Special Guest Interview: Cynthia Henrie of LA Therapy Network
Today, we’re excited to feature an insightful conversation with Cynthia Henrie (Cindie), a licensed marriage and family therapist, board certified expert in the treatment of traumatic stress, and the founder of Los Angeles Therapy Network (LATN), on the Sit and Stay podcast. With over 30 years of experience, Cindie specializes in trauma treatment, working with survivors of sexual trauma, dissociative disorders, and the LGBTQIA+ community.
In this episode, Cindie shares her journey into mental health, offering valuable insights into the complexities of trauma therapy. She discusses the challenges of running a trauma-focused practice, her unique experience working with both victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse, and the importance of in-person therapy for trauma recovery.
We hope you enjoy this compelling conversation with Cindie Henrie as she talks about her passion for trauma work and how LA Therapy Network is making a difference in the lives of its clients.
Parker Anderson: Welcome back to the Sit and Stay podcast brought to you by RipsyTech. I am one of your hosts, RipsyTech Product Manager Parker Anderson. And as always, I am joined by RipsyTech Founder and CEO Thomas Tarshis. Hi, Tom. Good to see you.
Thomas Tarshis: Hey Parker.
Parker Anderson: We're joined by a very special guest. We have Cindie Henrie with us. Cindie is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a board-certified expert in traumatic stress, specializing in feminist therapy and trauma treatment. She is the Founder and Director of Los Angeles Therapy Network (LATN), where she has been leading since 2005. With a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology from Antioch University, Cindie brings over 30 years of experience in social services and psychotherapy, including 15 years working with high-risk adolescents.
Cindie’s expertise spans a wide range of areas, including anxiety and depression, panic disorder, OCD, LGBTQIA+ issues, and adolescent problems. She is particularly known for her work with sexual trauma survivors and child abuse survivors, addressing complex issues such as sexual assault, domestic violence, and cult abuse recovery. Under her leadership, Los Angeles Therapy Network provides a safe and inclusive environment, offering diverse therapeutic modalities like Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, making a significant impact on the Los Angeles community through personalized and compassionate care.
Cindie, we’re happy to have you!
Cindie Henrie: I appreciate it! Thank you.
Thomas Tarshis: Cindie, we’re so thrilled to have you on, and you're officially our fourth guest, and I think Parker and I agree that these are kind of our more fun, interactive, and lively episodes, so we really appreciate you taking time from your day to join us.
Cindie Henrie: I was really excited to be here. Thank you.
Thomas Tarshis: Very good. So with that being said, I'm gonna just jump in, so we can find out more about what your journey's been. And if we go way back to the beginning, why did you decide to enter the mental health field?
Cindie Henrie: I actually always had an interest in mental health, even from a young age. My mom was a psychiatrist, and she also, like I do now, worked partially out of her home office. So I was exposed to mental health very young, and I think that it just was something that was a natural fit for me. So I jumped in.
Thomas Tarshis: Oh, that’s very cool. I know lots of people who have [worked in this field], and I can imagine as a child you're always a little bit curious about what your parents do. And you see the people coming in and out of maybe a separate entrance. It would probably get those questions going at an early age, and it'd be cool to have a parent who is doing that in the house.
Cindie Henrie: I think also it was unique because she was a female psychiatrist in a period of time where women weren't really accepted in the medical field, and it was in Salt Lake City, Utah. And even then it was more further back, so she was very unique in that way. She was a leader and a forerunner in the entire mental health industry as a woman and a doctor. So for me, it was a point of pride. That was definitely something to be role modeled.
Thomas Tarshis: Very cool. So even when you were in middle school, high school you felt like this is the path to go: therapy and mental health work. Your mom got you hooked?
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, I was really interested. She would take me to her presentations, and I would be there because she needed to do something with me, right? [Laughs] So I would be in the audience just coloring, you know? But I think I was exposed and around it a lot and got a lot of experience from that, and other moms were stay-at-home moms in my community, so it was really different.
Thomas Tarshis: Gotcha, and you grew up in Utah then it sounds like?
Cindie Henrie: I grew up in Salt Lake City, and I came up to California for the first time when I was about 14. Then, I came on my own when I was 17, and I’ve been here ever since.
Thomas Tarshis: Okay, so California kept you.
Cindie Henrie: I’ve always loved the ocean and the beach, and yeah I love California.
Thomas Tarshis: Very neat. Then for our next question: people in the mental health field, there’s a broad range of areas you can work with that people get passionate about, and Parker listed a lot of your interests. But we wonder what led you towards trauma work and the work that you do?
Cindie Henrie: Of course. Like any therapist, we’re all the wounded healers. We all have our own bones that we bring to the table. So unfortunately, when I was 13, my mom committed suicide.
Thomas Tarshis: Oh, sorry to hear that.
Cindie Henrie, Yeah, that was pretty rough, and I was put into boarding schools and went from there. So then I came on my own to California at 17. So I definitely brought that to the table, and of course, that’s a really traumatic event.
And then my first job I started working with homeless and high risk teens in Hollywood. And so it was a lot of sexual exploitation, trafficking, survival, sex work, stuff like that. So that was a lot of what I was exposed to in the very beginning. A lot of gangs, working with kids, gangs, and stuff like that. And then residential care, it was a lot of abused kids, so trauma became just what I saw and worked with all the time and knew the best.
Then when I started to research it and really kind of delve in, I also worked with adolescent sex offenders as well, which I think is something that makes me unique in terms of my work with sexual trauma because I've worked with both the perpetrator side and the victim side. And having that experience and that training and that knowledge and being able to be in the prisons with them and stuff like that. I think that gave me a whole new perspective in terms of being able to work with victims and so it just kind of drove me in from there.
Thomas Tarshis: Wow, yeah. And so sorry to hear about your mom.
Cindie Henrie: Thank you.
Thomas Tarshis: And I think it's really great that you bring that up and also mention the wounded warriors in the mental health field. It is very true, and I know the physician data very well that there’s very high suicide rates among physicians, dentists, other people who work in mental health and trauma and some of these fields. It’s something that probably needs more dialogue. And all that experience, you were really there in a lot of situations people would run from, but it sounds like that fit well with you, and you engaged further, and it is very rare to have someone who works both sides of the sexual abuse spectrum. That only would make you a much better provider to both sides to have that experience.
Cindie Henrie: You know, I think that I’m so grateful I had that opportunity. It just so happened to be a part of the agency that I worked with, and I took an interest in it, and it was challenging. I mean, that was definitely challenging to work with perpetrators, and emotionally difficult because it’s a hard thing to see. It’s a hard thing to know what you’re dealing with and to watch how their brains manipulate the situation and convince themselves of things that are just outrageously not true. But, me being able to research that and study it, I think it really did make it so that I am able to offer something that is really unique and different, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I’m more successful with the treatment of sexual trauma.
Thomas Tarshis: Very good, yeah. And then we do a lot on this podcast for people starting out on their own or who maybe want to start a group, and we don’t get much training on that in any of our educational journeys…
Cindie Henrie: Not at all [laughs].
Thomas Tarshis: Despite the fact that the majority of people in this field do work for themselves or start a practice, so did you always have the idea that you were going to start your own group? Did you have a mentor who inspired you? Tell us how LA Therapy Network came about.
Cindie Henrie: So that’s interesting. I just always wanted to be a private practice therapist and have my little practice and live life. I never really expected to create something bigger than that.
I worked for an agency for many years–I think it’s probably 15+ years. I was really happy doing that, but I knew at some point as the Department of Mental Health became more part of the agencies, I didn’t agree necessarily with the way that they wanted things done or their perspective on providing care.
So I felt that if I could provide much better care if I had the freedom to do it myself and be able to go and get my own trainings and really build and grow my career. And both my parents were doctors, so I had a model for how to do that early, as I’ve seen it done. So in my head that was what you do.
A lot of clinicians actually stay in agencies and nonprofit agencies or outpatient mental health [clinics] or hospitals, but for me, it just seemed like it was a natural fit to do private practice. What's interesting is that I would tell a lot of people, “I'm gonna go into private practice,” and the clinicians that I worked with who were mentors of mine frequently told me, “Oh my gosh, private practice is really hard to do. I don't know. I mean, I tried to do it, and I couldn't do it. It's going to take at least three to five years to build that practice.” I had my practice going within six months. It was full time in six months.
Thomas Tarshis: Got it. So interesting. I mean, even now the demand so far outweighs the supply. But just being in this field, and we're all people that have had a lot of mentors, it's interesting how if a mentor has tried something but wasn't successful, they're quick to give those warnings.
But, clearly as a practitioner with a little motivation and certainly skill, I totally understand what you're saying about the DMH or Department of Mental Health and restrictions on how to practice. And, that's not always right for our patients.
So I could see how you would be full pretty quickly starting out on your own and not have those struggles, but it is true that there is some entrepreneurship, people skills, and organizational skills that maybe those mentors didn’t possess.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, I’m not sure what made it difficult for them personally or maybe it’s just the nature of the kinds of providers that they are. I think for me, I was just determined. I’m not afraid of hard work. I’m not afraid of learning new things, so I think I had enough determination in that way that helped me a lot.
I also did a lot of internet research on how to start a business. So I taught myself what I needed to know, so I taught myself, like, okay’ here's marketing. Here's how you do marketing. Here are ways to approach it. I would read articles and listen to coaching sessions and stuff like that. So I did actually do about a year's worth of preparation of putting together my website and doing all that kind of stuff. It took a period of time to actually do the setup part in the beginning. But once I had that set up and I knew how to do the ads and got the ads up and running, and once I was really committed to “Now I’ve got my first client,” after that, that's when I had it. It was six months after that.
Thomas Tarshis: Gotcha.
Cindie Henrie: But that first… anytime you're an entrepreneur you have to set up your business in the front part. You have to learn a lot about taxes and how that works: city taxes, state taxes, federal… How to do your taxes differently, how to do websites, how to do marketing… Where are the best target markets? How do you create your target? So there’s a lot of things to think about.
Thomas Tarshis: Very true. Very true.
Cindie Henrie: Who’s your ideal client, you know?
Parker Anderson: Right. At what point in the process of starting your practice did you decide to bring on other clinicians?
Cindie Henrie: So I was married to a woman, and she was an aerospace engineer. She was a really top aerospace engineer. So she was more the breadwinner, and I was doing my own practice. And then she contracted Lyme disease, and it got really bad. She got to the point where she couldn’t work. And so suddenly, I was the person who had to be the main breadwinner, and I had to make sure to pay the mortgage and to pay all the bills.
And I happened to have had somebody who reached out to me who said, “Hey, I see work with dissociative disorders. I did some training on dissociative disorders. I'd really love to learn from you. Would you be open to being a mentor or [in] me working with you?” So it started from there. So then I started hiring clinicians and pushing advertising and marketing and really growing the business.
Thomas Tarshis: And how has that been being a mentor and a boss? How do you mix those together? Have you had to fire people?
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, I've had to get rid of people. That's been interesting. I haven't had to get rid of too many people. I have had a few clinicians. I have more just phased them out. I just won't give them more clients, and I've had clinicians that have stolen business from me. So that does happen as well.
Recently, I had one that I felt I was really close to it, and she took a significant portion of business and pretended that it wasn't happening. And it was happening, so there's things that happen when you're a business owner that are frustrating and difficult and challenging. It’s hard.
But at the same time, I also have a team– most of the people who've been with me... One person has been with me for 15 years. Another one has been with me for eight, and others [have] been for six. I think my newest has been here for about a year, so most people have actually come and stayed. It’s hard. It is definitely not easy.
I think people [think], “It’s easy to have your own practice,” and it's like, no, it's a real business. You are running a business, and that is a lot of additional demands, and if you really enjoy being your own boss, it's great. It's awesome. If you're really a “stick to it” kind of person and “go after it” and “make it happen” and “do it in a way where you're really driven,” it's fantastic. If you really want just a job, it's not for you.
But, I also offer this weird opportunity where if you're a person who wants to be a therapist in private practice, but not have all the responsibility of running your own business [where] I am the one who runs the business, and you get to be a private practitioner that [does] your own thing and [does] it how you want to, and you get to have all [those perks], so that's kind of my business model.
Thomas Tarshis: Gotcha, and I, having had a business at one point with over a hundred employees, most of them clinicians, I think, in general, it goes well, and you get people that mesh, and it’s a nice team. And then occasionally, it’s rare, but you do have to fire people, and I think you’re very correct that a lot of people don’t understand the behind-the-scenes, what it does take to run the business, and everything else involved there.
Cindie Henrie: It’s a lot of work.
Thomas Tarshis: It’s a lot of work, and some practitioners really [want] “Let me just go and see my patients and get a paycheck, and that’s what I want to do,” and to bring those models for the people that want to do that, and then if you’re setting it up for them, taking a reasonable percentage or cut or however it works, it tends to be a win-win and can be very helpful.
I think with telehealth or with the pandemic, there’s been a lot of changes in our field, and it’s a good segue to our next question, which is a little about: if you could change something about the state of the mental health field, do you have something on the top of your mind that you wish were different?
Cindie Henrie: Oh god, give me a list. There’s so many thing that I wish were different [laughs].
I just feel like I’m really alarmed at the training of therapists. I worry about it because it’s so focused on telehealth and so focused on making that normal, and research doesn’t bear that out. Research shows that being in-person is actually best. Our nervous system operates in connection with others and being in-person with other people. So I love the fact that we have this ability to be able to use technology, but at the same time, it’s become a substitute, and it’s just not as effective.
When I was talking about this with somebody else, we were talking about the fact that when I’m doing therapy with you, and I’m doing it over a screen, I feel like I’m watching TV, or you feel like you’re watching TV. There’s such a disconnect in that experience. And then I’m more distracted. To be real as a therapist, if my phone goes off or whatever, I’m just as tempted as everybody else to be like, “Let me do this other thing over here,” because that’s what you do when you watch TV! [Laughs]
Thomas Tarshis: Yeah.
Cindie Henrie: Right? That's what we do, and as a therapist, I'm also a somatic therapist. So I'm looking at your body all the time. I want to see your whole body. I can't read half of what's going on if I don't have access to being able to see your full being, and small movements of changes that happen I’ll miss. You miss that on the screen, and it's too distracting. You're distracted all the time, and even right now as we're talking, I keep looking at my own picture.
[All laugh]
I want to put it up. I need to hide that actually because that is distracting.
Parker Anderson: I’m curious because a lot of the time when we ask the guests that we’ve had about that question, a lot of them do talk about wanting to see more accessibility for therapy, which I think we can all agree is a great thing. And generally when we’re talking about telehealth, the primary benefit that usually gets mentioned is the increased accessibility to services, and I totally understand everything you’re saying. I think that makes complete sense. So, I’m kind of curious from your perspective, what would be an effective way to tackle the accessibility issue of mental health services?
Cindie Henrie: I mean, right now I think there’s a lot of accessibility. I think that we talk about it as though there's a lack, but I don't really see that. I see that there's a huge number of therapists, and there's a lot of people getting services.
I think what I experience, especially being in a city, because I do get people who call from places that aren't, and I do do telehealth, and so I'll work with people who are from remote areas for sure. But what I see is people in the city who are like, “I just don't feel like getting in my car and coming to you,” or, “I want to be able to sit and smoke weed on my bed while I do therapy.” No, get your butt in the car. Get to the office. I really think that it's a disservice.
Also, I think that we have gotten crazy with “Let's do email therapy. Let's do text therapy.” I don't know how that's not completely unethical. I don't know why the boards aren't stepping in and saying, “No, absolutely not. This is absolutely inappropriate.” That is not therapy. It’s just not therapy. That's not how it works.
Thomas Tarshis: Yeah, that’s a great comment actually, and how certain companies have been able to market that “Text with your therapist between 9 and 5,” and you know, text therapy is just not something that’s real. I think, Parker, to your point and Cindie’s comment, that what’s happened with, and Cindie, please correct me if I’m wrong here, but what’s happened with training programs now, especially, is the telehealth pieces makes it a little more convenient for the schools.
Cindie Henrie: Yes, and clinics and hospitals.
Thomas Tarshis: So people are taking that convenience factor over the in-person experience with the training, which is a negative for the [trainees].
Cindie Henrie: It’s a huge negative, and come on, research doesn’t support it.
Thomas Tarshis: Yeah, and I think it’s one thing for people in Fresno or in rural counties that don’t have transportation, etc. That’s where telehealth has been really great and very helpful. But yeah, as Cindie mentioned, being in the room and reading all the signals, and having to turn your phone off and put it away… It’s both logical and founded by research [that] when possible, that is what we should be doing.
Cindie Henrie: I think for me too because I’m a trauma specialist. The other piece is that I’m working with your body. Sometimes I’m actually using hands-on approaches, and so it limits what I can do. And the stuff that I’m trained in is so profoundly effective when you’re in-person where I can do some things somatically to help relieve trauma, and I can help relieve it quickly if I have you in the room. But if you're not in the room, I can't actually do the interventions in a way that is going to be the most effective to be able to relieve the symptoms. And so that's really discouraging as well because I want to do that. I want to be able to use whatever tool is in my toolbox to really help you. So it is really a disservice.
Thomas Tarshis: Yeah.
Cindie Henrie: I feel like I don’t provide the kind of service that I’m trained to be able to offer that is cutting edge. I do a lot of different kinds of stuff. I mean, the other thing that I’m trained in is Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, right? I don’t want to necessarily do that where I’m not in the room with you. I mean, that takes away so much of that experience.
Thomas Tarshis: Right. Very good, very good. Flipping to more positive, is there anything you’re excited about in our field right now?
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, actually! I am actually really kind of surprised that I got into this, but I started doing Ketamine-assisted therapy with Journey Clinical. They’re part of the people who are doing the research in the use of psychedelics in psychotherapy. And they have a really cool program structure that they do where you're really working with the doctors who prescribe, and they're prescribing at low dose of Ketamine, not high-dose, which is what a lot of people are doing, which I think is insane. But the way that it's set up, I have had the most amazing results.
It's been so exciting, and I'm really excited [about] the MDMA research that is coming out, this stuff on psilocybin, this stuff on LSD. I mean, there is some hugely promising stuff coming up that is really exciting. So from the mental health perspective, especially in the trauma arena, these are some things that I am seeing some really great results, and it is really cool. It's really fun.
Thomas Tarshis: Very neat. Yeah, all initial research, as you mentioned, if the dosing is done correctly and the psychotherapy component is done correctly, especially for trauma, does seem very promising.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah.
Thomas Tarshis: Of course, with anything new, there’s been a lot of misuse and changes in how things are happening.
Cindie Henrie: Very much so. Yeah, I’ve seen some things that are really unethical with the Ketamine stuff. The way that we’re doing it is it’s sublingual, and it’s low dose, and it’s just enough to be able to do the experience and then process it. And you do it maybe once a month at most, or maybe once every two weeks at most, but you maybe do four sessions or limited sessions, so:
You’re not gonna create the addiction problem that can come up with a drug like Ketamine, but…
You’re also not over reliant on that kind of experience.
But I take at least three hours to go through a journey with someone, so that I’m really processing the psychedelic experience and really helping build and integrate on the things that are about “Here’s the skills while your brain and subconscious is open. Let’s build in these new skills, these new perspectives.” Wow, that is a game changer. That has been a game changer, which is so great to see that kind of progress in people.
Thomas Tarshis: Very cool.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah! Very cool!
Thomas Tarshis: And Cindie, is there something in the mental health field that you’d like to shed more light on? Or from your years of experience and treatment and practice, something to look towards for the future or something we need more awareness about?
Cindie Henrie: In terms of topics, or…?
Thomas Tarshis: Yeah, topics or treatments or the business or as a consumer or clinician, or… It’s a very broad question, acknowledged.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that I’m cautionary about is some of the new tech stuff, like technology getting overly involved in treatment. I think that's been something that we need to be really careful about.
I'm a real believer in private practice for a lot of people to do the private practice route. One of the reasons is I think that when somebody comes in, and they're paying for their own therapy, I do think that there's an energy exchange in that. I'm investing my own hard-earned money into something, and I'm putting a certain expense into it to get more out of it. I think there's this exchange that happens there that is really important. And so I tend to draw away from relying on insurance.
I don't take any insurance at all for that reason because I found that when therapists are caught into doing insurance that oftentimes the quality of care that a client receives, not necessarily [because of] the therapist, but because the client is paying less or putting less in. I kind of don't like therapy necessarily under the medical model.
So that’s the kind of thing that I was thinking about. I think that we need to be thinking about those kinds of things and being a little bit more aware of practices with telehealth and stuff like that. I think that it’s too much of the Wild West right now. I think we need to be careful.
Thomas Tarshis: It is the Wild West. Yeah. And all levels from prescribing practices to what’s happening with the therapy practices. And it’s a good analytic or psychodynamic comment about that money exchange and that investment into treatment and care that when you’re paying more than a $10 copay, there is some extra motivation, connection, energy around that that translates into doing that therapy process in peace.
And it’s cool, you know, the answer most people give for not working with insurance is because it’s like slow torture, death, trying not to be stuck on the phone, other pieces, but there are these other components that can negatively affect care that come along with that. And it’s really nice that you brought that piece up, which has been looked at a lot.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, I definitely agree with the other side. I’m in a position in my business where I could take insurance if I chose to. I could afford to take that time and to get paid later and go through all the hoops. I feel like I'd rather have the negotiation with the client and be really focused in client-centered work, and I feel like I don't want a lot of my energy going outward to other things.
I want my energy to stay focused in the work of therapy, so one of the things that I do is offer lower rates. And I slide my scale so that it is more accessible and affordable and I have a lot of group therapy, different groups that I offer to be able to offset cost because I want people to access the service. I want them to be able to get the best of the best care and be able to afford it. So that is kind of my model.
I hold myself to a very high standard, and I really believe in what I do, but I want clients who also are really committed to the process of the journey, so that they win. So that they get the most out of it. So to me, that’s also where I think we’re over-reliant on insurance companies to pay for therapy.
Thomas Tarshis: Gotcha. Good comments. Interesting comments. Yeah, and that’s another that you’re the first person to bring up that group therapy can be a great way and a much more affordable way for people to still get excellent care. So it’s great that you offer that.
Cindie Henrie: And I love group therapy. I love doing group therapy. It’s so fun.
Parker Anderson: Yeah, could you tell us about the different types of groups that you offer, and why you chose the themes that you cover?
Cindie Henrie: Yeah. A lot of times we'll build groups around the kinds of things that our clientele are working on. So, right now we have a sexual trauma group. We have PTSD groups. I have a complex trauma DID group, so that's for multiple personality and people who've gone through extreme abuse. I have transgendered group for transgender women, and I have just a general queer group, and that's for a multitude of queer identities, but also includes polyamory and fetish community, LGBTQI. I have transgender people in other groups as well. We have one group that is more of a mindfulness journaling art group.
So we do offer a lot of different kinds of groups, and it’s just really fun. We always have them limited to six people, and we put people in that we know are going to produce the most growth for one another. So super fun, super cool. But I never do group without them being in individual [therapy].
Thomas Tarshis: Ah, good comment.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah, [group therapy] is a compliment [to individual therapy]. A lot of people want to come to this group, and I won’t do that because really, group therapy is a supplement to individual. It’s not meant to be its own separate therapy.
Thomas Tarshis: Great comment. Yeah, very good.
Parker Anderson: And at your practice, there’s five of you, correct?
Cindie Henrie: Correct.
Parker Anderson: And so do all of you have similar specialties, or do you each kind of have your own specialties? How do you go about matching the client with the therapist?
Cindie Henrie: So when I hire a therapist, I want therapists to have different experiences than me or different modalities because I want to have as much to offer as possible.
So I do have someone who is Gottman trained and does couples therapy from Gottman’s perspective. One is from the Transpersonal Institute, and that's more of a spiritual thematic based approach, just phenomenal. I mean, my therapists are so great. I have some that are more traditional cognitive behavioral focus, and because I'm not a big [cognitive behavioral] person, it's really nice to have somebody who is. One who does more parenting issues working with more parenting, family. I try to mix up ethnicity, so we have representation from different groups.
So I try to create a blend, so that we have as much to offer as possible to be able to reach a broader scope. Some people specialize in men’s issues. I tend to work with more women and gay men, whereas other people may work more with straight men, and I want to make sure that all of our clientele are really supported and given specialized treatment and help. So I try to do the best that I can in terms of mixing it up.
So when we get clientele my business manager is the one who actually fields the calls, and she disperses based on who's going to most likely be the best fit for that particular client based on the kinds of needs they're coming to work on, and what kind of therapists maybe they're gonna work better with. If she's not sure, then I will tend to meet with the client, and I may make a recommendation for which therapist, or even if it's outside of our practice, maybe we're not the right fit for them, but I do know somebody who would be.
Thomas Tarshis: Very, very cool. And it’s refreshing here to hear that sort of collaborative [approach] and, “Let’s bring in people who do different things,” and sometimes that’s lacking in our field where people would be threatened by, “It’s the CBT therapist versus the dynamic therapist.” You see some of this stuff, and I’ve always been one that wanted similar to you. Like, let’s bring in all levels of training and different modalities and treatments, and let’s have harmony. There’s no reason to not embrace [other modalities].
Cindie Henrie: The thing also is that as a clinical team, having those different perspectives, having the different approaches. My gosh, how many more tools do you have in your toolbox as a result of that? I mean, there was one point, and I really wish I still had this. I had a DBT therapist, and it was so great to be able to offer DBT groups. I really miss having that, so if there's anybody out there who wants to… [Laughs] I am so open and ready for a DBT person, but I really enjoy having people from different backgrounds and modalities because I just think it makes us so much better.
Thomas Tarshis: Very true.
Cindie Henrie: Mhmm.
Parker Anderson: Well, I think a good question to ask is: are you hiring right now? Are you looking for any more therapists to come on and join LA Therapy Network?
Cindie Henrie: So, if somebody’s a good fit for our group, then I welcome them. I don’t need other therapists right now, but it’s definitely, like, if somebody was a really good match for our group, and they really had something to offer and bring to the table, then I would bring them in.
Basically, the way that we work is it’s not like I’m employing a therapist. They’re a contractor. So, I hire independent contractors. So it’s like “We have overage, and here’s the right fit for you.” And so that’s kind of how somebody grows with us, and then each of the therapists, really, they’re going to either make it or break it. They’re gonna either grow their own clientele base from the people we refer, or they’re not. If they can’t hold it, and they don’t have that particular skill, it’s not going to happen for them. So that’s how that works for us.
Thomas Tarshis: Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I’ve done a W2 model before where we had a little more monitoring and control over making sure patients were doing well, and then right now, in our non-profit, we’re doing more of the model like yourself, where it’s gonna be more independence to some of the practitioners there for mentoring type roles, but it’s the pros and cons to 1099 versus W2 approach…
Cindie Henrie: Well, for my particular business, because I do work with such extreme cases of complex trauma, the skill level of the therapist has to be higher. So I only hire therapists who are licensed, and they have to have a specialization in trauma. So that is a caveat. They have to have training that is more than your traditional trauma-informed training. They have to have something deeper because you have to be able to handle whatever walks in the door.
Thomas Tarshis: Very good.
Cindie Henrie: And that is one of the reasons that it is more of an independent contractor model because you need to be able to handle whatever you get, and you have to be skilled enough and professional enough to be able to do that.
Thomas Tarshis: Very good.
Cindie Henrie: Yeah.
Thomas Tarshis: Yeah, well if any of our Southern California groups, if you need to send patients or any clinicians listening who feel like they’d be a good fit, Cindie has been awesome to talk with and engage with, and I feel like that mentoring and leadership persona comes through when we talk to you, and that’s really nice to see.
Cindie Henrie: Thank I have really enjoyed talking with you guys. It was really fun to just originally meet you and thank you for having me today.
Parker Anderson: Yeah, of course! And just so everybody knows, it is latherapynetwork.com.
Cindie Henrie: Thank you!
Parker Anderson: Great. Cindie, it’s been excellent having you, and I think we can go ahead and wrap things up here.
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Stay tuned for more insight and stories in next week’s blog post!
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