7 Steps to Help You Find and Settle on Your Therapy Niche in Private Practice

Part 1: Your First 4 Steps

In my first two blogs about therapeutic niches, we discussed what niching down actually means for you and your practice and how a niche can help prevent burnout. We’ve seen how niching down helps make you an expert who builds stronger client relationships, allowing you to build a more sustainable and stable practice.

But often the question remains, “How do I find my niche when I’m used to working with everyone?”

Finding your niche is about figuring out what you do best and who you are most passionate about working with so that you can consistently work with your best-fit clients.

In this blog, we’re going to talk about the specific steps to identifying your niche. No matter where you are in your practice, this blog will help you figure out the specific steps to finding the niche that is right for you.

Remember that, as we discussed in the burnout prevention article, your niche should increase your satisfaction, not make your work harder. So the niche you settle on is important.

Finding a niche is important, but it’s going to take some time. Let go of the urgency, private practice is a marathon, not a sprint.

It Doesn’t Have to Be a Specialty

Before we get started brainstorming, I want to talk a little bit about a common assumption many therapists have about niches. The assumption is that it has to be a specialty, or something like depression, anxiety, or neurodivergence. 

But that isn’t necessarily what I’m talking about when it comes to a niche. Yes, it can be a set of symptoms or a diagnosis.  But it can also be a group who has a certain career, people who are at a certain place in life, or even people who have something in common.

Some niches I’ve come across vary from law enforcement spouses, parents of neurodivergent kids, or even pet people. Other examples are artists, people going through a divorce, or even mothers grieving when their child completed suicide. 

Lifestyle or identity niches are just as valuable as diagnostic niches. Many people want to see therapists who really understand their experience. So when you are thinking about your niche, you don’t have to just stick with a diagnosis. When you are doing your brainstorming, I would like you to keep that in mind.

We’re going to start with some introspection and then put it all together to find the niche that brings you the clients you enjoy working with the most.

Step 1: Brainstorm Your Interests

Let’s get started with the first step. Looking at all the possibilities and dreaming about who you want to work with. 

When you think about your work as a therapist, what excites you?

What books do you enjoy reading the most and actually finish?

What workshops are you most excited to go to?

Let’s start with some judgment-free brainstorming. Grab a piece of paper or open a new document, and let’s make a list of possibilities.  Don’t worry about whether it seems realistic or if there are one hundred other therapists seeing the same group. For now, just write the ideas that seem interesting.

Here are some things to consider in your initial brainstorm;

• What do you find yourself researching in your free time (not for a client)?

• What presenting issues are really interesting to you?

• What therapeutic approach feels most genuine and authentic to who you are?

• Are there specific times of life or challenges that you feel drawn to help with?

• Are there conversations with colleagues that really engage your interest?

Through this brainstorm, you might realize that you are really interested in some of the new trauma treatment styles. Or find that you are really invested in helping LGBTQIA+ teens thrive. You might find you are passionate about helping new moms or creative professionals.

At this point, you might have a lot of ideas that seem like they would be fun. Don’t worry, we’re going to help you get there. But for now, it’s completely normal to have a lot of ideas.

When it comes to your niche, your interests do matter. Your interest will keep you excited and engaged even when you hit a road bump.  Working with something you are passionate about helps make doing the research and training required to become an expert easier and more fun.

Go ahead and get started brainstorming, and we’ll see where this path leads.

Step 2: Who Were Your Dream Clients

Let’s look at possible interests from a different angle.  When you first decided to become a therapist, who did you picture yourself working with?  Before all of the realities of the job really hit home, who did you want to work with?  Who did you see yourself helping the most?

What did you dream of doing, and where did you believe you would make the biggest impact?

For a lot of us, we had a particular group of people that we wanted to help when we decided to go to school.  Not everyone decides that niche is their thing, but it is something that you were passionate about at one time, so it’s worth exploring.

You may have wanted to work with high-conflict couples, mothers with addictions, or suicidal teens. Keep these in mind when you are thinking about what you might want to work with now.

Try to answer these questions in your brainstorming.

• Who did you picture yourself helping at the beginning of your journey?

• What work did you feel the most called to- what challenges, what population?

• How were you hoping to help?

• What were you most drawn to during training?

Like I said before, not everyone’s dream is what they want to work with later, but it will give you some insight into where you might be the most passionate.

During this exercise, some therapists realize they have drifted far from the original therapist they wanted to be in the day-to-day pull to make enough to live. You might find the journey to find a niche might help you refind your authentic self.

Others realize that their first vision of who they would be as a therapist was too idealistic, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t find the clients that will be the best fit for them.

Now let’s look at who you are today professionally and personally.

Step 3: Your Flow Clients

So now that we’ve done the initial brainstorming and looked at what our hopes were before we got bogged down with the realities of the actual practice of therapy. Let’s look at your reality now. So in this step, we are going to look at your current caseload and your recent clients.

So now we are thinking about the clients that you flow with. The ones that you leave the room feeling energized and excited. Where you walk out and feel like you know you chose the right career.

This step is all about looking at the clients you currently work with and recognizing any patterns that you notice in the clients you have worked with recently.

It is important to remember that the niche that will be the best fit for you won’t necessarily be what you thought it would or even what you originally thought you wanted.

When I started out, I thought I wanted to work in substance abuse, but quickly realized that this wasn’t the best population for me to work with. I now know that I do best with parents and parenting issues.

Often, this will naturally emerge as your niche when you take a really close look at the work that you do now and have done in the past. 

So pay attention to the clients that you do your best work with, but also pay attention to the opposite.  Which clients are difficult, fill you with anxiety, and leave you exhausted and frustrated?

Remember, our long-term goal is to start attracting the right-fit clients in your niche, so figuring out who the clients you don’t work well with is just as important as the ones you work well with.

So when you are thinking about your current and recent caseload, here are the questions to ask yourself:

• Which clients do you connect with easily?

• What presenting issues are you the most confident working with?

• Which session flow the most naturally?

• Do you have certain clients who consistently give you genuine positive feedback?

• Which clients most commonly send you referrals?

• What age groups or populations seem to connect with you?

Now, many therapists will look at their caseload and say the clients that fit this bill are all different and have nothing in common. But once you really look closely, sometimes it isn’t the issue they are coming in with, but how they think about it.  For example, your favorite clients might be a stay-at-home mom, an engineer, and a college student, and from the outside they look as though they have nothing in common. But when you really think about it you notice that they are anxious perfectionists or they have a very avoidant attachment style. And that might be your niche.

Through this process, you might realize that you work really well with young adults who are failing to launch. You might notice that your clients in the middle of major life transitions experience life-changing breakthroughs in the room with you. Or that you are really good at recognizing codependent patterns in alcoholic families.

We are looking for the clients where the work feels effortless.  Not easy, but the connection and progression feel natural.

This process might tell you nothing new. It might just give you permission to niche down into the group of people you love working with the most, and you already knew this. Or you might find that the work you do best is with a group you never even really considered as a possible strength or niche.

This practice clarifies your genuine strengths and where you are your most authentic self as a therapist.

Now let’s look at how your own personal identity and experience can help you to find your niche.

Step 4: Your Personal Identity or Experience

For some therapists, this can be controversial, but when you have personal experience with an issue and you have worked on it yourself and gotten to the other side. You can really help your clients.

Your own experiences, background, and identity can help you find your therapeutic niche. Your past challenges, communities you belong to, and your experience can help educate the empathy you feel for your clients and what might help them.

This allows you to authentically connect with your clients in a way that other therapists don’t.

Now this doesn’t mean that you have to share your story or identity with clients if you don’t want to, but it does mean that you might have a unique experience that can assist you in picking a niche.

There are parts of our client's experience that we really never truly can understand unless we’ve been there ourselves.

Think about your own life. Did you struggle as a neurodivergent teen? Have you experienced the overwhelm and exhaustion that comes with being a single parent to twins? Are you a military spouse trying to figure out how to fit in on base?

The key is recognizing the places in your life that you have worked through and can work with others without being triggered regularly. But also recognizing the places in your life where you might have unique insight that others don’t have.

Some things to consider:

• What life experiences have shaped you the most?

• What communities do you belong to that might benefit from culturally competent therapy?

• What have you personally overcome?

• What do your friends and family come to you for advice about?

• What aspects of your identity do you wish had been better understood at a younger age or when you reached out for help?

You might discover your experience of postpartum rage gives you a special view. Or your time as an accountant helps you to understand corporate America in a way that other therapists don’t. Your own divorce might help you to understand the conflicting feelings that few others do.

This isn’t about oversharing or getting your own needs met. It’s about using your lived experience to help others get to the other side as well. If you have done the healing, you are hoping to help others have, it will give you a unique understanding that enriches the work you do with your clients.

One concern I’ve heard other therapists express is that maybe the fact that they’ve had this experience limits their credibility or makes them seem less professional. But it’s often the opposite. Clients can sense when you understand on a deep level whether you are open about your own experience or not. It creates a deep empathy that others can’t experience.

Your identity and experience can help inform your niche and improve the work you do.

Let’s move on to the next few steps.

Take a Little Break

So now that we have some brainstorming to do I’m going to give you a little break to roll these ideas around in your head. Take some time to think about these ideas and think about some of your own cases.

Remember that there is not pressure to make the perfect decision or do it all right now.

Focus on brainstorming for now. Next week we will take the next steps towards actually settling on a niche.