beliefs behind it and stories and you know, I can't write, I'm a terrible light writer. I can only write a thesis. I can't write marketing copy. All these things I've heard, and acknowledging that that is the, you know, the experience that's going on for that person.
Chat, GPT is an amazing workaround. For that. So I think just strictly getting new content out there, assuming you take the time to unify it and not just leave it as generic. Mm-hmm. Chat, GPT, exposition. So that I think is an amazing opportunity for therapists to just get the content that they need so that a search engine or an LLM can look at their website and say like, oh, okay, this person knows what they're talking about.
They've got 37 articles. You know, I'm just gonna keep running with the anxiety. 'cause that's what you mentioned before, they mm-hmm. Not only do they say five ways to know you have anxiety, it's what is anxiety? What are the origins of anxiety? How does anxiety show up in professionals? How does anxiety show up in artists?
Right. All these different things that. Google and LLMs can understand like, all right, they understand more of the web of this thing. So when someone types in anxiety therapist in Tennessee mm-hmm. I should probably recommend Gordon. Like this is, this makes a lot more sense than recommending Greg, who just had mentions the word anxiety three times on his page.
Right. So I think that's huge is copywriting and mm-hmm. With that said you know, within the sphere of chat, GPT, there's a lot, and I'll come back to it. And I'm also just using chat, GPT synonymously, like Xerox or Kleenex for everybody's chosen LLM because it has kind of become synonymous. But whether you use clawed or Gemini or philanthropic or surfer, SEO or whatever it is, like the, the fundamentals are the same.
So what, what I love about. Quote unquote chat. GPT is that. It can do everything for you, but there's also amazing entrepreneurs out there in, I live in the San Francisco Bay area. I'm in Santa Cruz, about 75 miles south of San Francisco, so I'm in this like tech bubble and mm-hmm. All anybody talks about anytime I'm met you at a kid, a birthday party for one of my kids.
Friends. It's like, what do you do? Oh, I'm in this AI business. I got this new AI startup and right. Mm-hmm. There's so many cool people doing really interesting things, leveraging this technology. So even more advanced stuff, and I don't necessarily recommend doing this within chat PDT directly, but like creating ad copy for Facebook ads or Google ads or mm-hmm.
Whatever ads and. You can brainstorm all of that within the LLM, but there's other apps out there that you give 'em a few prompts, they're gonna come up with the entire campaign. The app somehow syncs with the, you know, with the, the API infrastructure of the ad platform. And with a few clicks, not only do you have ideas for an ad, you have.
Fully formed ads that are live on your chosen ad platform, right with with creative, with your brand voice, with best practices and psychological factors that are going into play. And obviously you need to. Monitor it. Don't just let it, right, right. Everybody listening or watching this has one takeaway from this.
It's do not let AI run unmonitored. Like, yes, AI is wonderful. I love ai. Mm-hmm. AI needs you to be the teacher, to be the gatekeeper for whatever is put out into the world. Right. So I think that's an that's, but that's an incredible opportunity alone 'cause right? Like, you know, you can spend a thousand bucks a month just for someone to manage Google ads.
Yeah. And I'm not saying, I don't actually recommend just letting Google ads run wild, even with ai 'cause it'll uhhuh waste so much of your money and, you know, won't get results. But yeah, the capability is there. Like, we're not that far away from, I don't wanna say me being out of business 'cause I do believe there's always gonna be that need for the, the human oversight.
But yeah.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's great. You know, I think I, you, you know, another thing is just you're using AI as a learning tool. Mm-hmm. I know for me you know, the copywriting is, is Yeah, definitely. That's one of the things that I've just enjoyed doing. I just recently created a whole curriculum using, using AI as, and.
Putting in an extensive prompt. And I think that's another thing too, is you've got to, yes. I think put a lot of work in on the front end. It's not just type in a sentence and it does it, you've gotta really explain to to it, you know what you're looking for. And then, you know. Yeah. And, and, and, and many people refer to it, training it in your way of thinking.
Yep. And so, but you know, like you know, if for example, if I wanted to know the steps for taking, for creating a Google ad, as you mentioned mm-hmm. That would be a great use of ai, I think is just Yeah. Coming up with ways to learn how to do new things.
Greg Goodman: Yeah.
Gordon Brewer: Particularly in the tech areas.
Greg Goodman: Yeah. Yeah.
It's a great teacher. It's, it is a real, it's a really great teacher. And, but the challenge with that, with that exact example that you have is because things are changing so quickly right now. Mm-hmm. So quickly in the world of marketing, like how to set up a Google ad instruction manual is so different six months ago than it is now.
Mm-hmm. The LLM is potentially pulling, sometimes I catches it. It's like, you know, chat GBT how do always set, have a Google ad. It's like, oh, do this, this, this. And then I'm like, okay, this isn't working. That thing isn't there, that button, that checkbox that whatever is not there. Right, right. And then like, where did you get that information from?
You click on it and the article was published 2023. 2024. Not even that long ago. Right. But this is what I'm talking about always checking the data. Yeah.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah, it's yeah, it's just, yeah, use it. Check, check and verify.
Greg Goodman: Check. And you know, what you're to, to see like what you're talking about prompts as, as a power tip, like prompt engineering is the, is what the, it's like a whole job description now, although it's kind of going away because it's cool, is you can actually.
Ask chat, GPT to help you write better instructions to have chat. GPT. Do what you want. Like I literally spent four hours yesterday working with chat GPT to create the ultimate chat, GPT prompts, to tell chat GPT how to write like me, how to write a newsletter like me, a blog post, like me and every, and I've done this before, and every year or so I update it because chat GPTs.
Operations have changed. Right. So that's called prompt engineering. Yeah. And the best thing you, anyone watching or listening to this can do is ask Chad CPT in order to give you the best knowledge about me so you can accurately write in my voice, know all about my practice, write blog posts for me, help me come up with a marketing plan, give me 15 questions that you want me to answer for you.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. Let it
Greg Goodman: spit out those questions. Do not answer them in chat, GPT, because you're gonna wanna reuse this. Take out the most magical device known as your phone or whatever it is. Mm-hmm. Open up a voice dictating app. Open up a Zoom meeting and record the zoom meeting. It doesn't know, doesn't matter how.
What you want is a transcript. And answer those questions as if you were having a casual conversation with someone. Use as many words as possible. Don't, don't skip on the words, don't give two word answers, like go into teacher mode, go into philosopher mode, go into. Therapist mode, use jargon. It doesn't even matter.
What you're doing is you are giving whatever AI model, you use the data to know all about you, your modalities, your specialties, your background, your passions, why you love being a therapist, who your favorite types of clients are, who the clients are. You don't wanna see what makes you different than other therapists, why you're worth what you charge.
Like these are some of the questions that we use when we're training a model record, all of that. Mm-hmm. Get the transcript. Then before you ask chatt, PT, anything, and you can do this with the free version. Plug that in and be like, for the rest of this chat, I want you to pull your answers only from this document.
If there's something that you wanna say that's not in the document, you have to let me know what you wanna say and where you got that information from. And that way it's like the fusion of these two worlds. And there's a many more like complex ways that we do this behind the scenes, but that is a way that is accessible to anybody with a phone.
Gordon Brewer: Oh, right, right. Oh, that's a brilliant, brilliant tip there, Greg. And I, I really appreciate it. Yeah, I'm gonna be using that. I love that. That's great. I love that. That's great. That's good. Well, Greg, I've gotta be mindful of your time and our time together, and I know we could spend all day talking about this and maybe one day we'll get to, but tell folks more about where they can locate you and how they can tap into all your things.
Greg Goodman: Sure. Yeah, I mean, easiest way ever internet, good old internet. Yeah. Goodman, my last name, Goodman Creatives, the plural of creative.com. Goodman creatives.com. That's my homepage. It's got everything, everything you need to know about there, about how we could collaborate big picture. What do we do?
Our goal is to get you full and to keep you full all year round, regardless of recessions or politics or AI or you know, what's going on in the tech world, like good old fashioned human interaction, getting you found on Google, getting you found on LLMs, getting you full, keeping you full, reducing stress and overwhelm web design.
SEO Google Ads, copywriting done for you. We do it all for you. We're definitely a done for you service. So if you're looking for a, a teaching program or a coaching program, we have little bits of that in there. But there's a lot of other amazing folks who've appeared on your podcast who specialize, who specialize in the the DIY model Uhhuh, and that that is what we do.
That's how we do it. But big picture is we are your partner. We want to be with you for years to come and support your growth. From solo practice to group practice, from small group practice, to big group practice, entrepreneurial minded therapists we'd love, we'd love to chat with you, goodman creatives.com, lots of free resources.
And oh, and if you were, if you're like, I want to use chat GPT for copywriting, I actually have created, I've put a lot of our best practices from mental health copywriting into a custom GPT. So if you wanted to. Access that. It's free. It's free to you. I'll, I'll trade you, I'll, I'll trade you your email address and your first name to go to the newsletter to uhhuh to grab access to the to the guide.
It's got a bunch of those questions I mentioned and some other ways you can use the. AI to do it. It's under goodman creatives.com/copywriting bot, so that's probably a little bit long, but I'm sure Gordon will put it in the notes for you. Yeah, absolutely. Copywriting bot. And you can, and you can download it that way and we'll see if I can get you a shorter uur l for it.
It's, it's, we've never had to say it out loud before. It feels kind of long, like it's Go creative com slash gt. But it's not there yet.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Well, good, good. And, and like you said, Greg, we'll, we'll have links here in the show notes, in the show summary for people to, to access all that easily. So. Well, Greg, I, I really enjoyed our conversation and I hope to have you back at some point and hope you, and as we're recording this, we're right in the middle of the holidays or holiday season, and I hope you have a great holiday season.
Greg Goodman: Thanks, Gordon. I wanna say one thing to you too, Uhhuh. I want to genuinely express gratitude to you and for all the podcasts and all the ways, like I talk to so many people and your household name and people, and people get so much value from your podcast and you've helped so many people with this that you've done.
So I just wanted to acknowledge all the work and the hard work and effort you put in and say thank you on behalf of the world. For everything that you're doing. Oh,
Gordon Brewer: well, you're very kind. I appreciate that very much appreciate you. So take care, Greg.
Greg Goodman: All right. Have a good one.