Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive
Welcome to Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive, the ultimate resource for mental health professionals ready to step into their power, grow their practices, and create a career they love. I'm Dr. Kate Walker, a Texas LPC/LMFT Supervisor, author, and business strategist who's here to show you the path to success.
Formerly Texas Counselors Creating Badass Businesses, we’ve rebranded because, well, we’re way too big for Texas now! This community of badass therapists is growing nationwide, and we’re here to help you create a career and practice you love, no matter where you are.
Every week, you'll get practical advice, proven strategies, and motivation to help you build a thriving practice—one that gives you the freedom to live your life on your terms. From mastering marketing to designing scalable systems and becoming a clinical supervisor, this podcast is your roadmap to leveling up without burnout.
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Badass Therapists Building Practices That Thrive
143 Behind The Couch: Therapists Reveal What They Wish They Knew Sooner
Get your step by step guide to private practice. Because you are too important to lose to not knowing the rules, going broke, burning out, and giving up. #counselorsdontquit.
No, that's a great background, All right. Well, we're messing with backgrounds and that's that's okay. I like your brick wall.
Speaker 2:Studio 54.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're using Riverside today, and so it's a little bit different than Zoom and we're trying to get used to it. So welcome everybody. We're going to talk about things that therapists wish they knew earlier in their careers. And, jennifer, you have a different perspective because you're early in your career but you are working with potential supervisors and this is in Texas and people have to be licensed five years to be a supervisor. So you're at least interacting with people later in their careers and you know you're getting to know them, and I am later in my career, so I can give that perspective too. So too. So what's your first thought when you think about that?
Speaker 2:I think a lot of what I hear is when they were first starting out, trying to balance should I go into private practice? Should I go into community mental health? You know, should I try and cram all these hours in at once and just not really figuring out where their niche was and how to kind of focus on that and build out from there so that they could potentially market to associates later on or grad students, just kind of that like cram it all in at once sort of thing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you don't think they're really thinking ahead about supervision, like all the business part that goes with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of people, because it's five years down the road, they like breathe a sigh of relief after they get fully licensed and they don't start planning for. Is this a path I want to take?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense, Because nobody talks about becoming a supervisor when you're a brand new licensee. So it's not like you're thinking of that as your next step or anything like that. It's just sort of like, oh, oh, I found this course online. Or oh, I found this, this can do the next thing that I do. Yes, I mean, you're not thinking. Well, you probably are thinking about becoming a supervisor and what that will look like.
Speaker 2:But a lot of people in my shoes aren't. They're just trying to keep their head above water right now and they don't think what's the what's my end game, what's the long term? But they don't think about burnout. They don't think about do I want to see, you know, 35 clients a week from here until I'm 80.
Speaker 1:I think that's one thing, because when you start out, you're so excited about seeing clients and if, if somebody is listening to this or watching this and you're a consumer of therapy, as as we all should be, um, this might shock you a little bit, because when we start off as counselors, of course we're like, ah, give me more clients, give me more clients. But I don't know how many years in I started looking at my schedule and being like, oh my gosh, I can't see all these people. And I remember there was this moment I was having dinner with my husband at a restaurant and I just was eating my food. I wasn't talking or interacting. I felt like I had like the thousand yard stare and he's like what's wrong? I'm like I had a full calendar today. I had a full day of clients.
Speaker 1:You know we call it burnout. We call it, you know, job stress or I mean whatever you want to call it. I don't think we really let new counselors know the vicarious trauma that you're going to encounter. You know, I mean it's, it's real right. I mean you're yeah, I just saw somebody walk through your wall.
Speaker 2:That was cool.
Speaker 1:Thank you, rylan. Like a Harry Potter moment. We just went through the wall. Can you picture now the vicarious trauma? Well, you can, because you're you have a law enforcement background.
Speaker 2:So this is yeah and it's a. It's a lot. You know you talk about your comment about the full calendar. People don't realize when they come from other professions or even working like a Chick-fil-A or retail from 8am to 4pm, solid Like I can get up and go to the bathroom if I need to stretch my legs or you know, a coworker comes in and talks to you, but if you have eight clients in a day, you are. You are bouncing from one client to the next with really no break and people don't talk about that. They don't realize that. It was funny because I was talking to a girl who teaches at my daughter's dance studio. She was so excited because all these parents want private lessons with their kids with her. She's just stacking that calendar. I said just because there's 12 hours in a day doesn't mean you need to schedule 12 privates. She just looked at me and said you're going to get burned out. You can't sustain that.
Speaker 1:Wait, you got to say that again because it blanked out. Oh sorry, Uh-oh Hold on.
Speaker 2:I don't know if this is my internet or yours, hold up. It says my internet.
Speaker 1:Is it yours or mine?
Speaker 2:Is it yours. It says it's mine. Can you hear me? No?
Speaker 1:I can barely make it out.
Speaker 2:It's really windy here today. I'm going to try to go to another room. It's me. We're going to travel, yep.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:We are resumed. Okay, it's like I told her just because there's 12 hours in the day doesn't mean you need to schedule 12 different private lessons, and I think that holds true for any Take your glasses off.
Speaker 2:Oh sorry, it's okay. Um, I it's like I told her just because there's 12 clients in the day, I mean 12 hours in the day, doesn't mean you need to schedule 12 private lessons. And I think it holds true for anybody, especially counselors, because you know we're we're having to hold space for 12 different people and their trauma and their past and what's going on, and I mean that's exhausting. I mean it would be exhausting to do that for four hours a day and much less schedule 12 clients back to back. It's definitely not sustainable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think people understand early in their careers that they're ever just going to get tired of hearing it, and it's not what clients think. So, clients, if you're listening to this, it's not that we're sitting there going, oh my gosh, would this person shut up? It's. It's not that I mean we're in this job because we love it. We're in this job because we're trained to listen and it's almost uncontrollable, like when I listen to someone. I'm a really good listener and it's actually like a skill I'm really good at. So it's not that we're tired of your story, it's just that when we go home it's hard to put your story away, right? So it's. It's like collecting things, like everybody collects things they love, and then one day you look in that corner of your house and you're like, oh shit, look at all the stuff I've collected and it's you know I'm hoarding trauma oh my gosh, that's gonna be the title of this trauma hoarders.
Speaker 1:yeah, that, okay, that'll. Alarm, sorry, alarm went off, went off. But there's no way easily for us to get rid of trauma. And you know it's actually clients, because I know there are a lot of people out there that are they're either looking for reasons to go to therapy or they're looking for reasons to not go to therapy, right? So if they're listening to a video or a podcast like this one, they're like aha, I knew they hated listening to us. Well, no, no, we don't. You're also not harming us, right? I mean, just because we are having some vicarious trauma or we're not able to drop the story immediately when we get home, it doesn't mean you're hurting us clients. It just means that we need therapy too. Right, and you know that's probably something that professors talk to students. I don't know, did your professors, or do your professors I mean, you've got your master's degree, you're working on your PhD Do your instructors ever say, hey, you guys, don't forget, you need to get therapy too.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, you know, I think in some programs it was more like oh, you know, therapists need therapy, you know you need to be in therapy, and it almost came across as like uh, there was something wrong with you and that's why you needed to make sure. And then some professors did a better job of explaining you're carrying a lot of weight around and you can't, you know, like if, if I have a bad day, I can call my friend and be like hey, susie, I had a crap day and unload on her. But if my client shares this God awful thing that happened to them, I stuck with it. It's going to become baggage I carry around with me, unless so. So some professors did a better job of explaining that is your opportunity to to offload some of what you've picked up that you can't call your best friend and be like oh my God, this crazy thing happened today in therapy.
Speaker 1:So and that's the other thing too. So people who clients out there, potential clients a lot of people think that we, we do, we just call it a therapist and go, oh my gosh, guess what? Guess what we heard today. Or guess what happened today. We don't do that. We have a little thing called confidentiality we have. We are governed by federal laws like HIPAA, and depending on what state you're in or what your license is, you're governed by that as well. So it's layer upon layer upon layer of confidentiality. We are the keepers of secrets. I mean we don't wear collars, but we're priests. I mean we keep your secrets.
Speaker 1:That is, I told my kids that I remember when I was younger and I was changing careers and becoming a counselor, and they're like what is that I'm like? Well, I'm a professional secret keeper, and so I can't just come home and tell my husband, oh my gosh, guess what happened today. Or I can't just call my best friend and say, oh my gosh, what happened today? Here's what happened today. So, yeah, I mean it's funny though you say some professors do a better job than others, I'll never forget I was in this class and I loved my program.
Speaker 1:I went to Sam Houston State University go Bearcats. And I had this wonderful professor and I was talking about how when I watch a movie, so when I'm in a theater and this happens at home too I find it very, very difficult to disconnect from the story on the screen, like I can't go to scary movies, I just can't. I. And I told him one of the tricks and I'm telling the whole class this right Cause, that's what you do in counseling classes you just bury your soul. That's what you do in counseling classes, you just bury your soul. So I told them I I take my eyes off the screen and I'll look at the curtains or the walls or the little sconces for the lights, and that helps me disconnect from the story. And I remember he just looked at me and he went uh, kate, you need therapy. And I was like oh shit, I overshared. Oh no, kate, you need therapy. And I was like oh shit, I overshared.
Speaker 2:Oh no, yeah, it puts you, it makes you feel this, you kind of get an it like why? And it makes you so to the professors that did a good job of saying no, this is why I really, really genuinely appreciate that, because nobody wants to go to counseling class and be like, oh, you're a head case, go get some therapy, sorry.
Speaker 1:Well, and those of you who are listening and you're not in Texas Well, in Texas, associates can now start their own private practice. Associates can now start their own private practice. And so I got I don't know if you can tell, but I just got the most amazing haircut I did. It's wonderful and I love hairstylists because of their business model. So I'm sitting in the chair and I'm picking the person's brain because she's one of the owners of the shop and she's telling me all about how they train everybody, from the staff to the most experienced cutter, hair cutter, hairstylist how to do business. And so I think one of the things that they don't tell us early in our career is you're going to have to know a little bit about business, and I know that's like if you're again, if you're a client, you're listening to this going what Y'all don't know how to do business?
Speaker 1:No, no, we don't Not at all. I mean, when you started working for me and you started learning all this stuff, I mean, is it were you kind of surprised by the number of people who didn't know business, or what we were teaching them?
Speaker 2:A thousand percent, I'm still surprised.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, don't know, or they don't think they know, or what we're teaching them.
Speaker 2:The people that don't know. And there I feel like there's groups of people. There's people who think they know and they don't know, and then there's people who don't know and aren't interested in knowing. And then there's people who don't know and it's just completely beyond their frame of reference because in graduate school they don't talk to you about that. They push you to go to community mental health. Go to, you know, intensive outpatient programs, go to like residential treatment centers, because you're new, you don't know what you're doing, you've got to get your hands dirty to get your hours. And so by the time somebody gets the point where, okay, I don't need to schlep through the mud of 50 clients a week, I need to shift, they have no idea what they're doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I'll take it from the perspective of the other end People who have been in a career in agency work or hospitals or schools, and they think, oh, I'm going to retire and go into business, and it's like, oh, but you haven't, you know, and it's, it's not. I mean, it's like a lemonade stand, right, I mean that's what we call it in the Facebook group. Every Wednesday, we open the lemonade stand so people can post all their businesses in the thread, you know, and it's a lemonade stand, is an exchange, right, you give me money, I give you lemonade, and just something as simple as okay, I've got to collect money. At the end of this hour there's so many pieces, pieces and parts of that. And, yeah, those, those of you who are listening, I have no idea that we don't know this, we don't know this, we don't know any of this.
Speaker 2:Well, even for me, because I started working for the state of Texas at 19 years old. So the state of Texas said you come to work at this time and you leave work at this time and you take lunch at this time and this is who your health insurance is and this is how many hours of vacation we're going to give you and this is how many hours of holiday. And I did that for 15, 16 years. That was my entire life. Like I knew, on the first of the month the state of Texas was going to put my paycheck in my account, I didn't have to say, hey, state of Texas, um, I know we just had a really rough conversation and you poured a lot out and you may be broke, but I need you to pay me. And that is a huge part of this business component is we have rapport with this client and now we have to tell them they owe us money, because it's not a friendship, it's not a mutual relationship. There is an exchange of services and it makes people very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:It's asking for money is harder than you think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's so, asking for money. You mentioned something that I experienced early on, which was paying taxes. Right, because when you work for a company, they just take your taxes out. Well, I didn't know, I had to take my own taxes out, and that was a fun lesson to learn at the end of that year.
Speaker 1:And then there were those people I mean you had done business before, you didn't just work for the state of Texas. I mean you had, you had side hustles that you had done before. So you did know how. You do know how to do business. So that's the other thing too. We've got people who, early in their they're early in their second career or they're early in their third career, they've been a realtor or they've been an airline pilot or right. I mean they do know how to do this, and so they're kind of on the spectrum.
Speaker 1:Okay, I know how to do business, but do I know how to take care of myself? Do I know how to market these services that are intangible? Right, we can't put counseling on a shelf and polish them and dust them every day and make them pretty. How do we showcase that on a website. How do we help people understand what it is and how many sessions do you need anyway? I mean, those kinds of things are just not taught and, again, that might surprise people. I meet so many people who think, well, I have to have weekly sessions, right. Like I don't know. I don't know if you need weekly sessions, right. I mean that's part of an intake. There's an assessment process, there's a treatment planning phase. All of these things are very business related, because we can't project based on your person or your interview or your assessment. We can't necessarily say, okay, I need you for 10 sessions, I'm going to hit the button and we're just going to get paid for that. I mean, so this business component isn't paid for, that I mean. So this business component isn't run by some person in a corporate office somewhere. We are the corporate office, right, so we've got to make these business decisions. So, yeah, super fun stuff and people who are later in your career.
Speaker 1:I would love to hear from you guys. If anybody wants to make comments, don't forget to post in the comments and click subscribe. Don't forget to do that. And, jennifer, thank you. Next video y'all tune in, look for what you do and do. Therapists need therapy. Watch the next video and you'll see. Do therapists need therapy? Watch the next video and you'll see.
Speaker 2:Okay, where's?
Speaker 1:your little cut thing. Yeah, really, I have to give you another link, but we'll see I'm going to hit stop.