MHM#74 What neuroscience can teach us about how clients choose a therapist

I was watching an interview recently with Joe Hudson, a leading leadership and executive coach, and he mentioned some research about the role emotion plays in decision-making.

It caught my attention because it relates so closely to something I talk about all the time in therapy marketing: people don't make decisions based on information alone.

We tend to think of rational decision-making as weighing up the facts, considering our options and making the most logical choice. Emotion can almost be seen as something that gets in the way.

But neuroscience suggests emotion is actually an integral part of the decision-making process.

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio and his colleagues have spent decades studying the relationship between emotion and decision-making. Some of the most interesting evidence has come from people with damage to areas of the brain involved in emotional processing. In some cases, people could retain their intellectual and reasoning abilities, but have significant difficulty making effective decisions.

One of Damasio's well-known patients, Elliot, could understand information, think logically and analyse his options. But damage to his frontal lobe had dramatically affected his emotional responses, and his ability to actually make decisions was also profoundly affected.

Damasio described his predicament as being able "to know but not to feel."

Research into patients with damage to areas including the prefrontal cortex and amygdala has provided further evidence that the neural systems involved in emotion also play an important role in what we think of as rational decision-making.

So rather than emotion and reason being two opposing forces, they work together. Emotion helps us assign value and significance to the information we're considering. 

So in therapy marketing, the question isn't only: "What information does my ideal client need?"

It's also: "What will matter to this particular person when they're deciding whether I'm the right therapist?"

For example, knowing you're qualified is information. But knowing that you understand the particular shame they feel about their drinking may carry much more personal significance.

Knowing you practise trauma therapy is information. Hearing you explain trauma in a compassionate, non-pathologising way may help them assess your values and whether they'll feel judged.

Knowing you offer a free consultation is information. Seeing you speak on video may help them assess whether you seem like someone they'd feel comfortable talking to.

So, when you're writing your website, creating a directory profile or deciding what to talk about on social media, don't just think about the factual information you need to communicate.

Think about what your ideal client needs to see, hear, understand and feel about you to decide whether you might be the right therapist for them.

How will they recognise that you genuinely understand what they're experiencing?

What could you say that helps them recognise themselves in your words and think, "Yes, that's exactly what it's like for me."

How will they get a sense of your values and whether those values align with theirs?

If they're worried about being judged, what can you communicate about the way you understand their experience that helps them see that you won't judge them?

How can your marketing give them a sense of what it might actually feel like to be in a session with you?

References

Bechara, A., Damasio, H., & Damasio, A. R. (2000). Emotion, decision making and the orbitofrontal cortex. Cerebral Cortex, 10(3), 295–307.

Purves, D., Augustine, G. J., Fitzpatrick, D., et al. (Eds.). (2001). Neuroscience (2nd ed.), Chapter 29: Emotions, “The Interplay of Emotion and Reason.” Sinauer Associates.