Thriving Therapists Circle

Liberate your life and community by engaging the practice of setting fees.

Setting fees isn’t just about how much money we make. It is about honoring our capacity, valuing our gifts, and leveraging a shift in our culture toward more liberation and abundance.

Many therapists experience difficulties around setting fees and these challenges often contribute to being overworked and underpaid.

Have you ever thought any of the following?

  • Charging higher fees means I’ll be judged by clients or colleagues.

  • I’m not qualified, old, or skilled enough to charge that much.

  • I don’t know how to embody both accessibility and abundance.

  • I’ve been conditioned to believe that I can’t charge as much as cis-het-able-bodied-white-man.

  • Talking to clients about money makes me deeply uncomfortable.

  • I’m exhausted from seeing so many clients each week and I dread looking at my calendar.

  • I have no idea what “charging what you’re worth” means for me.

  • I’m afraid of losing out on community or being out of solidarity with my values by increasing my fees.

Setting and communicating private pay fees can be one of the most uncomfortable and confusing parts of running a private practice.

On the one hand you feel pressure to “charge what you’re worth” and on the other there is a pull to “not charge too much” and risk becoming inaccessible.

It can feel impossible to know what to charge or how to feel confident in your pricing.

There is a serious cost to not thriving in private practice. We risk becoming burned out and resentful about the work we do.

Being able to take time off becomes nearly impossible and even if you do there is a cloud hanging over your head because you know you are not making money.

It becomes hard to find clarity about who you are truly meant to work with because you feel pressure to say yes to anyone who calls.

Ultimately, this is a disservice not only to our lives, but the people we work with. When we don’t honor our financial needs we collude with a culture that devalues our works and demands we over extend ourselves.

There is a better way! Setting fees can be an avenue for liberating not only yourself, but the collective, too.

“In a fractal conception, I am a cell-sized unit of the human organism, and I have to use my life to leverage a shift in the system by how I am, as much as with the things I do. This means actually being in my life, and it means bringing my values into my daily decision making. Each day should be lived on purpose.”

– adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy

Hi, I’m Abby.

I’ve been a social worker for almost 15 years. For many of those years, I agreed to salaries or set fees that barely allowed me to make ends meet. I regularly worked 50-60+ hours a week and was perpetually exhausted in mind, body, and spirit. I congratulated myself for always being busy and “affordable,” even though I was burned out and often resentful of the work. In May of 2020, during the height of the pandemic, I hit my breaking point and knew that if I didn’t make some serious changes, I was at risk for a complete breakdown.

Since then, I have committed to finding a different way. I’ve learned practical business strategies that aren’t rooted in capitalism, spiritual practices for unlearning the conditioning from living in a colonial paradigm, and mindset tools for healing my relationship to money and how I value my gifts.

The healing that has occurred in my life around money and work didn’t happen overnight, and I think quick fixes are a capitalist scam. But I am grateful to say I can now open my calendar and feel peace, knowing I am in balance and working with people I love. I can show up more fully for my life and community and have the margin financially and energetically for investing in systemic change. I live in more integrity with my values and know I am leveraging the system toward more liberation.

People often ask me, “How do you not burn out from being a therapist?” and I have found the biggest factor has been making enough money and creating a new relationship with the work that isn’t dependent on me being overextended in some capacity. We absolutely need the healers of the world to be liberated and abundant. This isn’t just about making good money; it is about leveraging the system toward more liberation. I created the Thriving Therapist Circle because I want to share what I have learned with other healers so together we can create a more liberated and abundant culture.

What is covered in Thriving Therapists Circle?

Practical Teachings

  • No more willy nilly fee setting. Use a proven calculation to determine the pricing model that works best for you and your business.

  • Talking about money with clients doesn’t have to be scary. Find language to share your fees with confidence and receive scripts for guidance when discussing money with clients.

  • We need money to exist in this society and running a business to make that money doesn’t mean we have to embody capitalist practices. Learn how to build a successful business on principles of liberation instead of capitalism.

  • Learn tools for creating accessibility in your pricing without your time and bank account having to take the hit.

  • Your gifts are not meant for every single person. Get clarity on who you are meant to work with and how this work can attract those people.

Spiritual & Mindset Work

  • Explore how you can be in deeper integrity with yourself through how you set your fees. Through this work you’ll find deeper authenticity and relationship with yourself and the people you work with.

  • Compassionately examine and bring healing to how you may have colluded with cultural conditioning that demands we over extend and devalue our gifts.

  • The capitalist, colonial, patriarchal paradigm wants to keep us isolated. Experience how this work is not just about individual healing but building a deeper connection to all living things.

  • Learn mindset skills (from woo to practical) that will help you move out of scarcity and into abundance.

FAQs

  • Therapists who have a commitment to social justice and are ready to show up for the work with more integrity and less over extension. I speak about my values here and welcome you to check them out see if there is alignment.

  • This is not a religious program and you are not expected or asked to believe in anything religious in order to participate. To me, spiritual refers to the individual and collective healing needed in order to leverage a more liberated paradigm.

  • Clinicians of any experience level are welcome to join! This is a great place to start if you are beginning your practice or thinking of starting one so you can ground your practice in a liberated and abundant mindset.

  • We will cover some of the basics of bookkeeping in order to help you with the practical side of things. However, this is not an accounting or bookkeeping program.

  • This program doesn’t cover negotiating with insurance companies around your fee. This is specifically for private pay fees.

  • There are no refunds for this program once you have signed up. I trust you to make a thoughtful and intentional yes if you sign up and commit to the payment.