The AAMFT Blog

Graduated Electronic Decelerator Use

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has recently overturned a ban by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on electronic shock devices used at one institution and school in Massachusetts. The court’s ruling overturns an FDA rule banning a device called the Graduated Electronic Decelerator (GED) used to correct “self-harming” behavior in adults and children. The court made this rule because it concluded that the FDA lacks the authority under federal law to ban this device.

The FDA’s investigation found that the devices caused an unreasonable and dangerous risk of illness or injury citing evidence of physical and psychological harm “including worsening of underlying symptoms, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, pain, burns and tissue damage.” Furthermore, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture released a report concluding that the use of this device as a means for behavior control violated the U.N.’s  convention against torture.

MFTs must not engage or promote the use of any device that is harmful to clients or abusive to the therapeutic client relationship.

Advocate for MFTs in Medicare this Summer

This summer, AAMFT continues to advocate for Congress to pass legislation that would allow LMFTs, as well as LMHCs, to be recognized as Medicare providers. Earlier this year, legislation to finally add LMFTs and LMHCs as Medicare providers—the Mental Health Access Improvement Act of 2021—was introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 432 and in the Senate as S. 828. So far, 41 members of the House of Representatives have agreed to cosponsor H.R 432 and 14 Senators have agreed to cosponsor S. 828.

AAMFT and its allies supporting H.R. 432 and S. 828 continue to seek additional cosponsors for this legislation. This summer, there are a few things that you can do to persuade your Members of Congress to support the MFTs in Medicare legislation and to move this legislation forward:

• Email Congress: If you have not already done so, please advocate for the MFTs in Medicare legislation (H.R. 432/S. 828) by sending a message to your Members of Congress through AAMFT’s grassroots portal urging them to support MFTs as Medicare providers. AAMFT has also created a special grassroots message that friends and family of AAMFT members can send to their Members of Congress.

• Write a letter to your local newspaper: You can also advocate for MFTs as Medicare providers by sending an op ed article to your local newspapers advocating for this important cause. Please see AAMFT’s 2021 Op-ed Campaign page for details on writing an op ed, including a sample article.

• Virtual Capitol Hill visits: This summer, AAMFT is embarking on a campaign to connect some Family TEAM members with their Members of Congress who sit on the key committees with jurisdiction over the MFTs in Medicare legislation. These virtual Capitol Hill visits—conducted by video or telephone—will include  a congressional staff member and  AAMFT’s federal lobbyist. AAMFT has contacted a few Family TEAM members about this opportunity, and will be contacting additional members. If you receive an email from AAMFT about participating in a virtual Capitol Hill visit, please consider participating in these important meetings.

Please see the AAMFT website for additional information on the MFTs in Medicare legislation. Please feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Using Video in Your Content Marketing Strategy

This content is provided by Brighter Vision, an affinity partner of AAMFT. This information is not necessarily the view of AAMFT and should not be interpreted as official policy. 

While the concept of using videos in your marketing strategy is nothing new, what has changed over the last couple of years is the prevalence of video content on nearly every platform – especially when it comes to social media!

When done correctly, video content marketing can be one of the most influential and cost-effective ways to promote your products and services. 85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, and 92% of marketers believe that online video is an integral part of their marketing strategy.

Video content comes in many forms and can be anything from an explainer video to a brand video. Even event and webinar videos can be used in content marketing.

Video marketing has a unique ability to immediately capture the attention of your viewers, further engage with them, and bring broader concepts to life, making for a more effective marketing strategy.

In this blog, we will walk you through our top video marketing tips and provide information about how to implement video into your current marketing strategy to to expand your audience, build your brand, and grow your practice.

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Video Marketing Tips

It’s not too hard to see why video is so popular these days — for one thing, it’s an easy way to give your viewers important information while also giving them rest from having to read any long-winded text. Video is fun, but it’s also really one of the best ways to get up close to your audience and give them a more in-depth look into you and your practice, and not to mention it’s easy to share across multiple platforms.

By adding a video to your website, you can boost your SEO and increase the chance of a front page of Google by 53 times. You can also attract more viewers and increase engagement. Audiences are about ten times more likely to engage, embed, share, and comment on video content than blogs or related social posts. If you are still not entirely convinced that video marketing is right for your practice, recent research shows that 71% of marketers say video conversion rates outperform any other marketing content.

Now that we all know video is the future of marketing, let’s talk about how you can start to incorporate it into your content marketing plan. Here we’ll outline some best practices for you to start creating and sharing videos that are likely to capture your audience’s attention.

Why Your Therapy Website Needs a Tagline, Slogan, and Mission Statement

This content is provided by Brighter Vision, an affinity partner of AAMFT. This information is not necessarily the views of AAMFT and should not be interpreted as official policy.

Therapy comes in all shapes and sizes. There’s behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, massage therapy… the list goes on and on.

But no matter which type of therapy you provide, the reason is always the same – to help people heal.

 Does your private practice website depict this right off the bat?

There are, of course, many different ways to ensure it does. Among the most obvious are your business name and website URL.

But then there are all of the smaller pieces of your brand that truly attract your ideal client to your website and ultimately, your business. These include the visual aspects of your site such as its color scheme, fonts, and imagery, as well as the branding aspects of your practice such as your brand’s tagline, slogan, and mission statement.

In today’s post, we’re going to cover these important branding aspects – mission statements, slogans, and taglines.

Because these terms are often used interchangeably (or combined in an effort to save a little time), let’s take things from the beginning and start out by making sure we understand the difference between these three types of branding texts.

Mission statements are more descriptive and commonly consist of a few sentences making one short paragraph that explains the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of your business as a whole.

Slogans are shortened versions of your mission statement that say in about 12 words or less what you do, who you do it for, and/or why you do it.

And finally, taglines are written representations of your brand that summarize your practice in only a few words.

Now let’s dive in a little deeper and talk more about what each of these are and what makes them effective so that you can build a truly successful private practice.