The Expense of Therapy Explained

 
 
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If the cost of therapy seems outrageous to you at first, let me explain. You should know where your dollars are going and why.


Therapy is an intimate, emotional experience for therapists, too. I truly care about every single one of my clients. It takes an immense amount of emotional, mental, and physical energy to sit with someone’s deepest and most intense experiences. And then we need to be able to respond in a helpful and meaningful way. After a full week (which is not 40 session hours by the way), I am pretty drained. Fulfilled for sure. But also tired.


We have graduate degrees and extensive, specialized training. Also loans.


Therapists in private practice are self-employed. We do not:

  • have paid time off

  • have included health insurance

  • have included retirement plans

  • do 40 sessions in one week

Taxes and expenses (rent, professional fees, etc) are taken out after the fact. So this means that your session fee does not go straight into my pocket.


Insurance companies pay therapists around HALF of what a session is valued at. This forces therapists to take on more clients than they can handle in order to pay their bills, which leads to burnout and worse quality care for each client.


Let me emphasize that last point. Insurance companies, who are some of the lucrative organizations in the world, are not paying therapists even close to what they deserve. We are living in an era of a mental health crisis! It’s always most effective to vote with your dollar.


Yes, therapy can be expensive. But have you ever thought about how much you spend on going out to eat a month? Or on morning coffee or that new sweater? Would you rather be mentally healthy and support your therapist who legitimately helps you or have that new (insert non-essential item here)?


I get it. I impulse buy things I don’t totally need on Amazon more than I’d like to admit. But if you can afford to pay out of pocket for therapy, you absolutely should. We all have an ethical and social responsibility to pay the appropriate fee for services we are benefiting from.


It is worth every penny to pay for a therapist who is a good fit for you and who can honestly help you change your life. Can you even put a price on your mental health? Invest in yourself.