The Growing Pains of Private Practice

It is widely accepted among counsellors that it is rare to make a living from private counselling practice. When you consider the sheer cost of qualifying, it makes you wonder why any of us would bother. What does it say about those that would propose to help cure the emotional ills of others and help them live more happily? Why go to all this trouble and expense?

In addition to the course tuition fees, books and so on, there is the requirement to undertake personal therapy, to pay for clinical supervision while in placement. At the end you come out with a degree and title to put on your business card. If I am honest obtaining a degree appealed to my ego and was a huge incentive for undertaking the course but so was the notion of being able to do something worthy. Following qualification, then the next steps were to become a member of the BACP and registered with the UKCP.

Now what? Having qualified, and having got the credentials, the next task was to launch a counselling practice.

• Prepare a suitable room at home, find a room to rent in town, or both. Check!
• Sort out professional indemnity insurance and appropriate property insurance. Check!
• Get a listing on the Counselling Directory. Check!
• Build my own website. Check!

Now sit back and wait for clients who would be inclined to undertake counselling and  would be willing to pay a realistic fee. But even if they are willing, how do they spot you in among all of the others? Networking with groups of other practitioners is useful for professional development but still does not raise your profile among the public. Writing umpteen letters to GPs did very little to boost trade either.

Clearly, we still need more. It seems we now have to be more subtle and use social media to reach a wider audience, but even this has to be done in two characters. My personal page is only open to family and very close friends but my Inner Calm page on Facebook is starting to show encouraging signs of life.

Now that they can find me, how do potential clients know if I am any good?

What does appear to have helped here is to make myself visible "in the flesh" which is what I tried in March at a Mind, Body and Soul festival in Norwich. This has brought a few solid enquiries and has encouraged me to rebook for November and also attend the Mind, Body and Spirit Festival at the Forum in Norwich on 27th and 28th April. There people get the chance to put a face to the brand and get to see in person what I'm about.

Let's not get carried away with the gloom here. Since I began private practice as my main occupation just over a year ago, I have not been without at least a couple of clients at a time, and my work at Off the Record Counselling Service in Norwich means that counselling is paying its way. Working with employees referred by Aviva Health Insurance has also boosted my work load and means that I may well soon reach the limits of my capacity to practice.

While at the Mind, Body and Spirit Fair, I promoted and then presented a successful mindfully-based anger management workshop  and will be promoting more wellbeing workshops at the Forum. These are really enjoyable to do as you can get such a sense of involvement between those that attend. Limiting the group size to just eight is essential to this.

So, over the next year the aim will be to solidify the counselling, develop and grow the workshops and to offer my services as a wellbeing facilitator and presenter to individuals and organisations. Overall, I have enjoyed the challenge of growing Inner Calm through these incredibly tough financial times to a point where it is starting to happen.  Here's to a viable and fulfilling way of working over the longer term future that is Inner Calm.