I Don’t Want to Be a Therapist Anymore. What Else Can I Do?
At some point in nearly every therapist's career, there is a day where you think:
I cannot fucking do this anymore.
😂
Maybe it's after your seventh client.
Maybe it's while writing progress notes at 9:00 PM.
Maybe it's after another insurance company decides that apparently your master's degree, clinical license, and professional judgment are worth $84.37.
Maybe nothing particularly terrible even happened.
You just suddenly realize:
I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my career doing therapy.
And then comes the existential crisis.
Because you spent YEARS becoming a therapist.
Graduate school.
Internship.
Supervision.
Licensure.
Continuing education.
Thousands of clinical hours.
So if you don't want to provide therapy anymore...
What the fuck are you supposed to do with all of that?
The answer is: a lot more than you probably think.
But before we start planning your dramatic exit from the therapy chair, I want to figure out whether leaving therapy is actually what you want.
First: Do You Actually Want to Stop Being a Therapist?
This is the most important question.
Because there is a massive difference between:
I don't want to be a therapist anymore.
and:
I don't want to see 25 therapy clients every fucking week anymore.
Those can feel identical when you're burned out.
So imagine this:
Starting tomorrow, you only have to see five clients per week.
You make exactly the same amount of money you're making now.
Do you still want to quit therapy?
If your immediate reaction is:
Wait...no. Five actually sounds kind of amazing.
Okay.
You may not have a therapy problem.
You may have a caseload problem.
And those require completely different solutions.
Maybe You Don't Want Out. Maybe You Want Less.
Therapists are often presented with this weird binary:
You either work as a therapist.
Or you leave clinical work and start an entirely different career.
But there is an enormous fucking spectrum between:
Full-time clinical work
and
I will never see another client again.
Maybe you want three clinical days.
Maybe two.
Maybe you want 10 clients per week.
Maybe five.
Maybe you want to keep a tiny caseload forever because you genuinely love the work when you're not doing it constantly.
That's allowed.
You don't have to decide whether you want to be a therapist.
You can decide how much therapy you want your career to contain.
Why Do So Many Therapists Want to Leave the Field?
Sometimes therapists genuinely discover clinical work isn't what they want.
But sometimes the problem isn't therapy itself.
It's everything surrounding it.
High caseloads.
Low reimbursement.
Administrative burden.
Documentation.
Productivity requirements.
Lack of flexibility.
Emotional exhaustion.
Insurance companies.
Working in systems that expect therapists to give endlessly while being compensated like our own bills are apparently optional.
You might fucking love the actual therapy part.
And hate the economic structure around being a therapist.
That distinction matters.
Your Therapy Degree Did Not Teach You One Skill
This is where therapists wildly underestimate themselves.
You think:
My skill is therapy.
No.
Therapy is one application of a massive collection of skills.
You know how to:
Communicate complicated ideas.
Build relationships quickly.
Assess problems.
Identify patterns.
Teach.
Facilitate difficult conversations.
Understand behavior.
Write.
Present information.
Manage crises.
Create plans.
Work independently.
Navigate systems.
Translate complicated information into something another human can actually understand.
And depending on your career, you probably have specialized expertise on top of all of that.
Your degree did not give you one possible job.
What Can Therapists Do Besides Therapy?
There are a LOT of directions therapists can explore depending on their education, license, experience, interests, and applicable professional requirements.
You might explore:
Consulting.
Clinical supervision.
Training.
Speaking.
Teaching.
Program development.
Clinical leadership.
Operations.
Utilization review.
Insurance-related roles.
Healthcare administration.
Writing.
Educational resource creation.
Digital products.
Workshops.
Nonclinical services.
Corporate roles.
Mental health technology.
Or something that has absolutely nothing to do with mental health.
You are not legally required to spend the rest of your natural life sitting in a therapy chair because you got a clinical degree.
😂
Consulting Can Be an Incredible Option for Therapists
Consulting is one of those things therapists often overlook because we assume:
Who the fuck would pay me to tell them what I know?
A lot of people, potentially.
Organizations need expertise.
Practices need expertise.
Companies need expertise.
Professionals need expertise.
And you may have spent years becoming incredibly knowledgeable about something that another person or organization does not know how to do.
Maybe you understand documentation.
Compliance.
Clinical operations.
Trauma-informed practices.
Program development.
A particular population.
A specific treatment approach.
Workplace mental health.
Systems.
Training.
The question becomes:
Who has a problem that my expertise can help solve?
That's consulting.
You Could Teach What You Know
Therapists also know an enormous amount that can be taught outside an individual clinical relationship.
Maybe that's:
Professional trainings.
Continuing education.
Workshops.
Speaking.
Educational resources.
Teaching other clinicians.
Teaching organizations.
Creating professional tools.
And this is where your expertise can start becoming less dependent on your individual hours.
Instead of teaching one person something in one hour, maybe you teach 100 people something in an hour.
That's a fundamentally different economic model.
You Could Create Digital Products
Yes.
We have arrived at the internet's favorite answer.
Make a digital product!
😂
Digital products can absolutely be one way therapists create income outside clinical work.
Templates.
Guides.
Educational resources.
Workbooks.
Trainings.
Recorded workshops.
Professional tools.
There are plenty of possibilities.
But please hear me:
Do not make something just because you can.
The fact that you could make a workbook does not mean anyone wants your workbook.
Before creating something, I want data.
What are people asking you about?
What problems keep appearing?
What content gets saved?
What gets shared?
What expertise do people already associate with you?
What do people actually need?
We are not responding to career burnout by spending six months creating another fucking job for ourselves.
You Could Build a Portfolio Career
THIS is an option I wish more therapists considered.
You do not necessarily need to replace:
Therapist
with:
Different Job Title.
Your career could be:
10 therapy clients.
A consulting contract.
Occasional trainings.
Digital product revenue.
Speaking a few times per year.
Maybe some supervision.
Maybe writing.
You could build a career out of multiple things.
That's essentially what diversified income allows you to do.
Instead of asking one job or one revenue stream to satisfy every financial and professional need you have, you create a mix.
And that mix can change throughout your career.
You Don't Have to Quit Your Job Before Building Something Else
Please do not read this article, close your browser, and immediately submit your resignation.
😂
You can build options before you need them.
In fact, I would strongly prefer that.
Maybe you start exploring another income stream while continuing your current clinical work.
You validate an idea.
You build visibility.
You test something small.
You generate your first $500.
Then $1,000.
Then maybe $2,000.
You see whether you actually fucking like doing it.
You gather data.
You adjust.
You don't need to bet your entire livelihood on an idea you've never tested.
Start With What People Already Come to You For
If you're wondering what else you could do, this is one of my favorite places to start.
What do people already ask you for help with?
Not just clients.
Colleagues.
Friends in the field.
Supervisees.
Other practice owners.
Your audience, if you have one.
What do people say:
"Can I pick your brain about..."
What do you explain constantly?
What have you developed a really effective process for?
What do you know substantially more about than the average person in your field?
What problem have you solved for yourself that other people are still struggling with?
There's often a diversified-income idea hiding in there.
Don't Pick Something Just Because It Makes Money
This is equally important.
You are trying to build a career you actually like.
So please don't leave something you're burned out from and immediately build another thing you fucking hate because someone on Instagram told you it was profitable.
😂
Data matters.
Demand matters.
Revenue potential matters.
But enjoyment matters too.
You have to actually want to do the thing.
Otherwise we've just moved the burnout into a different outfit.
Visibility Creates More Options
This is why visibility is such a major part of what I teach.
If people know who you are, what you know, and what you can help with, opportunities become substantially easier to create.
That might mean an audience for a digital product.
But it can also mean:
Speaking invitations.
Consulting opportunities.
Training opportunities.
Professional connections.
Collaborations.
Job opportunities.
Referrals.
Visibility is not synonymous with:
Become an influencer.
It's making sure the right people know what the fuck you know.
Your First Goal Doesn't Need to Be Replacing Your Entire Salary
Let's say your clinical work generates $10,000 per month.
You do NOT need to immediately create another $10,000 per month before anything changes.
Maybe your first goal is $1,000.
That might allow you to see two fewer clients per week.
Maybe eventually it's $3,000.
Then $5,000.
As diversified revenue increases, you gain more control over how much clinical work you need.
You can make the transition gradually.
And you can stop wherever you want.
What If You Actually Do Want to Leave Therapy Completely?
Then leave.
😂
Seriously.
You are allowed to decide that this career no longer fits you.
Your education and clinical experience were not wasted because you eventually use them differently.
You developed skills.
Expertise.
Relationships.
Professional judgment.
Knowledge.
You carry all of that into whatever you do next.
The sunk-cost fallacy does not need to determine the next 30 years of your career.
But I would still encourage you to figure out:
What am I moving toward?
rather than only:
What am I trying to escape?
Because those decisions tend to look very different.
You Are Allowed to Change What Being a Therapist Looks Like
Maybe you remain a therapist forever.
But the way you practice changes dramatically.
Maybe today you're seeing 25 clients.
Five years from now you're seeing five.
Maybe you're consulting.
Teaching.
Creating resources.
Speaking.
Running programs.
Doing work that doesn't even exist yet.
Your clinical license does not dictate the entire architecture of your career.
It is one part of your professional identity.
You get to decide what the rest looks like.
So What Can You Do If You Don't Want to Be a Therapist Anymore?
Start by figuring out whether you actually want to leave therapy or simply want to do less therapy.
Then identify:
What you're good at.
What you enjoy.
What expertise you have.
What people already ask you for help with.
What problems you could solve.
What demand you can actually observe.
And what kind of life you're trying to create.
Then test something.
Small.
Before you quit your job.
Before you create the 97-module course.
Before you redesign your entire fucking identity.
Build evidence.
Build revenue.
Build options.
Because maybe you don't need to choose between:
Being a therapist forever
and
never being a therapist again.
Maybe you just need to build a career where therapy gets to be one thing you do instead of the only thing you're allowed to do.
And that is a hell of a lot more interesting.
Want to Explore What Your Career Could Look Like Beyond the Therapy Chair?
This is exactly what I teach.
I help therapists diversify their income so their expertise can generate revenue in ways that aren't entirely dependent on adding more clients to the calendar.
I've created resources for therapists at different stages of that process, whether you're figuring out what the hell else you could do with your expertise, building visibility, deciding what to create, or trying to turn something you've already created into actual income.
Check out all of my resources for therapists who want to diversify their income here!