Should You Offer Therapy Clients A Free First Session?

Hi, and welcome back. And if it's your first time here, it's really great that you found us. I hope you're having a good day. So today we're going to talk about something that's often debated amongst therapists, and that is the pros and cons of whether to have a free initial session or not. And the truth is that just simply isn't a definitive right or wrong answer.

You know, as with so many things, this is literally your business and therefore it's up to you, how you choose to run it. But you know, that's not really very useful when you don't actually know what you want to do yet. And you're trying to work out what's. Best for you to do. So what I'm going to do today is I'm going to look at some of the pros and cons of charging for the initial session.

So here are some issues for you to really just reflect on to help you to make your own choice. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start off by looking at, some arguments for having a free first session. Okay. So if you have a free first session, clients will get the opportunity to come and meet you and see if you're going to be a good fit for them, which is great, you know.

The therapeutic relationship is paramount and therefore anything that you can do to help that get started and, you know, establish that relationship is a great thing to do. There's, you know, there's research on this. It's, it's proven that the therapeutic relation is so important and it doesn't matter which modality that you use.

So yeah, so it's a chance for people to just come and meet you and see if you just have the right fit for them, you know, because finding the right therapist just isn't very easy. Just recently, I've had a very good friend asked me for help to choose a therapist because it felt like almost an impossible task.

They said, they said that there were so many counselors all saying the same thing. It made it impossible for them to choose the right person. And I'm actually going to talk about this in the next episode. So keep an eye out for that. So yeah, being able to meet them. To meet somebody helps them to make a decision, helps their decision making process.

So they can meet somebody that's the right choice for them. So that's good. You know, obviously, and on the same sort of ilk, but in a slightly different way, you meeting somebody gives you the opportunity to meet them and ensure that they're the right person for you. So are you going to be working within your competencies?

And if you're not. Then you can refer them on so you can make sure that, you know, somebody is not coming to you. That's sort of not a good fit or outside of your competencies. Basically, it also gives the client the chance to shop around for the best fit counsellor, which is great for the client, you know, they get the chance to go and maybe try two or three different counsellors to see whether, you know, which one of them fits best with them, but it's not so good for you because it's actually just wasting your time.

You know, it's. It's taking up a lot of your time. So those are the reasons why you might be wanting to offer a free first session. So let's have a look at the reasons why you might decide not to offer a free first session. Now, the first thing is, and this, I know this is obvious, but the first thing is that the, the session might be free for the client.

But it's not free for you, is it? You know, you're going to be out of pocket if you have to rent a room or if you have to travel. But it's not just about a financial cost, is it? Because it takes a lot of emotional energy. Because often that first session can be really tough. You know, there's a lot happening, it's a lot for you to hold and the first session can be exhausting. So, you know, don't underestimate the effort involved in taking a first session.

And remember, some people charge more for a first session due to the complexity of it. And it's not just about your professional energy, but it's also taking your own personal energy as well. So you're meeting someone new. So if it's somebody like me, who's an introvert, meeting someone new might not be your favorite thing to do, but also, you know, you're a busy person.

You've got only so much energy to go around. So you want to be preserving as much energy as you can. And remember, whether it's a first session or a. 21st session, you're still going to be using all of your skills and all of your knowledge. And therefore I believe that you should be paid for it. You know, you've worked hard.

You, you know, you've gone through all that time, money, and effort to gain these skills, to gain this knowledge. I believe you should get paid properly for it. Because for me, it kind of balances the relationship in the therapy room, you know, because in the therapy room, it's all about the client. Of course, it's all about the client.

You know, you're making it all about them. You're spending all your time fully listening to them, concentrating on them, helping them and working with them. But things can become difficult when therapists always give and there's no reciprocal take, okay? So if you're giving and giving and giving, and then you don't get the chance to take anything back from them, then it becomes very unbalanced.

So charging clients a fair fee is really a part of really good counsellor self care.

Something else to consider when you're offering free sessions is it takes up a lot of time. I mean, obviously, I mean, it's obvious, isn't it? But if you get three inquiries a week, that means that you're potentially working for three hours of unpaid work. You know, three hours of unpaid work is a lot. Now, when starting out, offering a free initial session is probably more possible and you might have more time available, but once your practice builds, could you find the extra hours a week for unpaid client work? It kind of becomes more difficult, doesn't it? And it's not just as simple as not having the time to devote to free work for clients. It could be that you've got other commitments, you know, maybe you've got another job or you've got kids, which means that you maybe just don't have the time or the energy to work for free.

And that's fine. That's absolutely fine. Why should you work for free? It's okay to be paid for what you do. Now, if the client has a first session free, they might feel obligated to go with you, you know, no matter what, which kind of defeats the object of having that first session free really, doesn't it? So, yeah. So if they have to pay for that first session, then you know that they're really serious about coming to therapy. You're really, they're really serious about committing to it because they've put their hand in the pocket, so, you know, it. It can really help to stop people coming along to try to get free therapy.

I mean, I have heard anecdotal stories of people coming along and going for a free session with one client, one counsellor and a free session with another counsellor and just doing that. So, you know, it's worth just being aware of that.

But the other thing, you know, it might just be as simple as the fact that you need the money. You know, that's, that's one of the realities of life, isn't it? Maybe you just simply need the money and maybe it's as simple as you just don't have time, you don't have the time to be working for free, you know, maybe you just can't find the time in your schedule.

To offer for free to somebody that you, you know, that you don't need to basically, and that's okay. There's nothing wrong with asking for money for the service that you provide. So I want to just talk a little bit about my experience of charging for the first session and how I managed it. Now, I know that money is often a really difficult subject for therapists and as such, the default position for many new therapists is not to charge, which yes, it sounds attractive and it feels easier to do that.

It's like, right. Okay. I really feel awkward about charging. Therefore, I'm just not going to. So it means that you don't have to step out of your comfort zone, but. You know, personally, I've done both, so this is what's happened with me when I first started out, I used to offer a free consultation, but with the benefit of hindsight, you know, I know now that maybe that was due to my own lack of confidence around charging for counseling, you know, and then when I stopped offering a free initial session, and that was because I'd started to get more busy.

And I'd started to get a little bit more confidence. I was actually really surprised to find that there was no difference in the number of inquiries that I had, or the number of people contracting with me. And like I say, I've got anecdotal evidence from talking to other therapists that they've experienced the same thing.

So could it be a lack of confidence that puts you off charging for your time from the onset? It really is worth some reflection or, you know, maybe discuss it supervision because, you know, like I say, You work hard, counselling is hard, you deserve to be paid, it's as simple as that. Now it's also worth considering that in many other health and wellbeing professions, things like acupuncture or, you know, chiropractor, the initial appointment often has a higher price than the regular appointment because they usually allow more time for a detailed history taking.

Okay, so, you know, there are other people that actually charge more for a first session. So while we're talking about that, what are some other ways that people might manage initial appointments? Well, I think the main one, and I think this is the one that probably most people do, is just to have a free telephone conversation. I would give it a time limit. So it could be, you know, you can offer a free 10 minute or a free 15 minute or a free 20 minute.

Telephone consultation, whichever you want. Remember, you're not there to do any counseling. You're not there to, you know, really listen to their stuff. You're really there just checking that you're going to be okay. You know, your, your competencies are. Going to cover what they want to talk about, and they just have a chance to connect with you.

And again, see if you're the right person, but by just bounding it and saying that you offer a free 15 minute telephone conversation, then that lets people know that when they call you, there's only a limited amount of time because left unchecked, people can talk for a long time on those, on the phone, on those calls.

Something else you can do is charge a lower price to ensure that your costs are going to be covered in that first session. So you're not out of pocket, which I think is a good idea. But equally, you're a professional counselor. I think you should get paid for working. To be honest, that's my opinion.

You might also consider getting them to pay extra for the initial consultation due to complexity. So you might actually have, you know, a full on assessment. And that may be something that takes a long, you know, that. Could take an hour and a half, and therefore there might be an extra charge due to that.

So, like I say, it really is up to you, what you choose to do. You've probably got the gist that I personally think you should get someone to pay for an initial session. That's my personal opinion. You can make your own mind up. But as I say, I'm all for counselors getting paid to do the job that they do. I know you love what you do.

I know that you do. But. You should still be paid to do it. That's what I think. That's, that's my two penny worth. So yeah. So like I say, there really is no right or wrong answer. Only do what's right for you. But remember, nothing is written in stone. And if you currently charge and you don't want to anymore, or you currently don't charge and you do want to, you can change it.

All it takes is you deciding to change it and then just see how it goes. You know, that's, it's as simple as that. So that's it for today. Thank you so much for tuning into the grow your private practice show. And I hope that you found today's episode, useful and it's given you something to think about, to help you to grow your private practice, but also be paid to do it as well. Now, if you're looking for additional resources to help you to achieve your goals, then be sure to take a look at my website.

It's growyourprivatepractice. co. uk, and you can access free guides and resources there to help you to take your practice to the next level. And don't forget to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform. So you never miss an episode because next week, like I say, I'm probably going to be having a little bit of a rant. So, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time on the Grow Your Private Practice show. You take care. Bye bye.