[{"id":"afa2e46","elType":"section","settings":[],"elements":[{"id":"c7e4a90","elType":"column","settings":{"_column_size":100,"_inline_size":null},"elements":[{"id":"3c3da70","elType":"widget","settings":{"editor":"<p class=\"p1\">For years, the generally accepted answer to the question: \u201cShould a psychotherapist have a social media presence?\u201d was <i>No<\/i>. Yet, the mental health profession has responded otherwise by voting with its collective keyboard: Therapists, agencies, schools, and scholars hold professional accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok\/KuaiShou, and more.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Our profession as a whole is often lampooned for questioning <i>everything<\/i>, but we rarely query the significance of the internet as a medium, especially in how we use it and how we are used by it.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">I suspect this lack of curiosity is spurred by growing discrepancies between the formal received guidance and the reality of how healthcare businesses operate and compete. The gap between permitted behavior in healthcare providers and the same in business owners is such that I presume many solo and group practices fear that a thorough reconciliation of the two will send hamstring the profession, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-failed-promise-of-online-mental-health-treatment-11671390353\">questionable purveyors of online therapy<\/a>\u00a0 move fast and break things.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">There are exceptions to this collective blind spot: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sherryturkle.com\/\">Sherry Turkle<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/netaddiction.com\/\">Kimberley Young<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.maryaiken.com\/\">Mary Aiken<\/a>, but even among the specialist few, blogs receive little if any scrutiny. Blogs have been present as the lone individual's soapbox on the commons for quite a while and don\u2019t appear to pose the same hazards as, say, social media, which may contribute to their grandfathered-in status.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">Today\u2019s blogs are built as a means of driving traffic or income, whether through third-party advertising, regular updated posts and targeted keywords to move up SEO rankings, or advertising posing as unbiased content. You likely know the experience of coming to the end of a purportedly unbiased essay or review, only to realize it was actually a sales pitch. Pity the fool who returns to their search results, only to find it to be sales pitches all the way down.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">What is a blog today? A modern blog can be a shout into the abyss, a commentary posted for public consumption, an advertisement, a come-hither. More often than not, it is a marketing tool.<\/p><p class=\"p1\">What is this blog in particular? Let\u2019s be honest: Any blog on a professional website is a marketing tool, even if it never sells or suggests a product or service. Ergo, this blog is a marketing tool. That said, a good, honest professional blog can still encourage thinking and action that improve the well being and welfare of readers and their communities. The fundament for this is not a lack of secondary motives, but rather clarity about them. I hope that this blog carries the voice and furthers the wishes of the writer: that in reading this blog, you will come away with a better understanding of the work I do and why I think it\u2019s important. If that speaks to you in alignment with your own needs, then this blog has achieved either a marketing or an editorial function in the world.<\/p>"},"elements":[],"widgetType":"text-editor"}],"isInner":false}],"isInner":false}]