Meet Brandy Engler of Silver Lake Psychology

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandy Engler.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Brandy. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I began my private practice as a psychologist in the same way that most therapists do. I found a single room and hung my shingle. Mine was above The Kitchen restaurant in Silver Lake. Not many people knew I was up there, but I was busy enough to cover the rent of my low-cost room. During the day, I worked on writing essays about the sex and relationship concerns that my clients brought up in therapy.

My essays had caught the attention of multi-best -selling author *David Rensin, and he had offered to co-write my first book, The Men of my Couch (Berkley books). This book was followed up by The Women on my Couch, a column in the Huffington Post and regular appearances on Bravo’s Vanderpump Rules.

The demand for my practice exploded. Rather than turn people away, I decided to take a leap and invest in a large office space. I decided to hire therapists and train them in my methods of working with sex and relationships. In just two years, Silver Lake Psychology had expanded to three locations and 18 therapists.

However, I attribute our success to my commitment to making therapy accessible. Most L.A. private practices market their business toward the high paying clients, many charging upwards of $250 per session and refusing to accept insurance. Or, conversely, many therapists work in community mental health offering services to the poor. I had to make a decision about my target market. I had the demand to charge a premium fee, and I could have moved my business to the west side or Beverly Hills to get that fee, but I had lived among the writers, artists and musicians of Silver Lake for years and wanted my practice to be affordable to the creative middle class. I decided to accept insurance, even learning how to do medical billing, and to offer sliding scale fees to ensure that Silver Lake Psychology didn’t turn away the actual residents of Silver Lake.

I also noticed that the prevailing business model for large psychotherapy practices involves one or two licensed professionals with the bulk of the therapy provided by a staff of interns or low-paid licensed staff. I wanted to offer a higher-quality therapy experience. I wanted seasoned therapists and I wanted to create a profitable business model that didn’t involve exploitation. To do this, I recruited talented, experienced therapists to work part-time, exchanging my high-volume of referrals for their expertise and paid them double what other large practices offered.

The staff, of mostly women, are trained in all the latest therapy technologies from neurobiological therapies (EMDR, Sensorimotor therapy) to art therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy and depth therapies (Jungian, gestalt therapy). Our offerings expanded past my niche specialty of couple’s therapy and sex therapy to a range of expertise.

Traditional business advice advises focusing on a niche, but we grew when we diversified.

I also hired former writers, artists and actors turned therapists who uniquely understood the lifestyle of the creative class. My mission was to stay attuned to the community and focus on providing services that match what they needed at a price point that works for the people who live there.

David Rensin’s name had been given to me by a friend of a friend with the suggestion that I ask him for advice on how to get a literary agent. It took me 6 months to reach out to him because I didn’t feel worthy of his attention. He had mostly written books with celebrities and I wasn’t famous. I’m also terrible at asking for help. I finally reached out and he graciously offered to take a look at my stories. He replied with an offer to co-author the book with me.

He stated that at this point in his career he wanted to work on projects that were meaningful to him and that he believed in what I had to say. This began our collaboration –and with his encouragement that I skip the typical professional writing style and instead to tell my stories as if I was talking to my girlfriends at a dinner party.

Dropping my expert façade felt vulnerable—but if I was going to steer my clients toward living authentically then I decided that I should live by that rule as well. The risk paid off with an A-List agent and a book deal at Penguin.

Has it been a smooth road?
As my practice grew, my role changed from author to entrepreneur. Both are creative endeavors, but I was in foreign territory. I became mired in the non-glamorous parts of being a business owner –learning acronyms like ADP and EDD—and I lacked the skills for managing money or people. I was working 14 hour days, answering phones and emails, filing medical claims, negotiating deals on office spaces and training staff.

One year into our business boom, with 12 therapists and 2 offices, I was flat broke. I learned that growth doesn’t equal profit. Sunk by taxes, high overhead and no financial management skills, I sought out PACE Women’s business center in downtown LA, a non-profit organization that teaches business skills to female entrepreneurs. I joined their mentor program which connects retired business leaders with female entrepreneurs. Soon, I learned accounting skills and financial strategies that helped my business to become profitable while growing.

I’ve learned that the role of CEO is to focus on the big picture; to see the system as a whole, so I could create the most efficient, smooth and cost-effective flow rather than getting lost in the everyday small details.

I learned that hiring the right staff and paying them well pays off. I learned that staff need a combination of freedom and structure.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Silver Lake Psychology is a general psychotherapy practice serving 3 locations on the East Side. We are a collective of experienced and talented professionals that work with non-emergency, non-severe mental health concerns.

Many of our clientele are high-functioning, successful people that use therapy as part of a wellness program. These are folks that recognize that self-reflection and personal growth is a worthy investment into their success and well-being.

Other issues we commonly work with:

Couples therapy, relationship issues, sexual dysfunction, low libido, anxiety, OCD, trauma, eating disorders, addiction, life purpose/ life decisions, performance anxiety for entertainers, grief, depression and creative blocks.

We serve teens, adults, couples.

I’m proud that we are women owned and operated. We’ve collectively built a corporate culture of respect and support. I provide free ongoing training and peer consult groups to encourage the ongoing enrichment of the staff. I want them each to have a sense that their voice is valued—and will ask them to weigh in on decisions. I’m proud to provide ongoing mentorship on how to run the business of private practice to early career professionals. I believe in generosity. I’ve been the recipient of great generosity and love to pay it forward. In L.A., there is room for abundance for each of us. It’s a tough city—plagued by loneliness, the stress of urban life (traffic, indifferent strangers, expensive) and many broken hearts and dreams. These struggles are good for the therapy business—and it’s good for those suffering that our therapists care about our cities unique struggles and want to make a difference.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
L.A. is a great place to be a therapist. It’s a therapy friendly city. We don’t have the stigma here that implies going to therapy means ‘you’re crazy.’ L.A. inhabitants realize that smart people use therapy—and that it works. Further, there is a kinship between therapy and the arts—good therapy is itself an art form—and its deep interest in what it is to be human—is the same passion of L.A.’s writers, actors and directors that sit on our couches. Our therapists love working with Silver Lake clients because the relationship is mutually enriching intellectually and emotionally.

It is a place where a therapist can try creative, even unconventional interventions, and these clients can catch the ball and run with it. There is a real synergy happening; that spark of aliveness when the client and therapist have ‘a-ha’ moments, both walking away with new insights—and this is the magic that keeps our practice flourishing.

Contact Info:

• Address: 4325 Sunset Blvd #206, LA CA 90029
  3171 Los Feliz Blvd # 315 LA CA 90039
  3111 Los Feliz Blvd #3111 LA CA 90039
• Website: www.silverlakepsychology.com
• Phone: 3103887983
• Email: [email protected]
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/themenonmycouch   www.facebook.com/silverlakepsychology
• Twitter: t: @themenonmycouch
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/brandy-engler-los-angeles
• Other: www.thewomenonmycouch.com

Image Credit:
Amelia Burns

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