⚖️Embracing the identity of a 'businessperson'

Apologies! This is coming on a Thursday instead of the promised Tuesday. Sometimes people ask me how I manage to do so many different things. And the truth is, I don’t always manage. :)

Sometime back, a non-therapist friend shared with me how registering their freelance consulting work as a business made a lot of difference to how they approached conversations about money with potential clients.

Therapists in private practice often shy away from calling themselves a ‘business person’. Perhaps due to the cold, unpleasant connotations of the word, which seem so starkly opposite to the warmth and caring nature of therapeutic work.

I have often argued that the business side of therapy can be beneficial for therapeutic journeys of our clients. I believe that it could be supportive for the therapist as well. 

Our discomfort with the word ‘business’ might be contributing to an unease with money. This can further make it difficult to engage with difficult conversations about finances, set fair fees or refuse sliding scale requests without feeling guilty.

What if we reframed our relationship with being a ‘businessperson’? Embracing this identity need not mean that we are compromising on care-it can actually be empowering. This can open up avenues for feeling differently about our fees and increase our confidence while having conversations about finances.

What do you think? What can embracing the identity of a business person do for therapists?

Until next week,
Suvrita

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