Dr. Monica Gilbert – Licensed Psychologist & Founding President, Crystal Minds New Beginning

What does real buy-in actually look like in behavioral health?

In this episode of Tim Talks: Behavioral Health, Timothy Zercher sits down with Dr. Monica Gilbert to unpack one of the biggest misconceptions in the field: compliance is not the same as commitment.

Dr. Gilbert shares why clinicians often mistake attendance and agreement for true engagement - and how that gap leads to burnout, stalled progress, and frustration for both providers and families.

They dive into the power of better questions, the role of motivational interviewing, and how shifting from “fixing” to truly understanding can transform outcomes inside and outside the session room.

You’ll also hear how Dr. Gilbert has scaled her practice over 16+ years, the importance of stepping back as a leader, and why building the right processes and culture is critical for long-term growth.

This is a practical, no-fluff conversation for ABA leaders, clinicians, and behavioral health operators looking to drive real impact.

Learn more about Monica Gilbert:

www.drmonicagilbert.com
https://crystalabatherapy.com/

Transcript

Timothy Zercher 0:00

Monica, thank you so much for joining us. We're really excited to uh to talk today.

Dr Monica Gilbert 0:04

Thank you, Tim. Always happy to be here.

Timothy Zercher 0:06

Absolutely. So I want to start first with what attracted you into this field? What made you join the behavioral health world?

Dr Monica Gilbert 0:14

Well, I first started in psychology, like the rest of the world. And then I met behavior analysis and I absolutely fell in love with it. It made total sense to me. It's like the scientific part of psychology, as I call it. So I completely fell in love with it. I started working in the field and it was tough, but I just I was very resilient and I just continued.

Timothy Zercher 0:34

That's awesome. And I know that today a lot of your work focuses on parent buy-in, collaboration, and motivational interviewing. And where do you think clinicians are still struggling most when it comes to creating that real change outside of the session room itself?

Dr Monica Gilbert 0:51

I think it's a mindset. The first part is that clinicians confuse compliance with actual buy-in. A lot of the times, just because the parent or the clients are coming to the session, just because they're speaking to you, it doesn't mean that you actually have buy-in. So that's something that we have to, as clinicians, learn to differentiate. And it's that compliance illusion that just because they're present, you think that they're going to move forward and do what they're supposed to do. The other part of it, too, is that most of the time we are pushing more than what the parent is pushing. And that becomes a problem because it leads to the tremendous burnout that we have in our field.

Timothy Zercher 1:32

Yeah, absolutely. So, what have you found? What has shaped your perspective on what truly helps families feel that support and not feel overwhelmed, overtasked?

Dr Monica Gilbert 1:44

Yeah. So the overwhelm is going to be present, is how we respond to it. Is what questions are we asking? Are we asking the right questions? Are the questions that we're asking with intention? Are they with intention of building rapport? Where are they with intention of evoking solution from that client? So again, the overwhelm is going to be there because every parent knows that if you have kids, it's just it's overwhelming. There's no way of getting around that. There's no magic pill. So it's just learning how to really communicate more effectively with these clients. It's learning how to, again, not run to the solution, but really ask better questions that would allow us to get more of that buy-in.

Timothy Zercher 2:26

Absolutely. That makes complete sense. As you've been growing your team, because of course you have an ABA practice as well. What have you found is one of the hardest parts of growing that team?

Dr Monica Gilbert 2:36

Well, apart from the insurance, from dealing with the insurance, it's of course, I think it's really being that human. We sometimes forget when we wear different hats. And I'm a CEO and I've had my company for 16 years. So I've had to wear every single hat in the company. And sometimes I have to remind myself and say, hey, remember you're still a human and that you are working with humans. So reaching out to them and really cultivating that culture within the company and really knowing how to communicate effectively with them and having empathy and laughing and making jokes and still having that atmosphere in the company, I think, is what helps.

Timothy Zercher 3:16

Yeah. Maintaining the culture, I think, is so hard and also so, so important, as especially the larger you get, right? The larger you get, the harder it gets to control if you didn't set it up right in the first place.

Dr Monica Gilbert 3:27

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a stats that's like 20% of companies fail the first year, about like 50% like fail after like 10 years, and then 65 after whatever years. So it's definitely it's been a journey. I'm proud that we're still present because it has taken a lot of work, but it's reminding myself where I started, why I started, what those values are, and then keeping them real within the company.

Timothy Zercher 3:53

Absolutely. I think that helps a lot. When you stay focused, it helps everyone else stay focused too. So since we're a marketing agency that specializes specializes in behavioral health, we always have to ask some more marketing type questions. First up, what is working best for you right now outside of word of mouth, which should always be first? What's helping with with coin acquisition?

Dr Monica Gilbert 4:13

So for me personally, it's been taking a step back, right? I know that sounds a little weird because why am I taking a step back? But sometimes when you created something, when you created a company, obviously and it's been open for 16 years. So there's some skills that you have that allowed you to create it, right? Now, when you're so into every single detail, it doesn't allow you to scale. It doesn't allow you to go back to being creative and thinking outside the box, which will then help the company grow. So that has been something that has been very difficult for me. And I've learned through the years to trust others and to create processes so that I can take that step back and I can create even more and I can scale the company up.

Timothy Zercher 4:56

That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, and stepping back too, often, especially when it comes to marketing and client growth, gives you a perspective that you can see some of the maybe glaring mistakes that you just can't see when you're in the process.

Dr Monica Gilbert 5:08

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Timothy Zercher 5:10

Absolutely. So, what is one marketing tactic that you either you're considering for your team or that you're just really watching very closely in your marketplace?

Dr Monica Gilbert 5:19

So I'm not sure about if this is like a marketing tactic, but definitely creating more processes within the company so that it doesn't need me all the time and it doesn't really require that often like like re-educating my team or whatever, right? I want things to kind of run automatic. And I think that now with social media and Chat GPT and things like that, we're so used to that. And our brains are even developing and evolving to think differently. So really creating those processes to everything that we do so we can then take care of the other things that need to be taken care of.

Timothy Zercher 5:56

Absolutely. Absolutely. That makes complete sense. Well, and I think it plays into taking perspective, right? If you're not caught up in the every little task, it allows you to have perspective and allows you to be able to make better strategic decisions as a leader.

Dr Monica Gilbert 6:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Timothy Zercher 6:11

Yeah, absolutely. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Monica. I appreciate you taking the time. You're doing great work both both in your ABA practice as well as in your larger teaching and coaching and the courses practice. So thank you so much. We appreciate you you joining us.

Dr Monica Gilbert 6:25

Sure. Thank you for having me.

Timothy Zercher 6:27

Absolutely.