Between Sessions with Berries

“I’m just unlucky.” Most mental health professionals have heard some version of that from clients, and it often works like a negative affirmation that shapes what a person believes is possible for them. It shows up for clinicians too, in the moments when a new client or an unfamiliar problem leaves you feeling like you should already have every answer.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym sits down with Dr. Tina Seelig, Executive Director of Knight-Hennessy Scholars, Director Emerita of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, and author of 18 books, including her newest, What I Wish I Knew About Luck. Tina earned her PhD in neuroscience at Stanford Medical School, and she explains why luck and fortune are two very different things and walks through a framework for creating the conditions that make good luck more likely. The conversation also gets practical for therapists, with a new way to look at imposter syndrome and an exercise that helps people see how much of their success they actually shaped.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The definition of luck most people can’t put into words, and where agency fits in.
• Five ways to engage with luck, from shutting the shutters to setting sail.
• What it takes to build your ship before you try to catch the winds of luck.
• How to map your personal risk profile with Tina’s “risk-ometer”.
• Why luck seldom sails solo, and the daily habit Tina credits for waves of goodwill.
• A reframe for imposter syndrome that applies to clinicians and clients alike.
• The fortune and luck resume and what it shows about the choices behind success.

Connect with Tina Seelig:
Website: https://tinaseeligauthor.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinaseelig/
Book - What I Wish I Knew About Luck: https://www.amazon.com/What-Wish-Knew-About-Luck/dp/0063471361 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Most mental health professionals have never planned for what happens to their caseload or their income if a crisis pulls them out of the therapy room overnight. Kristin Mervich had to work that out from a hospital room. Her one-year-old son was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma the day after she sent an offer letter to the second therapist joining her group practice.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym sits down with Kristin. She’s a therapist, a mom of three, owner of the group practice Outsmarting Anxiety & OCD, and a mindset coach for mothers in helping professions. Kristin speaks openly about the 18 months of her son Quinn’s treatment and his passing, and about how she kept growing her business while her schedule was completely out of her control. She shares exactly how she handled her clients during that time, and why she believes some of the biggest bottlenecks in a private practice live outside the business itself.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• How Kristin chose between closing her group practice and pivoting fast.
• The letter she sent every client and the options it gave them.
• When referring a client out is the more ethical choice than asking them to wait.
• The hospital-inspired system she uses in place of time blocks.
• What a fear of failure is often covering up for therapist moms.
• How a problem at home can quietly become a business problem.
• How she’s training AI to work like a specialized employee in her business.

Connect with Kristin Mervich:
Website: https://www.outsmartingocd.com
Instagram (Resourced Mother): https://www.instagram.com/resourcedmother/
Instagram (Outsmarting Anxiety & OCD): https://www.instagram.com/outsmartingocd/

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Private practice can be an isolating place to build a career. Mental health professionals spend their days helping clients connect, then close the laptop with no one to ask about marketing, AI tools, or what to try next. Now that so much of the work happens over telehealth, the shared office where new clinicians used to pick things up from colleagues is harder to find.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym sits down with Brittani Procknow, LCSW, a licensed clinical social worker in Raleigh, North Carolina. She is the founder of The Therapist Collective and host of the How to Relate podcast. Brittani works with individuals and couples on intimacy and connection, and she brings the same lens to how therapists relate to each other. She explains why she sees the growth of AI as an opening for mental health professionals to lead in community spaces, and what she has learned about spotting a good collaborator.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why Brittani sees the AI pendulum swing as an opportunity for mental health professionals.
• What makes a therapist hangout different from a networking event.
• How The Therapist Collective became an ideas lab for clinicians building beyond one-to-one work.
• One low-pressure step for therapists feeling isolated in solo practice.
• What the "visibility wound" has to do with how therapists market themselves.
• A simple gut check for telling a collaborator from a competitor.
• How an Esther Perel session with an AI partner shaped Brittani's view of AI in therapy.

Connect with Brittani Procknow:
Website: https://www.brittaniprocknow.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brittani_procknow/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittani-procknow-6a6960117/
Podcast: https://relatetherapy.co/howtorelate

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Reimbursement rates for mental health care keep shrinking. Many mental health professionals in private practice are stuck deciding whether to push for better rates, leave insurance altogether, or wait for someone else to fix the system. Meanwhile, taking every client who walks in the door and keeping fees low is a fast path to burnout.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym sits down with Brian J. Dixon, MD, a psychiatrist and author. He founded Mindful, a private practice; Simply Psych, a practice management company; and FeelGuide, a referral network for mental health professionals. Dr. Dixon grew up on food stamps before becoming a physician, and he speaks plainly about healthcare finance. That includes the costly lesson he learned from scaling a company too fast and what it took to pull it back.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why talk-based care is reimbursed less than procedures, and where that gap began.
• What Dr. Dixon recommends for clinicians credentialed through group aggregators.
• The two lessons he took from growing his practice management company too quickly.
• How FeelGuide lets clinicians quietly signal which referrals drain them.
• Why he doesn't believe in offering his services for free.
• How to settle on a fee that supports your practice without underselling your work.
• Where AI fits into the future of mental health care, even if tech isn't your strength.

Connect with Brian Dixon, MD:
Website: https://www.drbriandixon.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianjdixonmd
FeelGuide: https://www.joinfeelguide.com
Mindful: https://findmindful.com
Simply Psych: https://simplypsych.com

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

AI scribes have shifted mental health professionals from writing their own notes to reviewing someone else's version of the session, and that shift comes with real risk. It's easy to sign off on a note without catching an error, without confirming a client actually consented to being recorded, or without knowing what happens to that audio once the session ends.

In this episode, Kym talks with Dr. Stephen Ferrara, a nurse practitioner, educator, and health policy leader with more than 25 years of clinical experience. He's the founder of AI Nurse Academy, the immediate past president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, and the founding associate dean for artificial intelligence at Columbia University School of Nursing. Stephen breaks down what real AI literacy looks like for clinicians, where mental health professionals are getting it wrong, and how to build guardrails that protect both your license and your clients.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The biggest mistake clinicians make when they start trusting AI-generated notes
• What the "good enough" trap actually costs your documentation
• How to get genuine, informed consent before using an AI scribe in session
• The AI literacy basics every mental health professional should understand before relying on these tools
• Why full practice authority varies so much by state, and what that means for telehealth
• How state legislation is starting to regulate AI in clinical settings
• The privacy guardrails Stephen uses in his own practice to protect client data

Connect with Stephen Ferrara:
Website: https://www.ainurseacademy.ai | https://www.drstephenferraranp.com

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Insurance audits used to be rare. Now AI systems built into insurance company billing platforms are flagging patterns fast, and codes like 90837, multiple sessions per week, and long-term maintenance therapy are all under closer watch. For mental health professionals who rely on these codes regularly, that shift can raise real questions about what actually holds up under review.

In this episode, Kym sits down with Beth Rontal, LICSW, founder of The Documentation Wizard and a nationally recognized expert in clinical documentation. Beth breaks down what's driving the rise in AI-assisted audits, the specific language that supports medical necessity, and how the "golden thread" connects diagnosis, treatment plan, and progress notes into documentation that stands up to scrutiny.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why AI is accelerating insurance audits and which billing patterns it's trained to flag.
• The exact language that helps justify medically necessary 90837 sessions.
• How to document session start and stop times so notes hold up under review.
• What Z codes are and why they matter for supporting a diagnosis.
• The golden thread that ties diagnosis, treatment plan, and progress notes together.
• When and how to justify billing for multiple sessions per week.
• Where rating scales fit into an audit-ready chart, and when they're optional.

Connect with Beth Rontal:
90827 Documentation Made Simple: https://bit.ly/dw-berries
Website: https://documentationwizard.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/documentationwizard
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@documentationwizard
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DocumentationWizard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/documentation-wizard/ 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

If your usual marketing playbook has suddenly stopped filling your caseload, you're picking up on something real. What worked reliably for years, referrals, directories, a decent website, isn't carrying the same weight anymore, and most mental health professionals are left guessing at what actually changed.

In this episode, Kym talks with Danielle Swimm, LCPC, business coach for therapists, and founder of The Entrepreneurial Therapist, about what's shifting in marketing right now and what's still worth your time. They get into how AI search is changing the way people find a provider, which old-school strategies are quietly making a comeback, and what it actually takes to build income beyond one-on-one sessions without running yourself into the ground.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why marketing that worked for years is falling flat in 2026.
• How to show up when someone asks an AI platform for a provider recommendation.
• What actually builds credibility with search bots, and with clients, on your website.
• Why weekly blogging is no longer the move, and what's replacing it.
• The backlink strategy Danielle says has never stopped working.
• How to know when you're ready to hire help or add a new revenue stream.
• What it really takes at home to create the capacity for a business to grow.

Connect with Danielle Swimm:
Website: https://www.theentrepreneurialtherapist.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/entrepreneurialtherapist
Podcast: https://www.theentrepreneurialtherapist.com/podcast
Newsletter: https://www.theentrepreneurialtherapist.com/newsletter

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Most mental health professionals settle into a fee early in their career and never really question it. $120 an hour, $150 an hour, whatever felt normal when they started, and the ceiling just becomes the ceiling.

Kym sits down with Allyson Clemmons, a social worker who sees about 10 clients a week, charges $400 a session, and earns over $180K a year from her private practice while living abroad in Mexico. Allyson works with mental health professionals who want to move past the belief that meaningful clinical work and real money can't coexist, and in this conversation she walks through how she actually built the practice most therapists assume isn't possible.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why therapists are taught to see service work and profit as opposing goals.
• How a pandemic insurance clawback pushed Allyson to drop insurance for good.
• The pricing jump from $89 an hour to $400 a session, and what happened in between.
• Why positioning, not modality, is what actually justifies a premium fee.
• The case for specializing in one problem instead of staying a generalist.
• What happens internally the first few sessions after raising your rate.
• Why Allyson doesn't market to a specific income bracket.

Connect with Allyson Clemmons:
Website: https://www.allysonclemmons.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allysonmarkets 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Scaling a group practice can feel like it forces a choice: chase the growth and risk losing sight of why you started, or protect your values and stay small. Most mental health professionals who build past solo practice hit this tension somewhere along the way, especially when the offers start coming in.

In this episode of Between Sessions with Berries, Kym talks with Dr. Anahita Lake-Khosravi, a psychologist, business coach, and mom of three who scaled a group practice to two million dollars in under three years and recently sold it on her own terms. Anahita walks through the mindset shifts, the money decisions, and the boundaries that let her grow a practice without compromising what mattered most to her.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why the belief that you have to grind constantly to make good money doesn't hold up.
• How Anahita evaluated a buyer based on fit and values, not just the highest offer.
• The three ways to pay clinicians, and why she never recommends starting with a salary.
• What changed when she moved her team from a split to a flat-rate pay structure.
• How she physically separated work time from family time while running the business from home.
• Why she and her husband flipped traditional roles, with him staying home while she built the practice.
• Her approach to bringing AI into a practice without compromising client privacy.

Connect with Anahita Lake-Khosravi:
Website: https://www.empoweredlivingcollective.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-anahita-banoo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmpoweredLivingCollective/ 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.

Most mental health professionals are running a mental Rolodex between sessions, trying to remember what a client said three sessions ago while staying present for what they're saying right now. Add a full caseload, insurance-driven documentation, and a body that doesn't always cooperate, and that load gets heavy fast.

Kym is joined by Kristine Hoestermann, LICSW, mental health innovator, and founder of RARE., a brand built around rare, chronic, and invisible conditions. Kristine most recently served as Head of Mental Wellness at Cabana, where she led development of scalable mental health programming, including the Balanced Self™ framework, and helped build AI tools for clinicians. She also hosts her own podcast, You're Always Fine, and brings a rare combination of clinical expertise and lived experience with chronic illness to a conversation about what actually eases the pressure mental health professionals carry.

In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why treating clients like a blank slate can quietly damage the therapeutic alliance.
• Why she started disclosing her diagnosis in every discovery call.
• How spoon theory explains why some sessions cost more than others.
• How a health crisis led to a patented, accessible sweatshirt for infusion days.
• Where AI actually reduces cognitive load without replacing clinical judgment.
• Why discharging clients between hard seasons might not be the best model for continuity of care.
• How becoming an AI safety reviewer is turning into a new income stream for clinicians.

Connect with Kristine Hoestermann:
Website (RARE.): https://findyourrare.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/youre-always-fine/id
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinehoestermann/
Instagram (RARE.): https://www.instagram.com/findyourrare 

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Join the Berries Community - A dedicated space for mental health clinicians to connect, share insights, and grow together. Look for Berries AI Official Community on Facebook at www.heyberries.com/community

Brought to You By Berries:
Ready to stop dreading your notes? Berries is your AI assistant for mental health professionals. Save time, stay compliant, and get back to the work you love. Learn more at heyberries.com.