Emma Radway-Bright
I think that to be very, very clear on what you want to do with your private practice, I think sometimes people just go into private practice without being clear what’s your end goal and also be clear about the tools you’re taking into private practice in the sense of, yes, you’ve got the therapy tools, but, you know, things like thinking about it like a business, thinking about your own marketing, get in good business mentors like yourself.
Josephine Hughes
Today, we are welcoming Emma Radway Bright, who is a therapist working in London, but she works exclusively online, which I think will be really interesting for those of you who are listening who also want to work exclusively online. And I’ve invited Emma onto the show because she’s really successfully got her private practice going. She’s making a really good job of it. She’s done other training as well, which I’m going to ask her all about and, just generally, I think you’d love to hear from her. So, welcome Emma would you like to tell us a little bit more about your practice and what sort of work you do and who you like to work with?
Emma Radway-Bright
Thanks, Josephine, for inviting me first of all. So I’m Emma, I’m one of the therapists at I Need Therapy. That’s the name of our practice. It’s actually a joint practice with my best friend, Sharon. We studied together originally. We started our practice in 2018, the end of 2018, and we used to see clients face to face because we were based in a community project in Peckham.
And, obviously, like everybody during the pandemic, we moved online. So I work with adults. I originally specialised in working with women and, basically, women who had experienced gendered violence because that was one of my placements when I was training. So I took that up as a specialty because during training, I got lots of extra CPD around trauma and sexual violence and some things. Then I also had a placement working with carers of people with long term conditions.
So I started working with clients in my private practice around that as well. And I’m also specialising in working with men and women who have had a baby that wasn’t delivered to term. So that includes post miscarriage and post abortion work with them. And I’d say those are, like, my 3 main areas that I work in.
Josephine Hughes
Mhmm.
Emma Radway-Bright
Although, you know, obviously, I work with people who come with all sorts of other things, anxiety, depression, and all the usual worlds and human conditions we experience.
Josephine Hughes
I noticed from your profile, and I was fascinated by this, that you’ve done a lot of work with Babette Rothschild. Is that the case? And Yeah. Do supervision for her. Is that right?
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. I do supervision with her.
Josephine Hughes
With her?
Emma Radway-Bright
Yes. But when I was training, I first got introduced to her work because obviously I was working with very traumatised clients. And my supervisor at the time had recommended reading Babette’s books, which are a great help. Then in 2018, I saw that she was coming to London to do some in person training around somatic trauma therapy, which is her area.
So I joined the training and really embraced everything around trauma and her tools and stuff. And then during the pandemic, she actually approached some of us that had trained with her because, obviously, everybody was stuck where they were, and Babette lives in LA. So she asked us if we would help with assisting with some of her courses. Because when we were training in person, there were assistants there that, you know, when you break out into groups and stuff.
So we came up with a model of working online and training other therapists. So since then, really, I’ve been working as one of her team of assistants.
And then we also have meetings with her, and we can bring clients and have, you know, supervision with her when we have difficult clients. Yeah. So it’s quite a team of us working with her now, and we train people who do like, it’s a 1 year program for therapists broken into 3 parts.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. So that must bring in a sort of good aspect of something different to your work generally as a therapist to be working with other therapists doing the group group work and supporting them in their learning.
Emma Radway-Bright
It’s really good because you get exposed to so many people because they’re a lot of therapists, not just UK therapists, they’re all over the world. We’ve done people in Romania, Ukraine, America, Canada, everywhere. So Yeah.
Josephine Hughes
So it really sort of helps you to extend your knowledge of therapy across the world. Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
And also because I feel like I’m learning each time as well. Each time we do the course again it’s refreshing. So
Josephine Hughes
Sort of helping to deepen the experience as well for you. And I think, because I know sort of a little bit about the stuff that you’ve talked about because obviously, I’ve known you through Good Enough Counsellors for a long time and just to say at this point that Emma, back in 2020 when we first all locked down, Emma was part of my live challenge group. Which is ages ago now.
Emma Radway-Bright
The best thing I ever did.
Josephine Hughes
Oh brilliant. So, Emma came on to practise with other people how to do live feeds online and, you know, it was quite new to a lot of people at that point wasn’t it? But that group really got to know each other because we spent about 2 weeks just sort of, going online, sharing lives, and sort of sharing our lives really, didn’t we? It meant that we formed a really supportive group and you know that that was the start of the Therapy Growth Group. Just to say, actually, because this will go out before I do it, I’m actually running another live feed challenge in July so look out for that because I’m going to repeat it.
For the first time I’ve done it, I will have done it since 2020. So, I don’t do it very often. It’s all those lovely things where I’ve got to know Emma. We will circle back to it in a minute. But, I think one of the things that sort of stands out to me, Emma, is and I was fascinated about this when you told me your story recently about when you set up in private practice.
It’s quite often you seem to be in the right place at the right time.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. I was in the right place at the right time with Babette which is fascinating but also with my supervision at the time. Because when I was still studying, I had a really great supervisor that had a thriving practice.
Emma Radway-Bright
And, you know, when I hadn’t even considered going into private practice because I was working full time as a scientist and had a job I really loved.
Josephine Hughes
Mhmm.
Emma Radway-Bright
And, actually, counselling was a bit of a coincidental thing because I’d originally gone to learn how to do flower arranging. And the day I went to the place, the flower arranging course was already full and the counselling table was next door, and I was like, oh, what’s that?
Josephine Hughes
Oh, wow.
Josephine Hughes
That’s a story.
Emma Radway-Bright
And Sharon, my business partner, was in the queue in front of me, and that’s how we started talking. It was just like, oh, this person’s gonna be brilliant.
And I signed up. But then yeah. So when I had my supervisor during my placements because one of my placements didn’t provide supervision, So I had to find my own supervisor.
And rather randomly because also the Internet wasn’t as great as it is now that you could just go on and search. I just came across her from, you know, like those local notice boards when people pin things on. And I called her and, you know, she lived a bit far away, but I thought, well, this is the only option I’ve got, kind of thing. But she had a really thriving practice. And one day, I think we’ve been working for about 6 months and she just asked, so, you know, what are you gonna do when you finish the course?
And I was like, flower arranging. I don’t know. Something else.
And she was like, why don’t you go into private practice that, you know, you do really well? And she reviewed all the stuff we’ve been working on, and she just said, look. I could give you pointers on different aspects of setting up each, you know, time you come, we’ll talk through a different aspect of the business. She got me to start thinking about a business plan and location and stuff.
And that’s really how I started. And I’m so grateful to her because without that push and her mentoring me and pushing me along to do it, I don’t think I would have ever thought of setting up in private practice.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
So then I went to Sharon and said, oh, guess what we could do?
Josephine Hughes
Is that how you and Sharon got started together?
Emma Radway-Bright
Well, actually, no. Because initially, she didn’t have any intention of being in private practice, and it was only me that started off first because I was walking again. I was walking past there’s a private GP near me. And I was walking past, and they have really nice swish offices. And I was like, oh, what’s that kind of thing?
And I went in, and I just said, oh, I’m thinking about starting off in private practice. I’m going to be a therapist. I haven’t even graduated yet, but I was graduating in a few months. And I was wondering if you rent the rooms out because the receptionist is like, oh, I’ll show you around the really lovely rooms and everything. And she said, oh, we’ve never rented out our offices, but I’ll tell the doctors and maybe one of them will call you and then one of them did call me and he was like yeah you could just do they’re all very laissez faire about it. Because he then just said, oh, we’ll give it to you for free for 3 months.
Anytime you have it because I was like, I don’t have any clients yet. I haven’t even really started advertising.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
And he said, you can have it free for 3 months and let’s just see how it goes anytime you need the room. Because I said it’s gonna be in the evenings because I work full time.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
He said anytime, just call the reception, book the room. And that’s kind of how I started. Fantastic. It was a sort of free room as well. So I saw clients there in the evenings for a while, and the 3 months kind of extended because then we found the place in Peckham, but it hadn’t been built yet.
We had to bid for the space, and they were gonna refurbish an old car park. But we were one of the bids that won.
Josephine Hughes
Mhmm.
Emma Radway-Bright
So I told them about it and said, oh, you know, it’s gonna take about a year before the property is ready and everything. And they were like, sure.
Josephine Hughes
Okay.
Emma Radway-Bright
Still very casual about everything, and they never charged me.
Josephine Hughes
Oh, fantastic.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. To give you a little bit of a ood boost at the start, perhaps when it’s difficult.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah, it was really lucky, the kindness.
Josephine Hughes
So you are just full of these sort of stories though, I think, aren’t you? It’s sort of like it’s amazing. So how did you make that leap? Because you are working full time now in your practice aren’t you? You’re no longer working as a scientist.
Emma Radway-Bright
So that again was more because I was working 2 evenings a week rushing across London because my office was in Belsize Park, getting to London Bridge, jumping on the train to Peckham to go see clients. So I was working 6 till 9, 2 evenings a week. Sharon was doing 2 evenings a week, and then I was doing Saturday mornings. But it just got to a point because that was all through 2018, 2019. Towards the end of 2019, it got to a point where I was getting so many referrals and people calling and asking, and I had to keep on saying because I only had capacity from 9 clients at the time because of that limited availability.
I have to keep saying to people, I’m afraid I can’t take anyone on. And, eventually, the thought just occurred to me one day that, why don’t you just give it a go? You know, worst case scenario, I can always go back and get a job if it doesn’t work out.. So I’m handed in my notice, and I had a 3 month notice period anyway. So, you know, I handed in my notice, and then, yeah, November 2019 into full time, sat there for the 1st day.
But by that time because I had the 3 month notice period, I’d started booking in clients. Yeah. So from the very first Monday in private practice, I had people already booked in. But then the pandemic hit
Josephine Hughes
I was gonna say.
Josephine Hughes
The pandemic
Emma Radway-Bright
Well, actually, before the pandemic, our office caught on fire, and they had to close the building. Our office building, the fire exit caught on fire. And they closed us for a week. And, again, I think that was really lucky because that week, we had to, like, in an emergency, go online. So I didn’t know anything about Zoom or working online at the time, but we basically had to do it all in a week because the building were like, you can’t come into the building.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
And I didn’t want to cancel all my clients for the week. So we actually set up on Zoom. That was in January 2020.
Josephine Hughes
Oh, wow.
Emma Radway-Bright
And then the pandemic hit. We were already, like, set up for Zoom and everything and that was, like, really lucky as well because we didn’t have too much thinking to do to just go online.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. All that disruption that we went through right at the beginning with
Emma Radway-Bright
And all our clients had practised because of the week in January. They were all familiar. So once I sent out emails saying, okay. We’re gonna be online. They all had the links and they were fine with it.
Josephine Hughes
It all fell into place because when you told me you know you were there in sort of November 2019, you know, you sort of know the clock starts ticking March 2020. It’s all gonna change.
Yeah. So did you find you got really busy during that time as well, during the pandemic? Yes. I know a lot of people went into a bit of a quiet time initially, but for you, it just got busy. Did it?
Emma Radway-Bright
For me, it got really busy because I had originally designed my week, like, because I was going into working on my own as well, I thought, well, I’m not gonna work on Mondays and I’m not gonna work on Fridays because I can choose my days. Basically I’m working for myself.
But during the pandemic it did kind of leak initially into like an overspill of extra people because then I was taking on, you know, some of the emergency services and people. Because when Sharon and I were setting up, we also have a pay it forward scheme in a sense of there are a couple of people. It was a random thing I put on my website when I, because I built the website myself and we had this page where we decided to put the pay it forward scheme. And it’s just a little bit that explains that, you know, you don’t have to be in therapy or you could be a client, but you could donate money for us to run groups.
The idea was that we were going to run, you know, it’s just money for tea and cake to run groups for mothers and babies. But what actually happened is the first donor that I got was somebody that just had seen it and randomly has never been a client. But every year when they get their bonus, they give it to me.
Basically funds 6 sessions for free for people that wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford therapy.
And then I’ve had a few clients that have read it on the website as well and, you know, I have a pot that they can, they know the account details and they just submit, donate to it. During the pandemic, that really came in useful because then I could see people on, you know, like emergency services and just people that couldn’t otherwise access therapy. So that led to working extra hours. And then I had to cut down after a while because it was a bit too much and go back to being a bit more sensible.
Because it seemed easy at first because I’m at home anyway, but it’s being really careful about your self care and burnout and stuff that I have to cut back. Being careful about my issue. Being a bit more sensible.
Josephine Hughes
But that’s amazing I didn’t. I didn’t know that about you, actually. I mean, I read a little bit on your website, but I hadn’t realised that that’s actually what had happened. And it was almost sort of like you just set it up and thought, well, I’ll give it a go.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. Not expecting anything.
Josephine Hughes
Amazing. Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
So I’m really, really lucky because we donate, both of us donate one session free anyway because the building we were originally renting from had this scheme, which was a community investment scheme. But even though we moved out of the building, we’ve still kept that going anyway. But the pay it forward has been really, really good because even when, like, with the current economic crisis, I’ve had clients where, you know, their finances have been a bit shaky, but then that just means I can then offer them because they’ve previously been paying. You know, I can offer them 6 sessions.
Sometimes we can stretch it out to make it, like, fortnightly so that they get more time and stuff. But yeah. Then when they can, when they’ve got a new job or finances are a bit better they start paying again, which is fine.
Josephine Hughes
I mean, I had that when I had, had therapy because my husband was made redundant and the therapist said to me, yeah, we can reduce your fees. Sure enough, it was okay because he got another job but, you know, I was able to start paying her again. But it was really helpful to help me bridge that time when actually it’s a really sort of scary and worrying time. So to have that support was really useful.
Emma Radway-Bright
And for me, it’s also quite because I’m single and I haven’t got any like, this is my only income.
Josephine Hughes
Mhmm.
Emma Radway-Bright
Where the pay it forward works for me is that the client gets it for free, but I still get paid because I can’t you know, I can give 1 or 2 sessions away free, but not that many.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. Yeah. That’s it. And just getting back to self care as well. I know you’re very careful about self care, aren’t you?
Would you like to tell people what you do to sort of look after yourself?
Emma Radway-Bright
It’s become a bit of a thing now. And mainly because we’re also starting to do it with other therapists. This actually also started from working with Babette because a lot of what we were learning was about burnout and therapists getting to a point because she’s written a book called Help for the Helper which is about avoiding vicarious trauma and burnout. And myself and Ness, who’s another colleague who we had been on the training with originally with Babette and we’re now on her assistant team. We have always been quite careful about self care and Ness’s into yoga and body movement.
And I kind of started copying her. Whatever she posts as she does lots of body movement exercises. And then I have an obsession with flowers. So especially even during lockdown, one of the things for me was buying the flowers every week and arranging them and then I started taking pictures of them and posting them. So for me that was a bit of my self care ritual that as long as I had flowers and beautiful stuff around me and then it got into the practice of between sessions I get up and dance or move or do various exercises.
And then actually, because Ness is also so much into self care, we decided to start running retreats together. We ran our 1st retreat in the late, just last October.
Josephine Hughes
Mhmm.
Emma Radway-Bright
But also from that, Ness then produced a deck of cards
Josephine Hughes
Oh, right.
Emma Radway-Bright
Where each card she has a deck of 70 cards where each card is something to do with nature and being back in touch with yourself. So I’ve kind of taken that on as a challenge now that I try and do a card a day. And then things like, you know, very careful with my sleep, very careful with my water intake, and just being really well aware. Then I take 1 week off every 6 weeks of client work as well. So that goes into my calendar that all my clients know that every 6 or 7 weeks, I have a week off.
So I’ve got one coming up next week, is good. But interestingly, because I do that, some of my other counselling colleagues like this year, they’ve done the same weeks as well because we’re friends. So we now have the same week off. But some of my clients do it now as well because they found that, oh, it’s a good way for them to decompress as well. And it’s like even if I don’t go anywhere, it’s that week purely to rest and do as little as possible and be as relaxed as possible.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
And I can kind of see when I’m getting tired by about week 6. I’m really ready for that week.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. So I guess if you’re sort of very aware of, you know, doing the body stuff and that sort of thing that you really begin you’re just much more tuned into your body as well, so you start to notice those signs of tiredness perhaps at an early stage than maybe some others would do.
Emma Radway-Bright
And I think especially because of the work we do, it’s so easy to carry stuff without noticing it. And because we are I think all of us in our profession are born helpers, but we’re not born self carers.
Josephine Hughes
Absolutely.
Emma Radway-Bright
And you really have to learn and be quite disciplined. Because I say, you know, I spend as much time thinking about and executing my self care as if I was on some kind of regimented physical regime. Because the minute I forget about it, my sleep goes to pot and I’m all grumpy and, you know, I have reminders on my phone and everything, So I stay on track.
Josephine Hughes
So it’s a real sort of like discipline in a sense. Almost like, you know, like physical training. It’s mental health training in a sense. Something like that.
Emma Radway-Bright
I I think it’s crucial because the worst thing that can happen is to get burnout or vicarious trauma and not notice. Because I have seen people go over the edge into burnout and
Josephine Hughes
Mhmm.
Emma Radway-Bright
It’s hard to come back.
Josephine Hughes
How do the clients, sort of, appreciate that 6 week break. Do you ever have any problems where they, sort of, think, oh, no. I don’t want a break, you know, I want to carry on or do you find that people do 6 weeks and then not come back afterwards? Or, you know, because that’s the things that people worry about.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. I’ve never had any feedback from anyone. You know, I get them reminding me because, like, in the past 2 weeks, I’ve had a couple of clients go, oh, what week is it off again? It’s the next 2 weeks, isn’t it? You know?
So it’s kind of like they’ve just got used to it. And I think because I do work with people quite long term as well because of the kind of trauma we’re working with or whatever. I’ve never had anyone not come back
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
On the week off because it is something I explain and I explain why I take that time off and stuff as well. So
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
It’d be you know, it’s up to them. Maybe they haven’t voiced it, but it’s up to them if they don’t come back. If they could have said because my therapist took a week off to rest, that’s fine.
Josephine Hughes
Yes. It’s not necessarily your ideal client if they leave for that reason. Yeah. Yes. And how do you manage your sort of income needs with taking, like, a week off every 6 weeks?
Do you have, like, a set number of clients? Did you you put your fees up to cover that? Or tell me a bit more about that?
Emma Radway-Bright
Well, it’s interesting because all I’ve ever done is use your income calculator.. Because I remember when you first put it out because I think when I first set my fees, it was a bit more arbitrary in the sense of I looked, not arbitrary, but I looked at all the fees in the area. And thought, okay. What would be comfortable for me to be charging?
And then when I think it wasn’t long after I started that you did have your fees calculator, and it was the first time that I actually thought, what do I want to be earning? Yeah. And then calculating everything based on that, you know. And luckily, at the time, our rent as well where we were renting was relatively cheap. And, obviously, I don’t have any rent now.
But I always have had that goal that each year, just like when I was working, you know, like you get a certain salary increase every year, I worked that out for myself as well that each year, you know, or every 18 months, I want to give myself a bit of a bonus. And then but so I haven’t increased my I’ve I’ve only increased my fees twice, actually. The first time was a bit of a big bump because I hadn’t done it initially, But that’s more because the price of everything went up or, you know.
But I do vary it then on my calendar in the sense of I’ve always I have, like 3 Google calendars. And Sharon and I created a calendar where we blocked out how many.
So it sounds complicated, but it’s not. It’s like I have 28 potential slots available in a week. But I only ever fill anything between 15-20. But it always fits with people’s work because so many people are working from home.
There are a couple of people that don’t have flexibility at work, so they have the same sessions every week because it’s evening. But I have because of the client group I have, I have a lot of people that have flexibility. They’re quite creative in their careers and stuff. So as long as it’s within those 28 variations of the slots, it’s fine.
I don’t go over 20 in a week.
And then there’s some weeks where, you know, I’ve got from 12 to 5 free, you know, because of the way the calendars worked that week. So as long as I keep those but then if I needed to bump up my income for any reason, I can then decide, okay. I’ll make it 22 instead of 20 as the ceiling. There are some weeks, especially when I get back from holiday. The week I get back from holiday is usually a horrendous week because everybody’s booked in for that week.
Like, oh my god. You’ve been away for a week. But then it always evens out.
Josephine Hughes
And you’re coming to it fresh by then, so you can cope, I guess, with that with that really busy week.
Emma Radway-Bright
And I’m a really strong believer in I get the clients that I need or want at the time because I always think, you know, someone’s come to an end. And in my head, I think, oh, I’ve got, you know, 2 people have come to an end. I’ve got 2 spaces. And then just serendipitous I can never say the word. Serendipity.
Yes. Suddenly, I’ll get 2 inquiries from people. You know, and it’s just like, oh, I happen to have 2 slots so, you know, the slots don’t stay empty and I have a waiting list as well.
Josephine Hughes
So what have you done to create, to generate that sort of level of inquiries? Tell me about how you go about your marketing, what you found useful.
Emma Radway-Bright
Well, the main thing I did, especially during lockdown, thanks to your group, was because I didn’t actually start using Instagram until, I think, 2019, but I was just posting the, you know, nice quotes and things like that. And I was always very, very camera shy. And then I did that challenge with you and did all the live videos and stuff. And it’s not that I suddenly ran out and did live videos, but it just made me so much more comfortable with taking pictures of myself and little videos. And I actually found that then I started experimenting with my engagement.
And I found when I showed more of myself, I actually got better engagement than when I was doing all the, you know, nice therapy like quotes and rainbows and flowers and stuff. And it kind of just built from that. And then people need to know you and like you to buy a product from you.
I think I’ve always used that premise of that’s how I then started building on referrals because, like, during before lockdown even when I was in the office, I targeted, I looked at all the cafes in our area. I drank a hell of a lot of coffee at the time. But I worked out there were 5 cafes in the area that sold coffees and breakfast. There was a yoga studio, And in the yoga studio also had a coffee shop. So what I used to do was on the days when I was in the office, I would go to a different place each day, I’d go to a different cafe, get a coffee, talk to them, ask them about their clientele.
And I think over time, it’s then you become a local because they’ve seen you every at least once a week for the past how many weeks. And eventually people ask you, oh, so what do you do? And I already had an elevator pitch ready. I already had cards. I had printed postcards.
So, like, the yoga studio eventually said to me, oh, you can put some of your postcards outside because I had these postcards about 5 things you do if you’re stressed or 5 things you do if you suffer from anxiety, you know, like practical tips, like have a bath and things like that. So I printed those postcards off. So I started getting people from the yoga studio that said, oh, I picked up your card there. The coffee shops started referring people. The hair, I’ve gone to the same hairdresser for, like, 30 years.
So my hairdresser is a really local guy that tells everybody about me. But I think that was the thing. It was like getting to know. And even during the pandemic, when all the local businesses first closed, a lot of them opened up with it, like, in my area with just a little window selling coffee or whatever. And, again, I then targeted the ones near to me not only because I was looking for business.
It’s just that I was trying to support local business in the sense of if I go to each coffee shop and have a coffee, at least they’ve got customers coming. So Monday would be 1 person, Tuesday would be the next person. It was like my time out during lockdown. But then I haven’t stopped doing that even after lockdown. So, actually, in my area, people are always amazed like, how do you know so many people?
It’s like, I talked to these people for years now because we’re 5 years later or 4 years later. But I think and then at the same time I was doing the same on Instagram and, you know, snippets. Not self disclosure but snippets about my flowers or my dog or things that people feel that they know something about you. They trust you. So I get quite a lot of referrals now even though the only place I advertise is, I do advertise on Counselling Directory, but I think like everybody, the inquiries on that have gone down.
But most of my referrals now are word-of-mouth on, you know, locals or from I get Instagram and, like, people DM me on Instagram, but I always say please email me once they DM me or LinkedIn. Because I also get a lot of my posts from Instagram, I kind of modify them for LinkedIn.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. I think that’s just so interesting. Thank you for sharing that approach because it’s sort of like, you know, so often people rely on the online stuff but actually what you’re doing is talking about, you know, just getting out there but not in a pushy way. It was sort of more, oh how are you? How’s your business going?
What’s happening? And just letting them get to know you and then eventually they asked you about your business. So
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. Exactly.
Josephine Hughes
For those of us a bit shy, I think, you know, we don’t have to push it, do we? It’s almost just, you know, building relationships.
Emma Radway-Bright
Because I’m definitely not a seller, but, you know, I am shy and I always say sometimes I could be an extroverted introvert because I’m all out, but I’m quietly sitting in a corner. But I think after a while, you know, just all the local cafes, they do notice when you’re there all the time because they’re businesses as well, and they want to recognize that they’re also supported by people in the locality. Like my area, they even do a 10% local discount for you if you’re a local resident and stuff like that. So it’s like they know you’re there. Yeah.
And eventually they talk.
Josephine Hughes
Fantastic. Yeah. And I say you’re supporting them by going in especially during COVID. Yeah. Yeah.
Amazing. That’s a really really good story, I think.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. I have to have decaf coffee, but I had to cut out on the coffee. It’s part of my marketing budget.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. Spend it on coffee. You know, just just sort of moving on, I hope this isn’t too personal a question, but but do you think, sort of, like, being a woman of colour has impacted you in terms of, like, your marketing or, you know, has that made you perhaps more shy in terms of publishing your photos or anything like that? Or has that not really featured?
Emma Radway-Bright
I think at first it did because I was very, it’s interesting, I was more concerned with judgement from within the counselling community but from the public. In the sense of, you know, coming out of the norm of what’s expected in our stereotypical mind of what a counsellor looks like.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
I think I was more conscious of that especially, you know, like, it worked for me in one way in censoring me, but it also works for me in another way. And when I was posting something, I would then think about is this too much self disclosure. So it kind of helped in that sense, but I was always conscious of being watched in that sense because I was also conscious that lots of counsellors follow me but don’t ever engage with my content. So it made me a bit paranoid. But then also from the public point of view, there aren’t very many besides, like, what I’ve seen like a few Americans, there aren’t very many black female therapists that are out there posting or talking about anything.
Even within some of our groups sometimes, you know, there’s a lot of members that are just quiet and I’m the one like, chatting away, making my views known. But I kind of think halfway through lockdown, I got over myself a bit and just thought, you know, yes. I’m not the stereotypical counsellor, but, you know, because even in our local community and stuff, when I tell people, oh, I’m a therapist, Everybody, like, gasps and steps back like you are kind of thing. You know, they’re always shocked. Like, yeah.
What did you expect?
Emma Radway-Bright
But it hasn’t adversely affected me that I know of.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. Do you find that you attract more black clients? I mean, when I say more, I don’t know. Maybe perhaps more compared to
Emma Radway-Bright
No. Because people always ask me that all the time. I have probably, I would say, 70% of my clients are white and 30% are black.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
And it’s interesting because I always ask every client and the first three questions I ask them is why therapy? Why now? And why did you choose me as one of, like, icebreakers? I’ve had a lot of white clients actually say to me they chose me because I was black during lockdown Because I think of all the Black Lives Matter, you know, things that were going on in society at the time, there were a lot of people that thought, actually, I want I don’t have any like a few have outright said that they didn’t have any day to day engagement with any black people. So when they were getting a therapist, they thought that might be a good idea
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
To actually seek out a black therapist. So it’s quite interesting. That is true. It’s because you’re the polar opposite to them as well that helps them in some way.
Josephine Hughes
And I think that’s a really interesting observation to make as well because I think often we, Yeah. We think that people won’t, I mean, certainly when I’ve spoken to some other women who are black or Asian therapists, they’ve sort of said, oh, will people not choose me because I’m like this? And it’s so it’s really interesting to hear you say that actually, people choose you precisely because of that, because they want something
Emma Radway-Bright
to be different. Yeah.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
I’ve had white men for exactly the same reason would say, yeah, that because I’m different from any you know? And I think it’s something about not being not representing anyone within this fear that they’ve come in contact with. So they then don’t feel paranoid about saying anything, you know. Because I suppose maybe if you’re talking to someone that could be your sister, your mother, or, you know, maybe might censor you a bit.
Josephine Hughes
So Yeah. Especially if, you know, with the sort of things that you are actually seeing your clients for, being able to have something that feels so different is probably really helpful if they’re disclosing quite traumatic things. Now the other thing that I know is quite sort of interesting about you, this is another one of your moments. Tell us about Tapping and your EFT and how you got involved in that.
Emma Radway-Bright
Okay. So I was on another course because I am also a serial learner, and I sign up for everything. And I was on an eating disorder course, and the trainer said something. This is like day 4 of the course. Said something that, oh, and EFT is a really good adjunct to working with eating disorders.
So I scribbled down EFT not knowing that there were two forms of there are 2 types of therapy that are called EFT, but the acronym is EFT. So I always get this wrong – there’s the emotions focused therapy that is EFT. And there’s the as I’m having a brain blank Emotional Freedom. The Emotional Freedom Technique. Right?
So when I just put EFT into Google and I think she had said emotions focused therapy at the time. But when I put EFT in and read, you know, looked at courses and stuff I came across this course that had brilliant reviews, and I signed up for it, paid. It was like in a couple of months and everything. And then the 1st day of the course, you know, it was online. The guy starts talking about Tapping.
I’m thinking, oh my god. So I’m furiously googling, and then I realized, oh, I think I signed up to the wrong thing. This is an emotional freedom technique. I meant to be on an emotion focus. So I thought, okay. It’s fine.
You know, I’ve paid the money but it’s fine. At lunch time I could just not come back and send a really polite email to say so, you know, make an excuse. But so this is like 9 in the morning, but by lunchtime, I was hooked.
Josephine Hughes
Really?
Emma Radway-Bright
I was like, oh my god. This is so good. And he was such a good trainer as well, and it was just everything, you know, the background on it. So I just thought, okay. I’ll stay the 1st day.
If I’m not sold, then I’ll send him the email. But by the end of the 1st day, I was like, I’m going to learn everything I can about this. So that’s how I ended up completing the level 1 & 2 in EFT and then started to incorporate it in my therapy and actually works so well for a lot of my therapy clients especially if they get really dysregulated in sessions. We can do a bit of tapping. And the brilliant thing about it is because you can teach them how to do it for themselves as well.
So quite a lot of them learn how to do it, using it for sleep or whenever they have dysregulated in their normal lives and stuff. So, yeah, it’s one of my favourite things now.
Josephine Hughes
Discovered by accident. Yeah. I remember when I first started doing tapping, I was quite resistant to the idea because, oh, this is a sort of, you know, typical me. Mumbo jumbo.
Did you find that you get that sort of reaction from people or, you know, how how do you? Because you’re from a scientific background as well. So, you know, that might not play into it.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. Well, especially because that’s how I reacted.
That’s the thing because there is some understanding of why it works. But on the face of it, if anyone presents tapping to you as a way of resolving trauma or, you know, resolving your emotions, everybody would be like, yeah. Right. So yeah, I do get clients that are sceptical, but again, it’s just a tool.
I always present things to people. I’m, I’m like a mechanic. I’ve got a toolbox with various tools in it and I use different tools for different people. So if I present you with a tool and you’re not particularly fussed about using it, it’s fine. I’ve got another tool.
If you don’t want a hammer, I’ve got the spanner. You know? So I present things in that way.
Josephine Hughes
And if they’re sceptical, there are some people that will be sceptical and go, alright. Let’s try it.
Emma Radway-Bright
And then when they feel better, they’re like, wow. Yeah. How did that work? I’m like, I don’t know, but it worked. But it works.
Josephine Hughes
Which is a place I’ve gone to as well, I think. I do find it helpful. Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. And I use it on myself as well.
Josephine Hughes
Do you? Yeah. It sort of helps you to accumulate, like you said, when you’re sort of sleeping and stuff like that. Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. To get a good night’s sleep. It’s brilliant.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. That’s really interesting. Could you tell us a little bit about life coaching as well? Because that’s another sort of branch of something that you do, isn’t it?
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. So that came actually from my current clinical supervisor because, again, she’s really good at looking at how you can expand your business. She’s a very good businesswoman and always challenging you on, you know, so what do you want to do next with your practice?
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
And I think at the time, that was when all the uproar about SCOPED or SCOPE-ED or however you pronounce it had come in. And she said to me, it’s always good to have something else if everything goes, you know, up the creek without a paddle kind of thing because we just were in such turmoil at the time that we just didn’t know what was going on. So we kind of brainstormed on what are the alternatives of things that are not the same but run parallel that you could incorporate into your business or have a separate business on the side and came up with a life coaching. And she’d actually found a course, and we actually ended up on the same course.
And I think it’s very, very different from counselling, and I really enjoy it, but in a different way from, like, I really enjoy counselling, and I really enjoy life coaching. There are ways in which you can incorporate it, but, actually, what I do is have my therapy clients who are very separate from my life coaching clients.
Josephine Hughes
So have you had any, just drawing to a close. So if you had any advice for people who are just starting out in private practice, what would your advice be?
Emma Radway-Bright
I think that to be very, very clear on what you want to do with your private practice. I think sometimes people just go into private practice without being clear what’s your end goal and also be clear about the tools you’re taking into private practice in the sense of, yes, you’ve got the therapy tools, but, you know, things like thinking about it like a business, thinking about your own marketing, getting good business mentors like yourself, you know, signing up for things or just getting those skills that aren’t soft skills, they’re actually the harder skills to get, you know, accounting and all that. Outsource your accounting.
Don’t worry about self assessment, you know. But I think it’s that thing, getting as many tools as you can to hone your own businessRather than just thinking, oh, I’ll start seeing some clients and I’ll bungle my way along. That can work, but it’s so unnecessarily painful. But I think if you have a, for me what I did, I had a business plan.
I look at my business plan every year. I decide on what I want to achieve that year and that incorporates what CPD I’m going to do, how much I’m going to spend on CPD, how much I’m going to spend on marketing. Just to try and plan those things out as well as possible.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah.
Emma Radway-Bright
The first time around, and then each time it’s only a little bit of work you need to do. It’s an iterative thing every year, then you can just add to it. But get the basics right and it’s so much easier. Of course, you can’t make clients come to you, but I think you can just take away the stress of being in private practice by having a plan.
Josephine Hughes
Do you have any sort of tools that you use for your planning people might be interested to know?
Emma Radway-Bright
Pen and paper. I very much need to see it on paper in colour, a lot of coloured pens and stuff. If my business plan looks like a drawing because I do a lot of it each year, that’s why I think I add to it. It’s not different pieces of paper. When I’ve needed to type out things officially, I do. But for me, it’s that thinking process of writing things down and putting a year to it or a goal to it and doodling all around it in my school.
Josephine Hughes
Visualizing it.
Emma Radway-Bright
So I love a visual. I use vision boards a lot because I have a yearly vision board for the business and for my personal life. And I actually every month, 1st of the month, I go back and look at my vision board to keep me on track.
Josephine Hughes
Oh, fantastic.
Emma Radway-Bright
It’s because I think I’m a very visual learner.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. And that just helps you to keep on track. Yeah. And I think the results speak for themselves really, Emma, don’t they? Because, you know, you are sort of have got a successful practice.
You’ve expanded into these other areas like you say. And also you’re running retreats for therapists as well. I just want to sort of reiterate that.
Emma Radway-Bright
Yeah. We’ve been doing this for 2 years and then every first Monday of every month, it’s just an hour now that we have a self care group and get people together to just share some tools and kind of hold each other to account of what you have done for the last month to take care of yourself. Do you need any support with anything? Tips? Yeah.
Yeah.
Josephine Hughes
Yeah. So what we’ll do is we’ll make sure that we’ve got some details about you in the show notes if people want to check you out and get in touch with you. So we’ll make sure those are in the show notes. But, Emma, thanks so much for coming along and sharing with us all about your private practice. Congratulations on having such a successful time and thanks so much to learn from you. So I’ve really enjoyed having a chat with you today and I’m sure people listening will as well.
So thank you.
Emma Radway-Bright
Well, thank you. I have to thank you too because I do genuinely say that between you and Jane Travis, I wouldn’t have learned so much about private practice. I really, really enjoyed being part of the group because I pick up something from you all the time. Brilliant.
Josephine Hughes
Well, that’s why I’m here. So thanks so much, Emma.
I loved listening to Emma’s experience of creating her private practice and I think she shared some great lessons there. Even though she’s exclusively an online therapist, she’s focused on creating relationships in her local community so that she receives referrals. I loved her coffee shop approach.
I think people might say Emma’s lucky, in inverted commas. I’d say she’s always good at finding opportunities and saying yes, for example to Babette Rothschild, finding her first room to practise from, setting up the Pay It Forward scheme, and making the most of the EFT course, when it was the wrong sort of EFT. Emma really is inspirational and that’s why I invited her on the show. I’m glad to have played a part in her growth, and if you’d like access to the fee calculator she spoke about, you can find it on my website josephinehughes.com and I’ll pop a link in the show notes. And I’m running the live Feed Challenge again in July 2024, so do keep that in mind if you’d like to gain some more confidence for your social media marketing.
As Emma said, mentoring helped to get her started in private practice and grow it further. So if you’d like some mentoring with me, just get in touch.
Thanks for listening. Do come and join my Facebook community Good Enough Counsellors, and for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please visit my website josephinehughes.com. If you found this episode helpful, I’d love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast app.
And in closing, I’d love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream. I really believe you can do it.