Have you ever sat down and worked out how much your private practice is costing you? Sometimes it's more than you realise and this can have an impact on whether it's a business that actually supports you.

Your session fees need to not only cover day to day costs such as supervision, but also allow for holidays, sickness and retirement.

In this second episode with psychotherapist and supervisor, Claire Ratcliffe, we discuss how to build a sustainable practice including how to attract clients.

In this episode:

• How Claire started TikTok, despite her discomfort with visibility, and how she makes it work alongside running a busy practice and being a single parent
• The impact of her TikTok channel on her enquiries
• Why she thinks it is important to let people know who you are and what you offer rather than relying on a single place to find clients
• The hidden costs of running a private practice
• The beliefs therapists can have about being greedy or selfish and the impact on their fees
• Accessibility and why higher fees can make it easier to offer concessions
• How our personal history with money can affect the fees we are comfortable to charge
• Why comparing your fees with another therapist can be misleading due to different financial circumstances

The main message Claire would like you to take away is not "Charge what you're worth" but to remember your worth isn't determined by what you charge. It doesn't change if you charge £50 or £500. Instead, base your fees on what your practice, your health and your wellbeing need so that you can continue to keep doing the work.

And if Claire’s comments about letting people know who you are and what you have to offer have got you thinking about your own practice, this is exactly what we’ll be working on next in Therapy Growth Group.

From the week beginning 12th October, we’ll be spending four weeks looking at your niche: who you most want to help, what makes you unique and how you can communicate that so the right clients can find you.

If you’d like some support to work through this alongside other therapists, you can find out more about Therapy Growth Group HERE

If you'd like to find out more about Claire and her new supervision group aimed at relationship therapists, please visit her website HERE

Setting up in private practice? Download my free checklist HERE

Need ideas for how to get clients? Download my free handout 21 Ways for Counsellors to Attract New Clients HERE

You can also find me here:

The Good Enough Counsellors Facebook Group

Josephine Hughes on Facebook

Josephine Hughes on YouTube

My website: josephinehughes.com

Keywords: private practice counselling, therapist private practice, sustainable private practice, counselling fees, therapist fees, how much should therapists charge, setting counselling fees, raising counselling fees, money mindset for therapists, cost of private practice, private practice expenses, therapist burnout, attracting therapy clients, how to get counselling clients, marketing for therapists, therapist visibility, social media for therapists, TikTok for therapists, counselling marketing, building a therapy practice, growing a private practice, private practice income, counsellor private practice UK, psychotherapist private practice, Claire Ratcliffe, Josephine Hughes, Good Enough Counsellors

The information contained in Good Enough Counsellors is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this podcast. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this podcast.

Josephine Hughes disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this podcast.

I think if you are a therapist out there, you're setting up a private practice.

Please know that one of the things is the work that you do is incredibly unique.

Please don't discount it, please don't minimize it.

The work that you are going to do is healing for yourself and for others and that is going to have a ripple effect throughout the world.

I don't know if that sounds like totally out there, but it is true and I truly believe it.

It does create healing and with yourself, with others, with the world.

Please don't discount it.

Welcome to Good Enough Counsellors, the podcast for growing a private practice without the pressure to be perfect.

I'm Josephine Hughes, counsellor and creator of Therapy Growth Group, helping you get the clients you want and create the practice of your dreams.

This week I'm welcoming back Clare Ratcliffe, an integrative psychotherapist, couples therapist and clinical supervisor.

Claire also hosts the podcast Healing Relationships and shares practical relationship advice and talks about therapy with thousands of followers on TikTok.

Last week, Clare and I talked about couples counselling.

If you haven't heard that interview, you might like to go back and listen to it.

It's really interesting, all about how couple relationships can be something that really bring healing.

But we also talked about another subject that she's just as passionate about and that's the realities of building a private practice.

How do you attract clients?

How do you find confidence to charge fees that reflect the value of your work?

And how do you build a practice that supports you rather than leaving you exhausted and burnt out?

Claire's wisdom around private practice is so valuable that it deserved an episode in its own right.

And I hope that you find it helpful.

The other thing I was going to ask you about, Claire, is, is how you go about advertising yourself and getting couples to, to come through.

I mean, I say couples, but you also work with individuals as well.

So let's talk a bit about what you do.

So you've, you've obviously got directory entries and you've got a TikTok channel.

So tell us about your TikTok channel.

Yes.

Oh my God, yes.

I discovered TikTok and I honestly, I am a tech.

I do not.

I'm so terrible with anything tech like, but I did.

It took me a long, long time to actually feel okay recording myself.

And what I did is, it was about three years ago, I think I settled the tick tock, but I was so nervous and anxious.

I just thought, I just want to put some things out there to help support people.

I did Record some videos and I wasn't confident at all.

And it was only maybe a few months ago really I started getting quite a few questions in the comments.

So what I would do is I would answer people's questions and then it just rolled on and rolled on, people asking questions and then me answering them and it's just then gone on from there.

And it's something that now I love doing.

Where I had the anxiety before and I really had to build the capacity to tolerate the discomfort of being seen, being visible, being someone who had something to offer that could helpful for people putting yourself out there, that took a lot and now I absolutely love it.

I've started doing TikTok live.

So people come on and ask loads of questions about trauma, about their own healing, about therapy, about supervision.

I have therapists on there asking me questions about supervision.

And now I really do enjoy it so much.

I then set up my own podcast, Healing Relationships.

So I do talk about the podcast a little bit on my Tick Tocks as well.

I do have other social media, I've got Facebook and Instagram, but I don't post as much on there.

I do want to do that, but again that means having to really forward plan everything.

It is, it's so time consuming, but I do enjoy it.

It feels easier to record a video for Tick Tock and just upload it.

It takes me 10 minutes.

Yeah, it fits into your life as well, doesn't it?

Because you can just do something quickly and you've got a young child so it's fitting it all in, isn't it?

Exactly.

Some of my TikToks are recorded in my car when she's fallen asleep.

I've got a four year old who falls asleep because we've just drove somewhere and I think, right, I've got 10 before I need to wake her up quickly, record something, save it in my drafts or upload it and then it's done.

And I do, I now do get a lot of inquiries through social media, but I do advertise on other platforms.

Like I do have a counseling directory page, I do have a psychologist day and I advertise on the bacp.

And yeah, and everyone has different experiences of advertising on all those different platforms.

But it was only a year ago that I actually created my own website.

That's when I set up my private practice and I didn't have a website up until last year.

I just thought, actually I need something where it's just mine, you know, I thought if the counseling director was deleted or Psychology Today disappeared, I need to have my own website.

So I thought, you know what?

I'm just going to do it.

So now I get inquiries through there.

But I really think when you're advertising and letting.

Yeah.

Oh, God, yeah.

There's loads of places now.

I've thrown myself all over the show so I can be found anywhere and everywhere.

But I think it's really letting people know who you are, how you work, what you have to offer, and the right people are going to find you.

The right people are going to find you because they're going to be looking for what it is that they want and then they're going to know this is the person to do some work with.

Yeah.

But that is where a lot of people have contacted me through TikTok.

I think because of my videos, the way that I am is how I am.

I'm now finding that I can be more myself on it.

Yeah.

Then those clients contact me because they've seen how I am.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They see the real.

The real you.

And I think, you know, you only need to spend sort of five or ten minutes with you to know just, I mean, a.

How passionate you are about this, but just what a lot of learning you've done and that you are actually, you know, there's a lot of depth there in.

In what you talk about.

And I know that a lot of what you do on TikTok is.

Is sort of.

It's educational, isn't it?

It's telling people about stuff and it's just coming from the richness of your own learning, I think.

So.

I think what I'm trying to say is you come across as very credible but very human, and it's just that would make me want to book in.

So the other thing I sort of noticed as well, and I hope it's okay to talk about this, but you also actually charge quite premium prices as well, don't you, in terms of.

Of what you're charging people?

Do you find that, you know, people have researched that before they contact you and they're.

They're okay with the pricing?

Or do you find that people say, oh, no, I couldn't afford that, and then you don't hear from them again, or how does it work with your pricing?

Yep.

So that took me, this is what I work with a lot with the therapist who I supervise.

It took me a long time to set the prices that I have, and I'm glad that I do because I have supported therapists before or I'VE seen on different, you know, on the Facebook groups and things like that, people who say, I'm really struggling to have a private practice, I'm having to get another job, I'm struggling to pay for supervision, I'm struggling to pay for therapy on books or anything like that.

It is expensive having a private practice, there is no doubt about it.

When you are paying for advertising, you're paying for your website, you're paying for your own therapy, you're paying for your supervision, your insurance, your professional bodies, your books, your cpd.

My God, the amount is.

Yeah.

And what is really important is that as a therapist, you are supported by your private practice.

You need to not only pay for all of those things, but you have to have sickness pay, you have to have annual leave.

If you have a dry spell of inquiries or you have a series of cancellations that are just outside your cancellation policy, make sure you've got cancellation policy as well, is what I say.

But when people cancel half an hour outside of it, so you're not going to get that payment and your wage then fluctuates, so you have to make sure that you're charging enough to support yourself so that you can carry on having a private practice, so you can support yourself to pay for your cpd, to have therapy when you need it, and to have supervision or additional supervision, because you might need an emergency supervision, you might need a second supervisor for different kinds of work that you want to do, extra work working or specializing, or you have a niche that you're looking at, you might need specialist support, you have to be able to pay for that.

Because the thing that I hate the most seeing is therapists saying, I have no choice but to close down my private practice because I simply cannot afford it.

It breaks my heart.

And I know that might sound dramatic, but I am so passionate about this.

I want therapists to do well.

I want them to feel supported and comfortable.

I want therapists to be able to go on bloody holiday and feel okay, not feel like the world is going to collapse or they're going to come back and there's going to be no work for them or they can't afford it.

Therapists that say, I need a break because I'm burning out, I can't afford it.

So your practice has to support you and that means you have to set prices that are going to support you.

Because if you're charging £40 or £45, you're not getting £40.

If you're charging £50, you're not getting £50.

A huge portion of that is going to go into savings to pay tax, to pay for your own supervision, to pay for advertising.

Everything else that I've listed and more, because I've not even mentioned everything I have done tik toks and I've done a podcast.

You've done a podcast on it, haven't you?

Yes.

The cost of being a private therapist, because it does cost.

So all of that, that goes out making sure you're putting it in your annual leave port, your pension pot, because we've got to remember that at some point we're going to need that.

And making sure that you are okay enough, that you feel comfortable enough so that you're not having a client that comes in talking about the third holiday they've had that year and the walking in with the handbag or whatever.

And you are worried that you cannot even pay your rent or mortgage that month that comes up in the work.

Whether you'd want to think it or not, it does.

If you're worried that I can't pay my bills, I'm struggling to pay for food, and I've worked with therapists.

Being in this position, how can you truly work with a client and fully explore their difficulties, which actually might feel so alien to yours?

When a client is saying, I'm going skiing for the fifth time this year and I'm really annoyed that my partner didn't buy me, blah, blah, blah, and you're thinking, I couldn't even buy my child a birthday present because I'm so scared.

This isn't unrealistic as well, if anyone's listening to this thinking.

But that wouldn't happen.

It does.

And I've worked with people in that position.

I've had lots of therapy.

I know so many therapists who have talked about the difficulties financially.

And if I say, put your prices up, they look at me like, what?

But how can I do that?

I need to be accessible.

I need people to be able to afford me.

How can I charge that?

That's so greedy.

That's so selfish.

Because therapists have sometimes that mindset.

Because, yeah, it is almost expected.

Therapists should be doing this for free.

You should be doing this low cost.

How dare you charge for this when you're meant to be a person helping you in the helping profession?

That's unethical.

I think what's unethical is charging so low that you can't afford supervision.

You're skipping months of supervision.

You're not having therapy when you need it.

You're going completely 100 burnt out.

You can't drag yourself out of bed because you're having to see loads of clients to make up for the money that you need to pay your rent that month because your landlord just put it up and you're struggling.

Actually, it might be that you need to see less people charge more, but work on your relationship with money.

Work on your relationship with what it's like to charge.

Because I had to really dig deep into my own childhood experiences to really get to grips with.

Is it okay?

Can I give myself permission to challenge more?

Yeah.

I was going to say I was going to ask you how you managed to get to that place where you could charge more.

And it.

I mean, I don't know if it ever feels comfortable, but certainly getting to that place where you're able to actually put it into place, because I think that's the questions that come up.

Will people book me?

You know, am I just going to price myself out of the market?

Yeah.

By sounds of things, you've.

You've conquered those challenges.

Yeah.

And that took a lot of work.

That took a hell of a lot of work for a long, long time.

I had to look at my relationship with money.

I had to look at historically, my experiences.

The thing is, as a child, I came from a place where we did not have money.

There wasn't food on the table.

We struggled extensively.

Really, really struggled.

So I worked from being really young and saved.

So when I started my therapy training, I was 22.

I paid for that course outright because I had five jobs on the go as well as being in college.

I was in college studying law and.

And English literature and sociology.

I was doing all of that.

But I had five jobs, saving and saving and savings that I could pay to do my first counseling course when I was 22.

And that was because I had to do all of that because we didn't have money.

And I thought the only way of me having security was by working and working and saving and saving.

So I did that from a really young age.

And I thought I don't want to be in the position where I'm worried because I have been in that position where I can't pay my rent.

The rent as well.

To rent somewhere to actually do therapy.

You're paying for a room or you're paying for.

Yeah, that's paying for a laptop.

To be able to do the work, you have to be able to afford it so you can do this job.

But I really had to look at the thoughts, feelings and beliefs that I had about money.

Because it is related to our attachment styles as well, our avoidant attachment, anxious attachment, disorganized attachment.

Money shows up in that as well.

Yeah, it.

Well, it's a really important factor that I think we don't really think about enough.

And you know, do we deserve to earn anything?

You know, all those sorts of thoughts come up for us.

Yeah.

What other job in the world says when you qualify you should be doing this for free?

Go do some volunteer work, go and offer all your hours free.

And I did loads of that.

I saw clients with no cause at voluntary places, in doctor surgeries, at different charities.

I did that for a long time.

But there was a certain expectation that people have that therapists should do that.

And they're bloody lucky if they get paid.

They're lucky if they get paid something.

Actually, no, this is a job, it is a profession.

It is something where you are required to, to have the skills, the knowledge, the empathy when you're really fully using yourself in the work where you're not just doing this as a hobby, you really have to train hard to do this job.

It's not an easy job to train in.

This is a job where in your training you are having to learn so much about yourself, your own trauma, your wounds, you are having to have your own therapy.

How many jobs say you have to embark in your own personal therapy in order to do this work?

Yeah.

You're asked to be vulnerable, to expose yourself, to learn about yourself.

This is really, is a unique job and therapists need to see it as that and to not minimize or discount themselves in any way.

It's a unique job.

Not everyone can do this job.

Yeah.

And charge and you have to charge, charge accordingly.

And yeah, the thing is what you can do, and I say this therapist do charge enough and that might mean when you set your face, set it at a fee that feels uncomfortable.

Don't set what feels comfortable, set it that it is a bit uncomfortable and you can learn how to manage that discomfort and let it highlight what comes up for you and do the work there.

And it might be that you are charging those premium rates, but then you might have a couple of low cost places that you can offer people for a fixed amount of time.

So you might charge enough and only do this if you are fully supported by your private practice.

You feel completely and utterly comfortable doing this where you're not sacrificing yourself, your well being, your comfort, your mortgage that you can still pay for what you need, the time off and everything else.

And then you might have A couple of low cost places that you can offer people that are really genuinely struggling and in need, where you say, I can offer you 10, 15 sessions at this price.

Yeah.

Then you can do that, but only if you feel comfortable doing that.

You might charge so much that you can give more to charity.

You might charge so much that you can do a few hours every month volunteering somewhere because you are comfortable and you can do this work without being afraid that if you get a cancellation, you.

You don't know if you can pay for your food that week.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, Claire, I think we could probably carry on talking about this, but I think, you know, in what I'm thinking is if people are struggling, then, you know, your supervision might really be able to help them with this.

Because I think it's endemic.

Yeah, I think it's endemic in the profession actually.

And, you know, supervisors themselves can really struggle to charge enough as well.

So I sort of think that it could be really helpful if people, you know, want to talk about fees.

Is that something that you could, you could help them with?

I definitely do a lot of that, yeah.

Because if I have any supervisors who say I'm just really struggling to set these prices or I feel like I'm burning out, I'll say like, we need to look at your mindset around money and what it brings up with you as well.

Because there are so many therapists who might listen to this and might think that's just selfish or that's greedy or whatever.

But just remember as well that not everyone is in the same financial situation.

You might not have a partner that can support you, you might not have inheritance that's going to support you.

You might be on your own or whatever.

But don't make the comparison of somebody else experience.

You have to think of your own life situation, your own private practice, your kids that you need to support or whatever.

Yeah.

And I have, it's me and my daughter.

I'm always having to support her and have to make sure that she is looked after.

And that means that I need to make sure I'm supported by my practice.

So everyone's situations are different.

We can't compare.

And I just like to say at this point as well, it's sort of as somebody sort of in a different, different situation.

I think one of the other things you have to get over is, you know, if you have got a good financial situation, you can sort of think to yourself, well, I don't deserve to charge because I don't need it, you know, so that, that can be a whole other sort of, you know, thing that might come up for people as well.

Or, you know, I can't charge much because I don't.

I don't really need to charge much.

So, you know, therefore I should work for less.

So there's so much to unpack about money, isn't there?

Yeah, lots to talk about there.

Yeah.

Money is the one thing therapists don't like to talk about, but it's one.

Of the most important things, actually, I absolutely agree with you because I think, you know, we deserve to be paid.

It is like you say, a profession, and when you sort of talking to someone like yourself, who's got all this training, you know, has done so much to.

To know so much about helping people, you absolutely deserve to be paid.

And, you know, I think that's true for us as therapists.

We do deserve to be.

Be paid.

It's really important for us, too.

Absolutely.

And also on that note, as a final thing, money comes up in couples therapy.

Money comes up, and if they don't mention it, it's for us to mention as well.

Some people will think, like, if.

I think we've already mentioned sex on it, but I'm thinking, is it going to go out as an explicit thing?

People think couples don't want to talk about sex so much in therapy.

That is true.

But the more reluctance, talk about money.

That's really interesting.

One of the things that is really difficult for couples to talk about as well.

It's amazing, isn't it, that sort of, like, there's so much that goes on in, you know, what's.

What's stopping us talking about stuff and, yeah, it's just absolutely fascinating.

So we're going to have to finish there.

I might have to invite you back, Claire, so we can talk some more.

If you could leave therapists with sort of one piece of encouragement about building a practice that they genuinely love, what would it be?

So for me, I. I do genuinely love being a therapist.

I'm very, very passionate about it.

I love it.

It's all I want to do.

I want to do it for the rest of my life, until my very last day on earth.

I don't even plan to retire.

Talk about retirement part.

And I'm like, yeah, I wanted that.

I can feel like I can retire, but the thought of not doing this work devastates me.

So I always want to do this forever.

And I think if you are a therapist out there, you're setting all the private practice, please know that one of the things is the work that you do is incredibly unique.

Please don't discount it, please don't minimize it.

The work that you are going to do is healing for yourself and for others and that is going to have a ripple effect throughout the world.

I don't know if that sounds like totally out there, but it is true and I truly believe it.

It does create healing with yourself, with others, with the world.

Please don't discount it.

Also, do not tie money to your worth.

And I'm saying worth in air quotes here because some people say things like charge what you are worth.

There is no price that can ever be put on your worth.

You are worthy, whether you charge £5 or £500.

So please do not think charge what you are worth.

You charge what you need for your business, for your practice, for your health, for your well being.

That is what you charge.

It is a business thing as well as working on your, your own relationship with money.

But it's never about what you're worth.

If you choose to charge five pounds because you're totally comfortable with that and you want to and everything else, it's not dependent on your worth.

You're worthy regardless.

And please set out what you want your practice to look like.

Put your holidays in there.

This is a mistake that I made.

I did not pour annual leave in and I would see clients and I would.

Oh my God.

For the first few years I had two weeks off a year.

That's insane.

But that is what I did.

It's partly because I love it as well.

I love it.

Take time off.

Yeah.

Can't take it off, can't afford it.

So I've learned a lot from setting up my private practice.

I have learned a lot over the years.

So I would say look at everything that you want to do, what you need to save, realistically, what time you want to have off in the year, the therapy.

Make sure that you can always afford therapy, even if you choose not to have it, that it's never about affordability, that you think, if I need to go and see a therapist because this client's brought up a lot for me, or I've got stuff going on in my personal life that you can actually afford it.

Set that money aside.

If you don't spend it, you don't spend it.

Great, you can treat yourself to a few days off or whatever.

Your cpd, look at what you really love.

Working with your CPD is always going to be about something that you love because of course you don't want to have tedious CPD really, do you?

It's about finding your passion and just know that there are all always, always clients out there that will want to work with you, but it's just letting them know who you are, where you are, where they can find you, so that they can find you because the well is not dry.

There are enough clients out there in the world.

It's just letting them know that you are there and what you have to offer and be yourself because the right people are then going to find you and want to work with you.

Claire, thank you so much for coming along and sharing so much wisdom and we'll make sure that people can find you, but just remind people of your website so that they can hear it in case they can't check the show notes out.

Yes, my website is Claire Ratcliffe Psychotherapy.

I have a podcast which is Healing relationships with ourselves others in the world.

It's a little green picture with a rainbow on and I'm on TikTok.

Claire Ratcliffe Psychotherapy.

Everything is, I think CR underscore psychotherapy for my social media.

But Claire Rackliff Psychotherapy takes you to all those social media platforms.

So yeah, I can be found all on there.

And thank you so much for having me on here.

I've really loved this.

I'm very gracious about this work, I am.

It's fantastic.

And you can just tell, which I think is why, you know, we can just.

There's questions that I've got that I haven't had a chance to ask, so we'll have to invite you back another time.

So thank you.

Thanks for being here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me here.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Clare as much as I enjoyed recording it.

There was so much in there that resonated with me, but one thing that particularly stayed with me was her reminder that what we do as therapists is unique and it can be really easy to lose sight of that when we're worrying about finding clients or comparing ourselves with other therapists.

If you'd like to find out more about Clare's work, including the fact that she's got a supervision membership for couples and relationships therapists, you'll find her details in the show notes.

And if Claire's comments about recognising your unique strengths have got you thinking, I'd love to invite you to join Therapy Growth Group.

From the week beginning the 12th of October, we'll be focusing on clarifying your brand together.

We'll be exploring who you most want to help, what makes you unique, and how you can communicate it in a way that helps the right clients find you.

You'll find the details of therapy growth group in the show notes, and I'd love to welcome you there.

Thanks so much for listening and I will see you next time.

Thanks for listening.

Do come and join my Facebook community.

Good enough counsellors.

And for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please Visit my website JosephineHughes.com if you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast app.

And in closing, I'd love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream.

I really believe you can do it.

Sam.