Starting a Counseling Practice Success Stories

Starting a Private Practice is the podcast where we talk with therapists about the real, unglamorous decisions behind building a practice that works: who you say yes to, who you refer out, what you charge, and what you do when the thing you built stops feeling good.

This episode is about a measure of success that almost never makes the list. Not caseload, not income, not a new program; whether the clients in front of you right now are actually getting better. Diana came into private practice from county mental health, where you take the next person on the list, and she kept doing exactly that. Clients ghosted, canceled, dropped out without closure, and she concluded she was a bad therapist. What changed was not a marketing overhaul. It was screening in her consult calls, asking clients every couple of months whether therapy was working, and getting honest about the two things she does best. Kelly Higdon hosts.

What You'll Hear

00:00 Introduction and topic overview

02:38 Finding the Right Client Fit

07:17 Consultations and Outcomes Check-Ins

09:03 Learning from Client Feedback

15:09 Defining Clinical Success

15:44 Working Through Imposter Syndrome

18:48 Finding Your Niche and Community

About Diana

Diana is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Menifee, California, working with anxiety disorders and complex trauma. She is an EMDRIA Certified Therapist and trained in Internal Family Systems, and she sees clients in the Menifee, Lake Elsinore, Riverside, and Temecula areas as well as across California by telehealth. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from California State University, Fullerton and her master's in counseling with an emphasis in marriage and family therapy from Pepperdine University. Before private practice she worked in a private hospital and then for the county, where she built the clinical range (and the billing and documentation habits) she still runs on. She offers a free fifteen-minute phone consultation.

Website: https://www.dianakoenenlmfttherapistmenifee.com/

Book a consult: https://www.dianakoenenlmfttherapistmenifee.com/contact

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-koenen-80642836/

EMDRIA listing: https://www.emdria.org/directory/people/diana-koenen/

Resources Mentioned

EMDR International Association (EMDRIA): https://www.emdria.org/

IFS Institute, Internal Family Systems trainings: https://ifs-institute.com/

Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/EREvVypKgxo

Read the blog post: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog/taking-every-client-private-practice

zynnyme free trainings, books, and Business School for Therapists: https://www.zynnyme.com/

Want the Kind of Support Kelly and Diana Talk About?

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: zynnyme.com

Listen, Subscribe, and Leave a Review

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Stay Connected

Website: zynnyme.com

Blog: zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Afraid your private practice will not survive AI, insurance platforms, or another slow month? You are not the only therapist carrying that, and pretending it away is not working.

We asked our community what they are afraid to say out loud. The answers were honest, sometimes heartbreaking, and they pointed at something bigger than any one caseload: fear does not go away because your schedule fills. In this conversation, Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer talk about what to actually do with fear as a practice owner; how to tell inherited fear from the real thing, why somatic work resolves what pros-and-cons lists cannot, and how fear-based advice spreads at therapist networking tables. There is also a guided reflection near the end, so find a spot where you can be still if you can.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to the conversation on fear and systemic challenges

04:00 Somatic approaches to working with fear

14:04 Separating inherited fear from present reality

18:50 Community and connection as support

22:26 Boundaries around fear-based career advice

28:40 Guided reflection: noticing and welcoming fear

34:41 Closing: moving forward with peace amid fear

Resources Mentioned

The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker: https://giftoffear.com/book

Read the Full Blog Post

https://www.zynnyme.com/blog/episode-378-what-therapists-are-afraid-to-say-out-loud

Listen to the Podcast

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Want the Kind of Support Kelly and Miranda Talk About?

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: https://www.zynnyme.com

Stay Connected

Website: https://www.zynnyme.com

Blog: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

#therapistsofinstagram #privatepracticetherapist #therapistburnout #privatepracticebuilding #therapistlife #mentalhealthprivatepractice #somaticexperiencing #therapistsupport #privatepaypractice #counselingpractice #therapistbusiness #nervoussystemregulation

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Starting a Private Practice is where we talk with therapists and psychologists who built practices on their own terms, and get honest about the parts nobody trained us for. This one is for anyone who has done everything they could think of to grow, watched it not work, and quietly wondered whether the problem is them. Kristin left academic medicine, built a virtual group practice for kids and teens, and figured out that the skill she needed to sharpen was not a clinical one.

What You'll Hear

00:00 Introduction to Kristin and her practice

01:35 Building a virtual, accessible practice

03:12 Evidence-based care and outcome tracking

06:59 Leading a collaborative group practice

09:59 Marketing, social media, and SEO

16:12 Growing the practice through business skills

19:36 Staying grounded through growth

22:29 Advice for building a pediatric practice

25:18 Final advice for practice owners

About Kristin

Kristin is a licensed psychologist and the founder of Little Dove Psychology, a virtual practice based in Austin serving children, adolescents, college students, and families across Texas and additional PSYPACT states. Before private practice, she worked in academic medicine at Children's Wisconsin and the Medical College of Wisconsin, including work as the attending psychologist for a cystic fibrosis clinic and research on telehealth group therapy that predates the pandemic. Her practice focuses on anxiety, depression, family conflict, emotion regulation, and ADHD testing and treatment, with evening and weekend availability so kids are not pulled out of school and parents are not missing work. She also runs Little Dove Consulting, which partners with health systems on behavioral health program design. You can reach her through littledovepsychology.com or on LinkedIn.

Resources Mentioned

Little Dove Psychology: https://littledovepsychology.com/

ADHD testing in Austin: https://littledovepsychology.com/adhd-testing-austin

Psychological testing and evaluation: https://littledovepsychology.com/psychological-testing-evaluation

Anxiety therapy for kids and teens: https://littledovepsychology.com/anxiety-therapist-austin

Online therapy in Austin: https://littledovepsychology.com/austin-therapy

Meet the Little Dove team: https://littledovepsychology.com/about

About Kristin: https://littledovepsychology.com/dr-kristin-kroll

Little Dove Consulting: https://littledoveconsulting.com/

Kristin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristin-hunter-kroll-phd-b94a1330/

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KbHnfIZeJS4

Read the blog post: [BLOG URL]

Want the Kind of Support Miranda and Kristin Talk About?

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: zynnyme.com

Listen, Subscribe, and Leave a Review

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Stay Connected

Website: zynnyme.com

Blog: zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Starting a Private Practice is where we talk with therapists who built businesses that hold up in real life, not just on a spreadsheet. No hustle scripts, no pretending the field is easy right now.

This one is a three-year check-in. Whitney was last on the show at the beginning of 2023. Since then she bought two commercial buildings, opened a second location, built a leadership team, and watched roughly fourteen clinicians walk out the door in about eighteen months. She is a private pay group practice owner in Savannah and a consultant, so she is living the turnover problem and coaching other owners through it at the same time. Kelly asks her the uncomfortable version of every question: what is actually working, what did you get wrong, and what are you telling people who are scared enough to get on insurance panels they do not want.

If you have been quietly wondering whether it is you or whether it is the market, this is the episode.

00:00 Introduction and Practice Evolution

02:57 Challenges in Private Practice

06:01 Managing Staff Turnover and Retention

08:59 Building a Leadership Team

11:59 Creating a Culture of Growth

14:58 Adapting to Cultural Shifts in Therapy

18:09 The Future of Therapy Practices

19:09 Identifying Money Leaks in Therapy Practices

21:57 The Importance of Tracking Marketing Efforts

24:20 Optimizing the Intake Process for Success

26:04 Navigating Cash Pay Practices

28:01 Reflections on Insurance Panels

30:05 Excitement for Growth and New Developments

32:13 The Shift Towards Sustainable Business Practices

Whitney is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Georgia and the founder of Water's Edge Counseling, a private pay group practice in Savannah that she started in 2014 and has since grown across two locations. She earned her master's in professional counseling from Richmont Graduate University and has been seeing clients since 2009, in residential, inpatient, and group settings before going out on her own.

She also runs Wise Practice Consulting, where she works with faith-based practice owners at every stage, from launching a solo practice to scaling a group. Her definition of faith-based is wide: it does not require you to be overtly faith-based, only that faith is part of your life somewhere. She hosts the Wise Practice Podcast and runs a community and mastermind groups for practice owners.

Find her at watersedgecounseling.com and wisepracticeconsulting.com, or reach her at [email protected].

• Water's Edge Counseling: https://watersedgecounseling.com/
• Wise Practice Consulting: https://www.wisepracticeconsulting.com/
• Whitney on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wise_practice_consulting/
• Whitney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-owens-85376a27/
• EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System: https://www.eosworldwide.com/what-is-eos
• Ken Clark, referenced on the trend of therapists returning to group practice: https://www.semiprivatepractice.com/about-ken-clark-and-spp
• Whitney's first episode with us, from January 2023: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog/navigating-the-challenges-of-running-a-faith-based-practice-with-whitney

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: zynnyme.com

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Website: zynnyme.com

Blog: zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Starting a Private Practice is the show for therapists who want a practice that holds up: good clinical work, real fees, and a business that does not quietly run on your unpaid hours. This one is not a success story interview. It is Kelly and Miranda talking through what they are watching in the profession right now, starting with health insurance.

The reason to hear it: a lot of clinicians took insurance specifically to be accessible. That logic breaks when the people you wanted to reach no longer have coverage. Kelly and Miranda walk through what actually changed, why therapists have been quietly bending their billing to make the math work, and what it looks like to build access on something sturdier than your own subsidy.

What You'll Hear

00:00 What we are watching in July of 2026

05:20 What actually happened with the subsidies, and who let it happen

07:06 2.6 million people, two very different explanations

09:48 Doctors building around the system: cash pricing, membership models, in-house labs

11:06 The quiet math problem: when therapists bend billing to make care work

12:08 Letting the deductible write the treatment plan

16:54 A better care model, not a cheaper version of a broken one

17:30 Counting who has their hands in the pie

19:17 What happens when you hand your practice to people who do not do the work

22:37 Intensives, extended sessions, and tracking your own outcomes

25:11 Why therapists are already built for a cash-pay world

29:30 More people are looking for us, not fewer

32:44 Drain versus groundswell, and how to tell which one you are in

35:09 Stockholders, platforms, and deciding where you give your labor

About Kelly and Miranda

Kelly Higdon, LMFT and Miranda Palmer, LMFT are the co-founders of zynnyme and the co-hosts of this show. They have been business partners since 2010 and have reached 100,000+ clinicians with trainings, coaching, and a lot of unglamorous spreadsheet work. Kelly brings the operational side; Miranda brings the tech and marketing side. Both of them still think like clinicians first, which is why the business advice here never asks you to trade clinical integrity for revenue. Kelly uses they/them pronouns.

Reach them at zynnyme.com, or start with the free training library at zynnyme.com/free.

Resources Mentioned

Free training library: https://www.zynnyme.com/free

Platform Contracts Exposed: https://www.zynnyme.com/free/platforms

Ditching Insurance and Platforms: https://www.zynnyme.com/free/ditching-insurance

Private Practice Under Pressure: Ethics, AI, and the Fight to Keep Therapy Human: https://www.zynnyme.com/free/private-practice-under-pressure-ethics-ai-and-the-fight-to-keep-therapy-human

The AI Policy Every Therapist Needs, with Dr. Maelisa McCaffrey: https://www.zynnyme.com/free/the-ai-policy-every-therapist-needs

RedBud Surgery Center, Austin, Texas: https://redbudsurgerycenter.com/

Dr. Elisabeth Potter, MD: https://www.drpotter.com/

Are Third-Party Credentialing Platforms a Lifeline or a Trap? https://www.zynnyme.com/blog/are-third-party-credentialing-platforms-a-lifeline-or-a-trap-a-deeper-look-at-the-ethics-and-sustainability-of-alma-headway-and-grow-therapy

Alma, Headway, and the Big Question: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog/alma-headway-and-the-big-question

What to Ask a Recruiter Before Signing a Therapy Platform Contract: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog/what-to-ask-a-recruiter-before-signing-a-therapy-platform-contract

All episodes: https://www.zynnyme.com/podcast

Business School for Therapists: https://news.zynnyme.com/business-school/

Want the Kind of Support Kelly and Miranda Talk About?

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: zynnyme.com

Listen, Subscribe, and Leave a Review

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Stay Connected

Website: zynnyme.com

Blog: zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Every therapist defines success differently, and this show exists to prove it. Each episode, we sit down with a clinician who built something that fits their actual life, not the version of private practice they were handed in grad school. No formulas. No magic bullets. Just real decisions, real tradeoffs, and the reasoning behind them.

This episode is one we keep thinking about. Corrie is a psychologist in the Chicago area doing complex trauma work, EMDR, and deep support for neurodivergent adults and the parents raising neurodivergent kids. She started her practice on one insurance panel because she did not know there was another option. Then she noticed something: the depth of the work she wanted to do, and the caseload size required to make that panel sustainable were fundamentally incompatible. She could not bring her best self to every client, every day, at that volume. So she rebuilt.

What follows is a genuinely honest conversation about ableism in practice design, why she names her smaller caseload out loud to her clients, how parental burnout became her niche without her planning it, and what it took to finally build a course after years of listening. If you have ever wondered whether your capacity is a limitation or just information, start here.

• 00:00 Welcome, and why success looks different for every therapist
• 00:57 Why private practice, and the long road through two doctoral programs
• 03:22 Bridging out: community mental health, a short stint in group practice, then solo
• 04:31 Starting on one insurance panel and why it felt like the only option
• 05:59 Depth work, complex trauma, and what her nervous system was absorbing
• 06:32 The subcontractor problem: one panel, no access, no room for anyone else
• 08:28 How the niche actually formed: EMDR, neurodivergence, trauma of marginalization
• 11:18 Why she moved to working with adults and parents exclusively
• 12:42 Ableism in practice design and normalizing a smaller caseload
• 14:29 Why parents cannot locate the source of the strain accurately
• 16:03 From a full caseload to something scalable
• 21:58 Defining neurodivergence and the rise in adult identification
• 25:52 What it actually takes to build a course
• 29:50 SEO, blogging, and finding the marketing that fit her strengths
• 33:17 You don't compete, you stand out
• 34:27 How Corrie defines success in private practice
• 35:48 Where to find Corrie and her resources

Corrie is a licensed clinical psychologist based in the Chicago area and the founder of Shore Therapy Center for Wellness. She completed dual doctoral programs in clinical psychology and school psychology and is licensed in both fields. She is a certified EMDR therapist and a PSYPACT provider, which means she can offer telehealth across more than forty states.

Her clinical focus is trauma, stress, and burnout, with particular depth in the trauma of marginalization: neurodivergent adults, LGBTQ folks, and parents raising autistic, ADHD, AuDHD, gifted, twice exceptional, and PDA kids. She works with adults exclusively now, which is a deliberate choice she explains in the episode. She is also a parent of three.

Beyond her caseload, Corrie developed a free, research-based parental burnout screener and an online course for parents experiencing burnout, designed with accessibility supports built in from the start.

Find her at shoretherapycenter.com or connect on LinkedIn.

• Shore Therapy Center for Wellness: https://www.shoretherapycenter.com
• Parental Burnout Quiz (free, research-based screener): https://www.shoretherapycenter.com/parent-burnout-quiz
• Parental Burnout Course for parents of neurodivergent kids: https://www.shoretherapycenter.com/online-course-neurodivergent-parent-burnout
• Parenting therapy: https://www.shoretherapycenter.com/parent-therapy-chicago-online
• Affirmative therapy for marginalized adults: https://www.shoretherapycenter.com/affirmative-therapy
• EMDR therapy online: https://www.shoretherapycenter.com/emdr-therapy-online
• PSYPACT: https://psypact.org
• EMDR International Association (EMDRIA): https://www.emdria.org

Want the Kind of Support Kelly and Corrie Talk About?

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: zynnyme.com

Listen, Subscribe, and Leave a Review

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Stay Connected

Website: zynnyme.com

Blog: zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Welcome back to the Starting a Counseling Practice Success Stories podcast! In this special "State of the Union" episode, your hosts Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer step away from guest interviews to share a real-time pulse check on the mental health field. After an intensive sprint working with private practice clinicians worldwide, they reflect on the current emotional climate—acknowledging the heaviness, urgency, and even a lack of their usual laughter as the profession faces both absurd and alarming systemic changes.

Join Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer as they dive into topics like the fast-tracking of AI doctors, the growing power of insurance companies, and the emotional impact of working in an increasingly oppressive healthcare system. They draw parallels between the dynamics of domestic violence and the experience of clinicians navigating insurance, highlighting the importance of safety planning, advocacy, and—yes—finding moments of levity despite it all.

Stay tuned for candid insights, opportunities for listener engagement, and a reminder to take care of yourself as we all try to find balance in an ever-changing, often challenging landscape.

See the adapted wheel and learn more: zynnyme.com/blob/we-adapted-the-duluth-power-and-control-wheel-for-insurance-companies-and-therapists-heres-why

Learn more about AI and Physician licensing: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/ai/absurd-or-the-future-health-system-leaders-weigh-in-on-ai-physicians/ and https://www.physiciansforpatientprotection.org/danger-ahead-ai-not-physicians-to-decide-prescription-refills-in-utah/

Learn more about delayed good faith estimates: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/no-surprises-act-implementation-in-2026-4720339/

Learn more about Business School for Therapists: https://bit.ly/BusinessSchoolYouTube

Website: https://www.zynnyme.com/

Blog: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Instagram: http://instagram.com/zynnyme/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/2456942/

Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/zynnyme/

Check out more episodes of the Starting a Counseling Practice Success Stories podcast and leave a review letting us know what you think

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Therapy transcripts can now be subpoenaed and used against your clients in court. That's not a hypothetical; it already happened.

In this episode of Starting a Counseling Practice Success Stories, Kelly Higdon and Miranda Palmer dig into the Proof News investigation of Kamrass v. AdventHealth, where a woman's Talkspace messages with her therapist were pulled into a pregnancy discrimination case by her former employer. They use it as a way into a much bigger conversation: what therapist-client privilege actually protects now, and what it doesn't.

Kelly and Miranda get into why this isn't just a Talkspace problem; it's a field-wide issue that touches anyone using chat, video, or AI-driven documentation tools. They talk through why "HIPAA compliant" is more marketing than protection, how anonymized data gets de-anonymized, why VC-backed platforms holding your clients' transcripts changes the risk picture, and what it means that these companies are training AI on millions of real therapy conversations.

It's not all alarm. They also offer concrete next steps: how to rethink informed consent, what to look for in a platform's terms and conditions, how to talk to clients about their data, and why being a guardian of your clients' privacy is becoming part of what quality care means. Honest, fired-up, colleague-to-colleague; this one will change how you think about the tools in your practice.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Woman's Talkspace Therapy App Sessions Exposed in Court (Proof News): https://www.proofnews.org/womans-talkspace-therapy-app-sessions-exposed-in-court/
• Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN): https://www.psian.org/

Learn more about Business School for Therapists: https://bit.ly/BusinessSchoolYouTube

Website: https://www.zynnyme.com/

Blog: https://www.zynnyme.com/blog

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Most therapists picture private practice as a solo act. You, your caseload, your name on the door. Allison and Amanda built theirs differently. They left insurance-panel group practice work to start a practice together in Dallas, and three years in, they have something neither of them thinks they could have built alone.

They did not start as a business partnership in any way anyone would recommend, and they will be the first to tell you that. What they did have was years of working alongside each other, a real friendship, a shared vision for the kind of therapy they wanted to do, and a willingness to spend their weekends figuring out the rest.

In this conversation, Kelly sits down with Allison and Amanda to trace the actual path: from meeting in an inpatient hospital, to years in a generalist group practice that discouraged niching, to four months of Saturdays spent building websites and filing LLC paperwork, to a practice now moving into couples intensives. We talk about why they chose partnership over going solo, the SEO learning curve, the mistakes and the overwork, and why riding the wave when your numbers dip is a skill, not a personality flaw.

If you are thinking about niching down, wondering whether to start a practice with a friend, or asking yourself whether now is even a good time to start a practice at all, this one is for you.

What You'll Hear

00:00 Why two therapists chose to start a practice together (and why going solo felt too scary) 02:47 The shared vision: leaving generalist group practice work behind to niche 03:53 Their two niches: couples and emerging adults, trauma and brainspotting 04:30 The four months of weekends spent building the practice from scratch 05:39 Where the early effort paid off: networking and the SEO learning curve 07:11 What stopped working, and knowing when to pull back from events 08:32 Mistakes, overwork, and the five minute rule 08:55 Riding the wave when your numbers dip 10:02 Yin and yang: how business partners fall into their strengths 11:17 Marketing as a group practice while staying clearly specialized 13:19 What they tell therapists who want to start a business with a friend 16:01 Moving into intensives and couples work with both clinicians in the room 16:23 Is now a good time to start a private practice? 22:14 Getting curious about the fear that holds therapists back

About Allison and Amanda

Allison and Amanda are licensed professional counselors and co-owners of Crescent Counseling, a group practice in Dallas, Texas. They met working in an inpatient hospital, spent years together in a generalist group practice, and three years ago started their own practice built around specialized, relationship-centered care. Allison works primarily with couples and emerging adults; Amanda focuses on trauma and brainspotting. Together they offer a couples integrated trauma therapy service with both clinicians in the room, and they are expanding into intensive work. Learn more at crescentcounselingdallas.com

Resources Mentioned

• Allison and Amanda's group practice: https://www.crescentcounselingdallas.com/crescentcounselingdallas.com
• Brainspotting (Amanda's trauma modality)
• The Gottman Institute (Allison's couples training)
• Business School for Therapists: zynnyme.com

Want the Kind of Support Allison and Amanda Talk About?

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. It is a blend of live coaching and self-paced curriculum, plus a community of clinicians who normalize niching, real fees, and clinical depth. Twenty years in, it is the work we wish someone had handed us when we were spending our own weekends figuring this out. Learn more: zynnyme.com

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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

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Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid

Most couples therapy practices look about the same from the outside. Weekly sessions, fifty minutes, sometimes ninety if you are feeling fancy. Irina does it differently. Her North Carolina practice runs entirely on full-day intensives, and every new couple starts with one before any weekly work begins.

She did not get there with a five-year plan. She got there by paying attention to what was working, trusting her clinical gut, and being willing to invest in the support she needed along the way.

In this conversation, Miranda sits down with Irina to trace the actual path: from picking psychology in college because it did not require math, to community mental health, to multiple states and modalities, to discovering Emotionally Focused Therapy through a podcast and impulsively signing up for a training that cost more than her rent. We talk about why she shifted to intensives, what her clients tell her about the difference, what business coaching actually changed for her, and why the community you build matters more than most therapists realize.

If you are thinking about niching down, redesigning your model, or whether to invest in real support to grow your practice, this one is for you.

00:00 Why Irina picked psychology (yes, it had to do with math)

06:11 Choosing self-employment over the 9 to 5

08:53 Discovering EFT through a podcast and an impulsive yes

10:44 Trusting clinical intuition in private practice

14:47 When the language finally clicked

18:06 Designing a schedule that holds virtual work and family

20:21 Learning to trust herself as a clinician

24:13 What time constraints actually do to therapy

28:31 What workplace dysfunction taught her about going solo

32:28 The pandemic shift and what it surfaced

35:59 Advice for therapists who want to specialize in couples work

39:27 Personal and professional pivots without losing momentum

41:25 What real trust with couples looks like

44:11 Why the community you build matters more than you think

Irina is a North Carolina-based couples therapist and entrepreneur whose practice specializes exclusively in EFT intensives for couples. Originally from Moscow, Irina has worked across community mental health, school settings, and ABA before building the private practice that fits her life and her clinical vision. Learn more or connect for intensives at irinabaechlecounselingllc.com

• Irina's couples therapy practice: irinabaechlecounselingllc.com
• Emotionally Focused Therapy by Dr. Sue Johnson
• Hold Me Tight workshops
• Business School for Therapists: zynnyme.com
• Starting a Counseling Practice Success Stories podcast

Business School for Therapists is our flagship program for therapists ready to build a practice that supports the life they actually want. Live coaching, self-paced curriculum, and a community of clinicians who normalize growth, real fees, and clinical depth.

Learn more: zynnyme.com

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starting-a-counseling-practice-with-kelly/id1398391639

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7K8TQ13vJL4L3IvtWLLXV3

Website: zynnyme.com

Blog: zynnyme.com/blog

Instagram: instagram.com/zynnyme

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/2456942

Pinterest: pinterest.com/zynnyme

Facebook: facebook.com/kellyandmiranda

Mentioned in this episode:

Register Now - Therapists choose your pay: The fee formula every therapist needs no matter how you get paid