This Business of Therapy

Category: Managing Your Practice

  • The One That Got Away…

    Disappointments and failures can hold us back from risking again

  • VAT on Counselling and Psychotherapy Fees

    When Counsellors and Psychotherapists provide services to clients for a fee, and, where those fees exceed the €37,500pa threshold, those services are liable to VAT at 13.5%. Once the threshold is reached, all of your fees are subject to VAT, not just the excess over the threshold amount. Last July, Counselling and Psychotherapy services were…

  • Managing Your Practice and Personal Integration

    As with all business aspects of private practice, managing our practices offers us many opportunities to grow and develop as a person. Many people see our work as distinct and separate from business, and part of my mission is to change that perspective! In previous articles I have written about how engaging with the business…

  • Starting Out? Avoid these common mistakes!

    I’m often asked what in my view is the biggest mistake that people make when setting up a therapy practice for the first time. It’s hard to see what’s the biggest, but there are a few that crop up again and again. Spending too much time and energy on clients and their issues, and not…

  • Willingness to Create a Practice

    There’s a saying that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Taking that first step, and each of the steps that comes after it asks our willingness to move. Willingness is an essential attribute of being a small therapy practice owner. Not just willingness to do the client work, but also…

  • My Own Best Boss

    I’ve often said in these articles that when we are self-employed we are both the boss and the employee. I was thinking about that recently, and wondering what sort of a boss I would like to be to myself? The job of the boss is many layered. The boss Directs the business Monitors progress Supervises…

  • Plan For A Better Year

    When we first set out to establish our practices, there are so many things we have to think about and so many decisions we have to make. It can be a bit overwhelming. However, time invested in really thinking through some of the issues involved provides great holding and support for us in the early…

  • Earning a Living From Therapy Practice

    A recent article in the Irish Times said that an average family spent between €45, 000 and €50, 000 between running their home and car, food, property and water tax, education and childcare. This figure does not include income tax, PRSI or USC, nor does it include provision for retirement. If we estimate that those…

  • Creating Support for Our Practices

    I have often written about the need to provide ourselves with sufficient support to start or develop a therapy practice. When I worked in the accountancy profession many years ago, I had two trainees in my team at one stage. They were as different as chalk and cheese as the saying goes, and there was…

  • It’s The Eurovision…Again!

    It’s the Eurovision song contest, again. I’m old enough to remember when it was a huge event, the highlight of television viewing. We would be allowed to stay up late to see it, and there was excitement for weeks in advance about the Irish entry and its potential. The scoring was particularly exciting, and “Nul…