Owning Your Power as a Group Practice Employee with Lee Thompson - Group Practice (R)evolution
“It's not just a job; you do have to really know yourself. You have to know what your strengths are. You have to know what's challenging for you, and I think some of it you can't really know until you try it.” ~Lee Thompson
Career paths, mentorship, workplace power, and finding your voice as a therapist.
I’m kicking this episode off with a mea culpa to group practice employees. If I’ve ever said something that made you think, “Wow! She doesn't really get it. Like, people are actually out here harming us," I just want to say I'm sorry. You deserve to be heard and feel respected.
Today’s guest, Lee Thompson, LCSW, helped me adjust my former-practice-owner POV. When we met a few years back, Lee was an early career therapist, a “COVID baby” of sorts. She inherited a professional space acclimating (or not) to rapid changes in the field, like the use of conferencing tools and the growing popularity of VC-backed virtual “wellness” platforms.
Lee is part of a broader, younger cohort that has opted to enter private practice upon graduation rather than pursue experiences in community mental health. There are many reasons for this generational shift, not least of which is an opportunity to pay back those increasingly burdensome loans.
We talk about:
the external forces weighing on therapists' career choices,
the life-changing magic of meaningful mentorship,
and how group practice employees can feel empowered even during challenging times.
“You talk about this all the time, that owners feel overburdened being asked for more and more when there seems to be increasingly less and less to go around,” observes Lee. “How are we having conversations between owners and employees to actually make it more feasible to be in the group practice space with all of these changes coming?”
Good question. Some of the answers lie in the power dynamics of a group practice. The tension in these relationships must be addressed openly and honestly on both sides because, even if the practice owner is being absolutely 100% perfectly benevolent, the relationship doesn't work if the employees aren’t owning 100% of their power.
Lee has grown into her power as a staff therapist and clinical supervisor while retaining the thoughtfulness that first attracted me to her spirit. “I feel like I'm in a new kind of position of significantly more power and still, like, these are hard conversations to have.”
RECOMMENDED EPISODES
Practice Owners vs. Employees: What's Really Happening? Group Practice (R)evolution
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
The Family Institute Therapy & Counseling
GUEST CONTACT & BIO
Lee Thompson, LCSW, is a Certified Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist. Currently, Lee is a staff psychotherapist and clinical supervisor at Catalyst Clinical Group, where she aims to cultivate sex-informed and kink-positive spaces for LGBTQ+ clients to process relationship challenges, attachment wounds, grief, and trauma. Away from the office, Lee enjoys walks with her dog by the lake, taking improv classes, and doing jigsaw puzzles.
Group Practice (R)evolution is a podcast series offering insights from owners, employees, and experts, and resources to support this wildly ambitious vision for the future. Become a part of the (R)evolution in our Authentic Leaders Group.
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