My thoughts on facilitating online reviews for psychotherapy

As I see it, there are positives and negatives associated with my making the facilitation of online reviews an active part of my practice. I hope that those with whom I work will understand the following:

I believe that only a certain portion of the population are comfortable with online reviews - anonymous or otherwise, related or unrelated to personal healthcare. It is potentially very problematic for treatment if any person feels any internal pressure to leave any form of review during or after any period of sessions. I understand that my favoring or disfavoring anyone who chooses to leave or not leave a review (and if so what kind of review they leave) may erode my ability to provide effective psychotherapy and potentially damage therapeutic results. It is critical that clients feel free to hold whatever opinions or feelings about their psychotherapist that they do at any given time. Also, that they feel at liberty to choose to communicate or not communicate those feelings or opinions to their therapist as befits their personal needs in psychotherapy.

I facilitate reviews with the hope that those that meet with me will understand the above about my outlook so that it decreases the chance of negatively affecting outcomes. Despite the risk of problems occurring for someone anyways, I have nonetheless decided to facilitate online reviews for the following reasons:

  • I believe that numerous and detailed reviews do provide more information to healthcare consumers who ordinarily have minimal information with which to choose most of their healthcare providers.

  • The potential to review my practice online exists regardless of whether I simplify the process. Making it easier for more clients increases the likelihood that online reviews represent a broad example of my client’s opinions.

  • Informing and marketing my practice to the public is necessary for maintaining my practice.

Please communicate with me before or during any meetings with any further thoughts, questions or concerns on this issue. Thank you.

- Nathaniel Smith, LCSW-R