How I book 22 sessions a week on referrals only

I stopped ads about a year ago. I know, I know. Everyone says you need them.

And after seven years of paying for directory listings, I can count on one fist how many paid clients I acquired from them: null. Zero.

So I removed myself from all the directories.

You know what a directory is, really? It is you and nine thousand other therapists in your area, and your potential client swiping left on all of you.

A drop in a bucket is generous.

The colleagues I know who struggle to fill their calendar are missing one crucial thing. They are missing trust.

People do not pick a therapist out of a menu. They do not hand their most private thoughts to a stranger because the stranger had a nice profile on PsychologyToday.

Going to therapy means allowing yourself to be vulnerable, and vulnerability requires trust, and trust does not come from an ad.

So I don’t play this losing game anymore.

What I do instead is what my business coach calls “publishing useful information.” His rule: demonstrate that you understand the problem. Do not tell the client how to solve it themselves.

I do not tell anyone how to get over guilt or anxiety.

I put something in front of them that feels uncomfortably familiar. I grab their attention and exercise my authority without spilling the beans.

A few months ago I contributed articles to my-cbt, such as What’s it costing you / giving you? and Spotting your thinking traps. From these two alone I received well over 30 inquiries, about half of them became paid clients. My submission to Reddit from last week, What’s most likely, not most scary?, is already doing the same.

These clients told me they reached out because they felt like I already knew them before we met.

Isn’t that interesting? I stopped doing everything that we are told to do, and I get 10x the results, if not more.

Even my own website is not written with my private clients in mind. I am even somewhat obnoxious in some of my letters. Not on purpose, though. Honesty sometimes requires offending someone.

Yes, my clients read these messages. And that is why they keep coming back to me. Go look at my site, Uncensored Therapy, or the articles I posted on my-cbt, or even on Reddit. None of them is generic self-help advice like “how to get over your anxiety” or “5 ways to think positively.”

I pull the curtain back and show my thinking as a therapist. I say what I actually believe and what I actually do. Some come to the first session with this worksheet already filled in and ask for portal access before I bring it up.

That is the whole strategy. I do nothing else to bring clients in.

Why am I telling you my secrets?

Because we are not in competition. That is what the directory companies want you to believe, so you keep paying them to fight over page one.

There are more than enough clients out there for all of us. They are not scarce. But they only choose the ones they trust. And right now, most of them are scrolling past nine thousand strangers, waiting to feel like someone already knows them.

How are they going to feel that about you?

xx, so...

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