Pros
-My team and clinical manager were the highlights of my time at Two Chairs. They were supportive and kind, and some of the most brilliant clinicians I have ever had the pleasure to work with. Two Chairs attracts very competent and skilled therapists to their company and I truly enjoyed working with them. -Specialized consultation groups and the training academy program that allows small groups of therapists to do in-depth specialized training on specific therapy modalities. -the EHR and scheduling platforms are fairly simple to use and there's plenty of support and response if something isn't working as it should. The new clinician help center was also a helpful add this year.
Cons
-Two Chairs asks WAY too much of its therapists without giving much in return. The last year saw a lot of change is how therapy is provided and the micromanagement of the clinicians makes it very difficult to do the work and show up authentically for the clients. While Two Chairs' mission to increase mental health access is admirable, they do this by sacrificing the well-being of its therapists. By dictating when clinicians are allowed to schedule clients, to increasing the caseload requirement (whatever happened to "we thrive at 25"?), to requiring a certain percentage of sessions to be 55-minutes instead of 50, effectively punishing therapists who do their notes in the time between sessions or need those 10 minutes for a bio break or just to mentally prepare for the next client. Two Chairs claims to listen to the therapists but it's clear our well-being comes second, third, or worse to the bottom line. -There are little to no opportunities for clinicians to move into different roles or contribute outside of providing direct care to clients. It was almost impossible to get promoted into the few non-clinical roles that were available because so many people were applying for them. There are very few opportunities for career advancement for the clinicians. -While the specialized consultation groups and training opportunities were great, given how packed our schedules were with clients, it was rare to be able to attend these due to lack of flexibility and often we would be asked to do these in addition to our already full caseloads. -Way too much emphasis on performance metrics and data. While helpful in some ways, unless we were perfectly hitting our numbers every week, it often felt like you were in trouble. Utilization in particular, given that we cannot control if and when clients cancel or no show but were often made to feel like we were to blame for this.
