290: Embracing Your Couples Therapist Identity with Susan Saint-Rossy

Welcome back to The Couples Therapist Couch! This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

In this episode, Shane talks with Susan Saint-Rossy about embracing your couples therapist identity. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and your other favorite podcast spots, and watch it on YouTube – follow and leave a 5-star review.

• Episode Summary & Player
• Show Notes
• The Couples Therapist Couch Summary
• Transcript

The Couples Therapist Couch 290: Embracing Your Couples Therapist Identity with Susan Saint-Rossy

This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more

Sign up for the June 2026 Cohort of Shane’s Certified Couples Intensive Training (CIT): https://cit.shanebirkel.com/

Get the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Join the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new 

In this episode, Shane talks with Susan Saint-Rossy about embracing your couples therapist identity. Susan is a Couples Therapist and the Owner of Couples Therapist Studio, where she’s a Business and Marketing Consultant for couples therapists. Hear how to run your business as a couples therapist, what clients look for when considering a couples therapist, how to create the signal that makes your practice pop, how to advertise as a couples therapist, and why you should be charging more. Here's a small sample of what you'll hear in this episode:

• Why couples therapists in particular need to charge more
• You can own your private practice as a business AND advocate for systemic change
• How couples seek therapy differently
• How specialization builds confidence, which builds effectiveness, which prevents burnout
• The cultural ghosts therapists carry

To learn more about Susan Saint-Rossy, visit:

CouplesTherapistStudio.com

Relationship-Therapist.com

Show Notes

• 289: Working with Couples Who Get Escalated with Shane Birkel
• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
• [0:29] Welcome to the show Susan Saint-Rossy, couples therapist and owner of Couples Therapist Studio
• [1:54] Susan's background: private practices on four continents, management consulting, and building Couples Therapist Studio
• [3:14] Why building a couples therapy practice is fundamentally different from building a general therapy practice
• [5:10] How couples seek therapy differently 
• [6:38] What that urgency means for your signal: projecting confidence and clarity that you can lead them to safety
• [8:06] Susan's Psychology Today analysis: 316 therapists checked "couples" 
• [9:49] The identity problem: couples therapists being invisible to the people who need them most
• [11:17] Encouraging "baby couples therapists" to get trained, get supervision, and claim the identity
• [13:15] Why couples therapy is a commitment to a journey, not a three-hour course
• [14:36] Why therapists burn out on couples work and how business structure is often the real culprit
• [16:33] Signal as externalized identity, not branding — who you are, who you love working with, what you're good at
• [18:53] How specialization builds confidence, which builds effectiveness, which prevents burnout
• [21:13] This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more
• [22:09] The internal work of claiming an identity: pushing past scarcity thinking and "I should help everyone"
• [23:35] The cultural ghosts therapists carry
• [26:02] Your website has six seconds
• [28:00] Specificity at networking events is important
• [29:26] Signal depends on your environment and what life do you want to build
• [31:19] The fee conversation: a seasoned therapist in a big city afraid to raise her rates
• [32:48] Why couples therapists in particular need to charge more 
• [34:15] Therapists are the only business people who feel guilty about running a business
• [37:10] You can own your private practice as a business AND advocate for systemic change 
• [40:28] Susan's upcoming six-month program "Plenty" to learn coherent signal, marketing pathways, back-end systems
• [41:26] Find Susan at couplestherapiststudio.com and check out her free PDF download: The Signal Problem
• Join the first cohort of the Couples Intensive Therapy Training, June 23–27 in Denver
• This episode is brought to you by Alma. Visit https://helloalma.com/dg/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=privatepractice to learn more

 

What is The Couples Therapist Couch?

This podcast is about the practice of Couples Therapy. Many of the episodes are interviews with leaders in the field of Relationships. The show is meant to help Therapists and Coaches learn how to help people to deepen their connection, but in the process it explores what is most needed for each of us to love, heal, and grow. Each week, Shane Birkel interviews an expert in the field of Couples Therapy to explore all about the world of relationships and how to be an amazing therapist.

Learn more about the Couples Therapy 101 course: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/

Find out more about the Couples Therapist Inner Circle: https://www.couplestherapistcouch.com/inner-circle-new

Transcript

Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.

00:00
Working with people who've had experienced an affair can be incredibly fulfilling.

00:12
Welcome to the Couples Therapist Couch, the podcast for couples therapists, marriage counselors, and relationship coaches to explore the practice of couples therapy. And now, your host, Shane Birkel.

00:29
Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Couples Therapist's Couch. This is Shane Birkel, and this is the podcast that's all about the practice of couples therapy. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist, and the goal of this podcast is to help you learn how to more effectively work with couples and possibly even learn how to have a better relationship. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates.

00:58
Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit helloalma.com or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. Hey everyone, welcome back to the Couples Therapist Couch. This is Shane Birkel and today I'm speaking with Susan Saint-Rossy, Couples Therapist and owner of Couples Therapist Studio. Hey Susan, welcome to the show. Hi Shane, thanks so much for having me.

01:24
Yeah, thank you so much for coming on. I'm excited. I think, you know, we're going to talk about the business of couples therapy and how there, you know, therapists can claim their identity as couples therapists, which I think is so important. But why don't you tell everyone a little bit more about yourself before we get into it? Okay, sure. I've had a private practice in Northern Virginia for about 13 years and have focused solely on couples therapists for the last

01:54
10 to 11 years. Before that, I built private practices on three other continents. So I've actually had private practices on four continents in my career, in Russia, China, Moscow, Beijing, and in Botswana, Havarone. So, yeah.

02:19
So I have lot of experience building private practices. And then before I became a therapist, therapy ah was a midlife change for me. ah I was for a decade a management consultant and marketing director at a large international consulting firm. Okay, great. So most recently I've built Couples Therapist Studio.

02:46
which is a consulting and training company to help couples therapists build the business and marketing side of their private practices. Yeah, that's great. And I think, uh, know, you and I were talking about a week ago or so, and, you know, I think it's so important that therapists, obviously we focus a lot on the practice of couples therapy and what we're doing to help the people we work with. And that

03:14
you know, that's obviously incredibly important. But if you don't know how to run your business or if you're not getting people into your office to work with you and you're not setting things up well, you know, it's going to be incredibly stressful and it's going to be hard to continue doing good work with people. And so I think it's so important that we think about that business side of things and that, you know, I love that thing that you said about like claiming your identity as a couples therapist too.

03:44
And that's maybe a different topic, but I think couples therapists are very different than individual therapists too. Yes. In fact, I think it's a completely different profession. ah What the problem is in terms of building a couples therapy private practice is that it's not the same as building a practice for either individual or just a group practice or something. It's people look for therapists differently.

04:13
when they're looking for a couples therapist. The intake process is different. The couples therapist, if you're really wanting to get couples, the advice that's out there for building a private practice doesn't necessarily apply to you. And um I think that's really one of the reasons I started doing this work is that I felt that people needed to understand

04:41
how couples therapists have to do things a bit differently. Yeah. Yes. Let's get into some of those specifics as far as, know, when you say that some of the people who teach how to build a private practice, that doesn't necessarily apply to couples therapists or that, know, that it's a different type of business or even that the consumer looks for couples therapists differently than they do individual therapists.

05:10
Yeah, I mean, you know, based on what some of your clients have told you, I'm sure, you know, it's one o'clock in the morning. They just had their 37th fight about the same thing. And one of them starts scrolling, uh Googling, looking for help. And it's like, I'm in crisis mode. I need help. We need to get in fast. Things are falling apart. Whereas an individual therapist.

05:39
uh, might be looked for in a really different way. You know, people might be reading, uh, thinking about therapy for a long time, you know, not having the courage or, or, or the motivation to start going. they're, they're perusing websites, they're perusing, uh, profiles on psychology today or however else, you know, or they're asking AI and they're taking their time. And so.

06:09
What that means for couples therapists is that they have to have a really strong signal that says, I am confident. I am a strong couples therapist. I know how to lead you from your crisis to safety and security in your relationship. And that signal has to be out there very, very clearly so that when you're

06:38
you've got somebody in distress at one o'clock in the morning, they find you and say, Oh, yeah, this person seems like they can really help us. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. mean, and I went straight to the exam, not that every couple falls into this category, but I went straight to this example in my head, where somebody finds out about an affair for the first time. And it's just a

07:08
traumatic life changing like crisis where you really want somebody right away. Like you said, it's not like I've been experiencing depression in the last 10 years and now I'm kind of like finally going to go see a therapist. It's like, no, there's this incident that just happened that we just found out about and we need help immediately. And the type of therapist who can help us with that is specific. It's not just

07:37
a therapist who works with depression and anxiety and eating disorders and teens and couples. It's like there are people I think who are really good at helping people through the relationship situation specifically. Exactly. there are a lot of people out there who see couples who do not really

08:06
let people know that they are a couples therapist. I want to give you an example. ah A few months ago, I did an analysis on psychology today. I put in one zip code in Washington DC and about 500 therapists came up in that zip code. Okay. And out of those 500, 316

08:33
had marked the little check mark where you say, do you see? They had marked couples. Out of those, how many of those people, those 316 people actually led with that in their profile?

08:51
I mean, I've seen a lot of psychology today profiles. I would think it was really low, like 30. Yeah, like 23. Okay. 23 actually said in their profile, in their description that they work with couples. They said it in some way. Yeah. Only one person out of that 316 said, I am a couples therapist at the top of their profile. Wow. Yeah.

09:20
I can't believe that. Yeah. So we have a problem with people taking on the identity of couples therapist. Yes. And putting themselves out there, sending that clear coherence signal that that's who they work with. granted, nobody teaches us this stuff. Yeah, totally.

09:49
And also granted, there are people who do work with couples who work with a lot of other kinds of individuals or groups or whatever. Right. Right. But I think there are people out there who are couples therapists who are not real, who are basically invisible, uh, both on any of the profiles that they have and on their websites, uh, they're invisible to couples. that one o'clock in the morning, I just found out I had an, that my husband had an affair or whatever.

10:18
And I'm looking for a couples therapist and I've, know, maybe I find somebody who actually has a page about infidelity. You know, I have one of those pages on my website. Yeah. But, um, you're one of the only ones I think. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, I wonder too, you know, when you think about those 316 people who check that box, I wonder how many of them have actually had any sort of.

10:48
couples training. Yeah, because that's another factor as well, where, you know, someone searching for a therapist and if someone lists off couples with the 10 other things that they work with, you know, I think there are a lot of people who don't do good couples work. I'll just say it out loud. Who, em you know, are therapists, but may not have had a lot of training in couples therapy. right. And what I want

11:17
to encourage in the couples therapy field is for people who are trained to encourage other people to get trained and to encourage what I call baby couples therapists who have some kind of training to take, even though they aren't confident yet, cause I remember, you know, 11 years ago when I,

11:46
decided that I was going to focus on couples and it had some training, I wasn't confident. But to encourage those people to get the training and then to get the supervision or consultation that they need to really take on the identity of a couples therapist. you know, it is important for people to have the training because it is a different beast. And it's so much more complicated in many ways.

12:15
And, know, we can't police it, but we can welcome people into the field of couples therapy and encourage people to be trained in some way. don't know. I don't care how they're trained. I've been trained in Gottman EFT and packed. And I mostly use packed because I like it most, but you know, you've got to have a framework and, you have to be able to.

12:45
embrace the framework and embrace the identity that goes along with the framework. Yeah, and it is an identity shift. I feel a lot of ... I have a lot of support and compassion for people who want to start doing couples work. And I'm very understanding at the beginning that they won't have a lot of experience and they won't have a lot of education because you have to start somewhere.

13:15
And, you know, I really, but it is like embracing uh a path where you're going to be on a journey where it's not just like, oh, I'm going to take a three hour course and then I'll be able to work with couples. It's like, that's totally fine if you're just starting off and that's all you've had so far. But don't look at that as though that's the end of the education that you need. I think there is a

13:46
commitment to continuing to get better and better as a couples therapist and seeing more couples and getting the education you need. Absolutely. you know, I think we can do that without gatekeeping and uh help people develop as couples therapists. I think that's really important. And on the other end of that

14:13
spectrum or on the other side of the coin, I should say, there are the couples therapists or the people who are seeing couples and are getting burned out and are giving it up. I think that has a lot to do. uh The reason I bring it up is I just saw a post in one of the Facebook groups.

14:36
And one person posted that they were going to stop seeing couples and I, know, underneath it, a lot of other people said, yeah, me too. I can't do it anymore. Kind of stuff, stuff like that. think that's partly because people don't have their, business side of their private practice set up in such a way to be able to support seeing couples in a sustainable way. You know, they may be seeing too many couples.

15:05
They may be not charging what they need to charge to feel good about seeing couples. uh They may be trying to see couples in a 45 or 50 minute session, which is very frustrating for a couples therapist. They may be getting the kinds of couples that they don't like to work with because they don't have a clear signal. I keep on using that word, but they don't have a clear signal, a message.

15:35
that says, here's, here's who I work with and that attracts the couples that they really enjoy working with. So, yeah. Yeah. And I think it, when you say signal to me, it's about creating congruence with, you know, where I'm, I can state something like, I am a couples therapist who works with affairs or something like that. And that if there's a couple who's searching for a specific type of

16:04
therapists, they can see who I am and I'm signaling to them so that they know that this is the person who's going to be able to help us with what we're looking for. Exactly. A lot of business advisors for therapists talk about your niche and then they talk about your brand or your branding. To me,

16:33
It's actually more fundamental than either one of those things. Branding seems to be like an add-on. You think about, what do I want my brand to be? What I'm talking about when I talk about signal is really your internal identity externalized. part of the process of figuring out your signal is who am I, who do I want to work with, what feels good to me, what am I good at?

17:02
All those things have to do with your identity as a couples therapist. And then how do I externalize that in my message to my public facing message, my website, my wherever else, my, when I talk to people to get referrals, um, all of that is my signal. And I think people are scared of stepping into that. Maybe part of it is cause they're afraid of getting burnt out.

17:32
They think, I like having a balance of different types of clients because I'm afraid if I step into that, that I'm gonna get burnt out. Well, I would say then they're choosing the wrong signal. right, exactly. So you should be choosing, your signal is who doesn't burn me out, right? Who do I love?

17:59
And sometimes you don't know. I sometimes I'll have a 20 minute consultation with a couple and I sort of hesitate to take them and then I take them and I think they're going to be really hard. And then they turn out to be delightful. And, you know, we move from here to there and it works out really well. And then other times people in a consultation, I think, oh, these are going to be fun to work with or this couple, I know how to help this couple. And then they turn into one of my more difficult.

18:27
couple. it is, it is sort of hard to tell, but you can at least know what you do like and don't like and create the signal that brings hopefully the people in that, that you'll do well with that you can help that it feels good to help, not that burn you out. That's a really good way of talking about addressing the burnout.

18:53
I think is like when I feel like I'm helping the couples achieve their goals, I feel less burnt out. Yes. Right. And so part of it is like if I embrace an identity, I'll just stick with this example of a couple's therapist who works with affairs, for example, and I get specific training around that and I get supervision around that and I start seeing couples in that category, then my confidence is building and my

19:23
feeling of being able to help people effectively is building and building. And to me, that's what is one of the big things that prevents the burnout is when I feel like, you know, what I'm doing is actually being helpful to people seeking help. Exactly. Yeah, it's funny you picked that particular uh signal. I'm not sure I could work all day long.

19:50
four or five days a week. Well, I don't work all, I don't see that many couples, but with just affairs. But, but I feel, you know, at the same time I do part of my signal is I work with people with infidelity issues and I know how to help them and I can, and it's hard work and I take on as many as I feel like I can help. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's whatever.

20:17
you know, whatever floats your boat basically. And if you, you know, I think working with people who've had had experienced an affair can be incredibly fulfilling. know, when you know how to do it, know how long it takes can help people deal with, you know, the frustration that it takes so long and

20:45
get them to the other side into a stronger relationship. I mean, that's such a fantastic thing to be able to do for people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Building a private practice can be challenging. Filing all of the right paperwork is time consuming and tedious. And even after you're done, it can take months to get credentialed and start seeing clients. That's why Alma makes it easy and financially rewarding to accept insurance.

21:13
When you join ALMA, you can get credentialed within 45 days and access enhanced reimbursement rates with major payers. They also handle all of the paperwork from eligibility checks to claim submissions and guarantee payment within two weeks of each appointment. Plus, when you join ALMA, you'll get access to time-saving tools for intakes, scheduling, treatment plans, progress notes, and more in their included platform. ALMA helps you spend less time on administrative work

21:42
and more time offering great care to your clients. Visit helloalma.com or click the link in the show notes to learn more. I'm wondering if you feel like it's, you know, part, if you could speak more to that sort of hesitance of people who, to step into some sort of identity of who they want to work with and, you know, how, how, do people or there, you know, therapists get clear on

22:09
on that for themselves about like what their voice is or what you know what are the types of people they help the best? it it's partly about being able to claim yourself right? I mean it is it's a it's an internal maybe we want to call it individuation and differentiation. ah This is who I am and this is what I'm good at and this is what I like to do.

22:37
And to claim that is tricky because we get these external messages from our culture, our therapist culture. You know, we should be willing to help anybody is one message that we get. And another message is there's scarcity out there. So if I say who I really want to work with, then I'm not going to get enough clients.

23:06
And actually the opposite is usually true. ah Because if your coherent signal is out there, then the right people will find you rather than people finding you. And then it turns out you're not the right person for them and you've wasted your time in a consultation with people who either can't afford you or just not right for you. I could talk a long time about the culture of therapists and

23:35
I call them the ghosts that come down from our ancestors, our most recent ancestors. know, in 1977 was the first time there was a court case and it was the first time that medical professionals, including therapists, were allowed to advertise. Okay.

24:04
And I think that there's still a residual effect in our culture uh that prevents people from feeling like they can really claim who they are and advertise themselves, their practice, uh without offending or calling too much attention to themselves or doing things that just feel a little icky.

24:33
to a lot of therapists. So, you know, you have to sort of push through all that. Yeah, because you really have to think about I letting people know who I am and what I do and what I'm good at is serving people. Right. It goes back to that idea that that just helps people find the right person for them. Yes. Yes. And if you're invisible,

25:03
Or if you're too general about who you are, people aren't going to find you. It's really interesting. I've never really thought about that because there is this sort of like old school medical responsibility. Like I'm a, I'm a doctor or I'm a professional who serves people in a certain way. And it's like, I, I don't want to look like a business person. I don't want to look like a marketing person.

25:32
um That's a whole different thing. um But I totally get what you're saying. Again, if there's someone who's really good at working with eating disorders, and I'm struggling with that, that's the person I want to see. And if they're not putting information into the world about the fact that that's what they do, then I might not ever find them, and that's the person who could help me the most.

26:02
Right. And I think what people are not trained to do at all is this part of it. You know, how do you put yourself out there? You know, it's marketing. People don't like to think of it as marketing, but it's marketing and you need to either, you know, educate yourself about it or get some help. You know, for example, if you have a website,

26:32
Somebody's going to look at your website and I think it's like within six seconds or eight seconds, figure out if they want to stay on your website. So your signal has to be there. Blinking lights. Very quickly. That means that you have to figure out how to express your signal, not just in your words.

27:02
and probably the words are the most important, but also in the way the website is designed. Yes. You know? And you know, graphic designers are good at this and there are website templates out there. But like, if I go and look for therapy website templates, almost all of them are this pastel colors and muted colors and, you know, pictures of

27:31
stones stacked up and fields of wheat. mean, that's not going to keep anybody on your website. It's important to invest in a website. and if there are 100 therapists in your town and everybody has the exact same website, then nobody knows

28:00
who is the right person to help me with my particular issue. Same thing like I think about if you go to, let's say you go to a networking event with like 20 therapists and therapists are introducing themselves. If you say, I'm a therapist and I work with everybody, then no one's really gonna remember who you are. If you say, I work with couples, a lot of people are probably gonna have referrals for you.

28:29
because I think there a lot of therapists who don't want to work with couples. Yes. And they're going to be excited to know that there's somebody who worked with that particular issue. Right. And if you say, work with, especially if you're in a metropolitan area, I work with couples who are entrepreneurs and own a business together. Right. Very specific. Very specific.

28:56
I mean, that's not going to work in a rural county, right? I mean, if you're in a rural rural county, you're just going to be somebody who works with couples. Right. And and and or you maybe you see people all over the state or have several state licenses and then you can say I you can have a more specific signal. I mean, so the signal isn't completely dependent on who you are. It's also dependent on your environment. Yes. That's good to know. Yeah.

29:26
Right. So right, because we're thinking about who we serve. But we're also thinking about like, what kind of business do I want to create for myself? What kind of life do I want for myself? What does my life look like when I have my ideal business? Right. And, you know, if I want to work with something very specific, like couples who are entrepreneurs or something like that.

29:55
then yeah, maybe I have to be willing to see people on Zoom because I need the whole state in order to capture some metropolitan areas or something like that. If I'm someone who really likes seeing people in person and I live in a small area, I might have to say I work with all couples because it's gonna be people who are coming to my office who are within a certain distance and I'm drawing from a specific population.

30:24
These are a lot of different considerations as I'm building what I want to build and thinking about who I want to help. And there are other things that have to do with building a business that supports your life, which I think a lot of people who burn out have a life that supports their business. Yeah. And it's things like, hours am I going to work?

30:53
How many hours a week do I wanna work and what do I need to charge per hour to make the kind of money that I need to make to support myself and my family and have a life? All of those things are things that are part of uh creating a structure for your business that works for you. um

31:19
Last summer I was at a master class for couples therapist and I was talking to this really successful, really seasoned um couples therapist. she was asking me about the business part and I asked her how much she charged per hour. And it wasn't that much. um And I told her that she could raise her fee.

31:49
significantly. And she said, I don't think I can, I don't think people will pay that much. And she was like in a big city. uh And it was, you know, there are people out there who like to have low fee practices, because they, they are driven. You know, that's, that's their mindset. They're driven to help whoever can pay that fee. You know, want to be accessible. uh And, and I'm all for that.

32:19
you know, if that's if if they don't need a certain income, then that's fine, you know, and we need people we need people like that. But there are people there are a lot of therapists out there who are suffering because they are not feeling confident enough to raise their fees. Yes. And I want to say this, you know, couples therapist in particular,

32:48
need to charge more. Yes. Because couples therapists will burn out, I believe, if they see too many couples every week. Yeah. And I would say it's becoming conscious of why you're doing what you're doing. Like you said, like it's great if there's someone out there who

33:15
wants to be of service to others, and they're willing to charge a really low rate or take insurance or, you know, and they feel really fulfilled by helping the people they work with. That's great, right. But I think what you're talking about is like, if I have a practice where I feel like I'm just trying to survive, and I'm really suffering, and I'm having a hard time paying the bills, and it's like, I'm not

33:45
being conscious of what's true? Is it really true that if I raise my prices, people won't come and see me anymore? Is it really true? You know, that maybe other therapists will look down on me if I have higher prices, or think that I'm greedy or something like that. It's like, what are the beliefs that are coming into the reasons I'm making this decision? And how is that getting in the way of the ideal practice I want to create for myself?

34:15
Right. And, you know, I think the therapy business therapists are the we and if you're in a if you have a private practice, you are a business, you are a business person. therapists are the only business people who worry about this. Doctors don't necessarily worry about this. ah Doctors in private practice. And unfortunately,

34:44
You know, we live in a sort of post-capitalistic society where there are all kinds of external problems that, that, you know, put pressure on some people to do things that aren't good for their own personal benefit. I don't know if I said that right. That's a good way to say it. get it. Yeah. Like, like people, I mean, as there, let's just stick with therapists specifically.

35:13
Like there are government policies, there are insurance companies that influence us, there are all these external things going on that we don't have control of. And I think there's a lot of pressure that gets put on the therapist to sort of take a lower amount of money or, you know, work in systems that are much more difficult to work in than they should be because of all these external things. And it's like, if that, that to me, like that's not a good reason.

35:43
to continue suffering if you feel like you are. Yeah, I totally agree. And, and, you should say it's not the therapist who should be to blame for the systems not working. Yes, yes. And I like to think of there, you know, a private practice, I'm probably deluding myself. But I like to think of having a private practice as

36:11
not necessarily being a part of the capitalistic system, but being a part of the system of commerce. Commerce is just just means exchanging service for money. Yeah, goods for money. And and that's what we're doing. And you know, we are inside this really messed up health care system and etc, etc.

36:40
And, you know, every person has to make decisions about how they are going to conduct their own business. But I think it's important not to take on the weight of the world and make your decisions about how you're going to run your private practice uh based on, you know, guilt or external influences that prevent you from having a life that you want to live and being able to support yourself financially. Yeah, that's great.

37:10
And it's like, one of those things where I think two things can be true at the same time. Like as an, as an individual therapist who's building a practice, you have the right to build your business in the way that you want to. And at the same time, you can advocate for government changes that provide a set therapy for everybody. I mean, I think that would be a, a really good thing to happen and to move.

37:37
you know, government institutes into doing the right thing as far as paying therapists and helping people get the services they need. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, know, it's just really about owning that if you are in private practice, you're a business and there are things that you need to do to succeed and they're, they're goals that you need to set for yourself.

38:05
and including financial goals that are realistic for the way you want to live your life. And you can do that and still care about what's happening externally uh and not take on the burden of it. Yeah. And I love this idea somebody had told me at one point. It's like a lot of times we can help

38:35
you know, let's say that if somebody doesn't get our help as a couples therapist, they would end up having a divorce. They're going to end up paying so much more for their divorce and through that process than they would for whatever the therapy services are. And the reason I say that is because it's hard to put a value on changing someone's life. Yes.

39:02
it doesn't always work out into like, you know, your one hour of your time is worth this much. You know, because if people can get the outcomes that are going to really transform their life, like they would be more than willing to, you know, pay some fee for that. Yeah. And therapists are in the strange situation. I can't remember the, there's a,

39:30
a marketing term for this. They're in the strange situation of not really being able to show uh specific outcomes. Right. Right. Because we have to hold confidentiality so we can't talk about what's happened in our previous. So how do you market? Everybody else can market and say, this is the outcome. I have all of these testimonials or I have all these statistics.

39:59
We can't do that. So we have to find other ways of showing how valuable our private practice or our service is. It's a challenge. Yes, for sure. Well, I know we just have a few minutes left here. Anything else you wanted to mention about building a couples therapy practice or your own program or anything like that? Yeah. um

40:28
Right now I'm working individually with a few couples therapists, but in the near future I'm going to be offering a six month program called Plenty, which is a structured program to help couples therapists develop their coherent signal that they can put out to the world and then to find the pathways that they want to use to market their signal. In other words,

40:57
you know website profiles networking and then beyond that SEO advertising Things like that and then also just the back-end systems to support a good well-working private practice so that's in the works I'm looking for people who are interested in that and um I have a website. It's

41:26
couplestherapiststudio.com. And on my website, there is a free downloadable PDF called The Signal Problem that explains this idea of coherent signal that you can go to my website and download. And then there's a couple of other things that you can get either free or low cost.

41:56
Oh, that's great. I'll put the link in the show notes to your website so people can find that. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. That's super helpful. And I mean, this conversation is so important and I feel like it's really helpful for people to hear. So I really appreciate you and appreciate what you're doing for couples therapists. Great. Thank you so much. I am really excited about doing more for couples therapists. Yeah. Great.

42:23
Well, thanks Susan. It's been great talking to you and hopefully we can catch up again sometime. Great. Thanks so much, Shane. The episode this week is brought to you by Alma. They make it easy to get credentialed with major insurance plans at enhanced reimbursement rates. Alma handles all of the paperwork and guarantees payment within two weeks. Visit helloalma.com or click on the link in the show notes to learn more. And thank you again, everybody. This is Shane Burkle and this is the couple's therapist couch.

42:51
podcast. It's all about the practice of couples therapy. I hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time. Bye everybody.