Ghosting: Why you are being ghosted and how to stop being ghosted in your psychology or therapy practiceThis episode of the Business of Psychology is a response to a painful question that comes up in Psychology Business School and the Do More Than Therapy membership regularly in our weekly coaching calls, and that is; why do clients ghost us?
I have plenty of personal experience on this subject matter. In the first year of my practice, I would say I was ghosted at least on a monthly basis. What I mean by that is a client that comes for a few sessions, engages with you, you think it's going really well, you've got more sessions booked in, and then they just never show, never respond to your emails, don't respond to your phone calls, and you never hear from them again. It is a horrible feeling, and it is very likely that if you've been through that, or you're going through it at the moment, your mind says a lot of very unkind things to you about the reasons for it. I remember sobbing in my car after a day where I was ghosted twice, and I just thought, what kind of therapist am I that people don't come back, but not only do they not come back, they can't even tell me that they're not going to come back? That's my worst nightmare. That's my personal worst nightmare to be the kind of therapist that somebody can't say, ‘I don't like this I'm leaving’ to. I always want to try and create a safe space where people feel able to say, ‘this isn't working for me, can you help me find somebody else?’
What I have learned from that experience, and from the fact that actually it doesn't happen to me very often anymore, is that there are a few things that we can do that make it a lot less likely that people are going to ghost us. But before we can implement any of that stuff (and don't worry, I will give you those strategies at the end of this episode) we have to get it sorted in our minds first. And the best way of doing that is a good old fashioned Locus of Control exercise. So let's think that through for this issue, why has somebody ghosted you? 
What you can’t controlFirst let's think about all the stuff that you can't control that might lead to ghosting. 
We've got the obvious ones; we've got commitments, things like their kids, caring responsibilities, life events that might have come up outside of the therapy room that have made it difficult for them to prioritise coming along to your session. We've got the big hitters; we've got work stress, physical illness, all of these things that you've probably thought of. We've got the overall state of their nervous system. Let's not forget, people come to therapy because they are at the edge, usually. They're usually aware that they are on breaking point, and that their nervous system is jangling and frazzled. And when we're in that state, we know that we don't make the best decisions, and that sometimes we might prioritise short term gain over long term gain. So it might be that we've got the money for our therapy session, but actually it would feel better in the short term to spend that money on a takeaway and a bottle of wine than it would to come along to therapy and spend it that way. We all know that we think like that when we're overwhelmed, and we're dealing with overwhelmed people. So that's another thing that we can't control, but that might be going on for our potential clients. 
But here are some interesting things that you might not have thought of if, like me, you're crying in your car over being ghosted. 
Public perception of psychologist and therapist income: The first one is public perception of our income as therapists. I only became aware of this when I stepped into the small business community and started talking to people who run completely different businesses to ours. But believe me, there is a public perception that psychologists and therapists are wealthy people. There is a public perception that we don't need the money that we make from our...