How to keep clients engaged between sessions with Aaron Culley
My interview guest this week is Aaron Culley, MHA, MSW.
Aaron is the clinical co-founder of WellStory Health, a digital mental health platform providing tools and activities to help clients stay engaged between therapy sessions.
Aaron began his career in healthcare administration and in-patient care, and in 2020 made the transition to private practice, founding Candeo Counseling Center in Cedar Falls, Iowa where he leads a team of 10 therapists.
I spoke to Aaron about how to keep clients engaged between sessions, how WellStory has impacted his work as a clinician, and how therapists can be the best version of themselves. Enjoy!
Aaron Culley, MHA, MSW
Why is it helpful to provide clients with homework between sessions?
There’s a spectrum of formality when it comes to “homework” between sessions, from “try to think about A, B, C” to, “I want you to follow this daily templated document.” For me, WellStory ideally gets to appeal to both ends of the spectrum.
It gives the client a way to practice whatever change they’re trying to make in the therapeutic process. It fosters an environment of growth. The preparation improves the intentionality of therapy.
Doesn’t assigning homework create more work for therapists?
Therapists don’t need to assign homework in a scenario where they feel like it’s adding unnecessary work. But if they’re already printing worksheets and giving assignments between sessions, WellStory streamlines that process for them.
My perspective is that I’m not trying to create more work for therapists. I’m trying to make the work that’s already happening easier. There are certain approaches, like CBT, that more naturally appeal to homework assignments and activities, but WellStory is designed to be agnostic of modality.
Where did the idea of WellStory come from?
The idea of WellStory came from my co-founder Barrett’s experience as a client, which was a disorganized and fragmented process of self-help options. There are not many digital tools that have a good client/therapist interface.
I was one of his first customer discovery calls where he pitched this idea. On the clinician end of the equation, I don’t give standard worksheets and activities between every session, but the idea of having a platform for formalizing work between sessions is something I bought into.
How has WellStory impacted your work as a clinician?
I started using WellStory as part of our pilot. It serves as a natural discussion point for change, growth, and improvement. It’s something I can pull up in my session and look at together with my clients, use to share resources, and it serves as a treatment planning and homework tool I can use in real time.
Clients appreciate the professionalism and modern approach, instead of pulling a three-ring binder out.
How do you get clients to actually do the work between sessions?
As a clinician, you have varying degrees of buy-in and commitment from clients. Some will do all the work on their own without any prompts and some will take six months to do some version of an activity. It’s all part of the therapeutic process to understand their desire and willingness to change.
For clients who struggle with following through, I start with a conversation about that and explore why that may be happening. In my experience, clients like hearing it’s more than just self-help and self-improvement. This is a real process of discovery and change management that requires more than an hour conversion per week.
How can therapists be the most effective versions of themselves?
Clinicians have put a ton of time and energy into becoming who they are. If I can administer a certain assessment on a continual basis and track a client’s progress, it’s going to help me to be aware of and hold me accountable clinically for understanding where my client is at. It’s also going to give them accountability over how to monitor themselves
WellStory simplifies the process for clinicians and saves them time by allowing them to focus on the important work.
Thanks to Aaron for sharing with us! You can connect with him on LinkedIn.