What is a Niche and Why Does it Matter to Your Therapy Practice?
Burnout doesn’t have to be a rite of passage as a private practice therapist.
As therapists, we all start our careers working in agencies and government programs. This means that we all start our careers as generalists. So we all know what it’s like to work with a wide variety of people and in a wide variety of modalities.
They do this at the beginning of our careers for a couple of reasons. First, it’s when we have the energy and stamina (theoretically) to see all the people and all the things.
It also helps us learn what we are good at and what we enjoy. On top of that, it teaches us what we don’t like and what we aren’t good at i.e. who we should be referring out later in our careers. (ironic isn’t it?)
But we aren’t all meant to be generalists. None of us is meant to see everyone and do everything, especially for our whole careers. When you go into private practice, seeing everyone and everything means that you are spread thin and overwhelmed by keeping up with the research and different modalities to treat everything. This is where finding a niche comes in.
There are therapists out there who can see everything and everyone and enjoy it. At the same time, few therapists have the energy to keep up with the research on all of the possible things that could walk through your door. Specializing in the clients that you do your best work with and love to see improves your effectiveness, satisfaction, and wallet as a private practice therapist.
Let’s learn more about what a niche is and how it can help your practice.
What is a Therapy Niche?
The word niche is of French Origin and originally meant “to nest”. Eventually, the word made its way into ecology, where the word described the place in the ecosystem where an organism fits and is most likely to thrive. (Thank you for your patience while I linguistically nerd out for a minute)
This is interesting when you think about how it’s been applied to business and marketing. In the therapy world, a niche is a specialty that you take on in your practice. It can be anything from a modality, a population, or certain personality characteristics.
Later in this article, we’ll talk more about how a niche can help, but for no,w let’s look at some examples of successful niches;
LEO Spouses
High-Achieving Healers
Tech Entrepreneurs
Neurodivergent folks
Teens who have large feelings
Children
Children with anxiety
Existential Depressives
Really, anything can be a niche if it is something you enjoy working with and it’s something you are good at.
Why is a Therapy Niche the Cornerstone for a Successful Practice?
Now let’s talk about why a therapy niche is important to your private practice. There are quite a few reasons why it’s important; some of the things we are going to cover later in this blog are how it impacts your marketing, mental health, and wallet.
Claiming a niche makes a difference in the feel of your practice overall. First, it allows you to specialize, which gives you a chance to focus your research, training, and the information you seek. It also allows you to focus your work because you don’t have to change modes every time you are with a different client.
When you see similar clients, you start to recognize patterns and common experiences.
For example, when you see mostly women who have just gotten out of rehab, you know what relapse looks like and how to help them get back on track. Or when you have worked with families where a child has an eating disorder, you know the interventions that are most likely to shift the dynamics and make a difference. You are also less surprised by things that come up, and you feel more confident in the work that you do.
Focusing on similar issues with all of your clients reduces the cognitive load you carry at work and makes it easier for you to stay present and work with the client that is directly in front of you.
On top of that, the more clients you work with who have dealt with similar struggles, the more you understand what they have been going through. This helps build a stronger therapeutic alliance because the client feels and is better understood.
You are also able to build more confidence because the more you specialize, the more consistently you are helpful. Being able to really focus the training and research you consume makes a big difference in your ability to build a mental cache of information and interventions that are actually helpful for the clients that you work with.
It’s like claiming a niche allows you to become an expert in the area that you enjoy working in the most. In some ways, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Why is a Niche important for filling your practice (marketing)
Having a niche in your therapeutic practice also helps you to market and or fill your practice more easily. Think about it this way: if you are looking for a doctor for your thyroid condition (and insurance wasn’t in control), you would choose to see a thyroid specialist over a general practitioner.
Or if you were going to get a tutor for your child, you would get someone who at least specializes in the subject your child is struggling with, not just a tutor who works with all grades and subjects. We all want someone who knows how to help us with the particular problem we have.
So it helps to fill your practice by attracting the clients who are in your niche. It also helps to fill your practice because it is easier to market to one specific population. The marketing saying goes “if you are talking to everyone than you are talking to no one” and this is true. If you are trying to reach everyone in your marketing no one will see themselves in your copy or design.
You need to know who you serve and are trying to attract in your writing, images, and your in-person networking.
For example, with my niche of mothers of neurodivergent kids, I am able to talk about how isolated and alone they feel. I can talk about how hard it is to interact with the school system, and all of the extra appointments their child might have. These are all specific day-to-day concerns that my niche experiences, and because I know my niche well, I can talk about them in my marketing materials. Whereas, if I mentioned this at the same time that I talked about the anxiety the person might feel when they have to speak in public, it would be harder for the client to see themselves in your marketing and feel like they are understood.
Having a niche also helps you to make progress with SEO because less general keywords are easier to rank for, which means it also helps your clients find you.
It is also much easier to create marketing materials when you know exactly who you are writing to. When you know who you are writing to and you know the client inside and out it’s much easier to write things like blogs and website pages. You know who you are writing to and what they are struggling with.
When it comes to your in-person networking, having a niche is really helpful.
As someone who has a really strong and clear niche, you can tell the people you network with exactly who you serve. This is helpful for them because when they come across a client in your niche, they know exactly who to refer to, you.
It makes it much easier than if you are a generalist because the person you are networking with doesn’t know for sure if the person they are sending will be a good fit. Unless it is someone you know well, they won’t just send you people they aren’t sure you can work with.
Having a Niche also contributes to word of mouth referrals because people know who you work with and who to send to you. When someone says do you know someone affirming that works with anxious kids and you come to their mind they will send them directly to you, instead of having to choose between the 6 child therapists they know.
Finding a niche isn’t just good for your practice. It’s also good for you as a therapist.
How Having a Therapeutic Niche Prevents Burnout
Having a niche is really important when it comes to burnout prevention. As mentioned above, there is a smaller cognitive load on you when you are working with clients with similar issues and concerns using a similar modality.
For example, if you go from seeing a postpartum mother to an angry male, you have to shift between what you know about the two concerns and how to help them. You also might need to change your mannerisms and how you interact. Whereas in my work with mothers of neurodivergent kids, I am mostly working with people who have very similar concerns, so I don’t have to update my knowledge between clients or shift modes.
Also mentioned above, you can focus your research and training. This adds to career satisfaction because if they are about your niche, you are likely to be interested in it and enjoy the training.
On top of that, seeing the same type of person over and over again, you are less often taken by surprise and therefore know what to look for when it comes to crisis situations.
It’s also easier to see similar issues because you begin to develop confidence you wouldn’t have otherwise.
When you feel more confident in your job and you make a bigger impact on your clients, you feel more satisfied. If your niche is a client that you work best with and you are able to get into flow with them, often it means that your job is less likely to drain you and more likely to energize you.
When you make a bigger difference, you are able to feel as though your job is more rewarding and you are more likely to want to do more of it. All of these make burnout less likely.
Nicheing Down Improves Your Wallet
When you niche down, you become better at working in that area. But also because you can focus your research and training, you really do become an expert.
This makes your work more valuable because you are better at what you do. It also makes your work appear more valuable because no matter what your niche is, there are fewer therapists that work with your niche than generalists.
Also, it is well known that specialists are able to charge premium rates because of the extra training and research they put into what they do. In my area of California, therapists who are specialists charge almost one hundred dollars more an hour than the generalists in the area. This means that you can charge more and see fewer clients.
Seeing fewer clients means that you are a better therapist because you are better able to take care of yourself.
You Aren’t the Best Therapist for Everyone
One of the biggest pieces of resistance that many therapists have to a niche is that they feel guilty limiting themselves to just a specific set of clients. Claiming a niche doesn’t mean that other people won’t want to work with you, and it doesn’t mean that that is all you will work.
At the same time, it’s important to recognize that you aren’t capable of being a good therapist for every single client that walks through your door (no one is) no matter what your internship told you or made you do.
Whether or not you decide to niche down or not, this is something that is really important to recognize. I’m going to say it again. You can’t be a good therapist for every client.
All of us, whether psychologists, therapists, or social workers are told how important it is ethically to be aware of the clients we are not qualified to work with. As well as to look out for the clients that are to triggering to be able to help. We also need to pay attention to the clients we don’t work well with.
It’s okay to pass all of those clients on to someone else. It’s okay to even repel these clients while you are attracting the clients you work well with.
By repelling the clients you don’t work well with, you leave room on your caseload for the ones you do work well with. You also leave space for the thterapist that see’s the clients you don’t work well with. They might be the therapist who will be able to help this client the best.
By niching down, you figure out how to help the client you work best with come to you and send the clients you don’t work well with on to the therapist that will be the best fit for them.
Common Misunderstandings About Nicheing Down
Before I finish this blog, I want to cover some other concerns I hear from therapists about niching down;
There aren’t enough people in my niche to make a living- I often hear concerns about there not being enough possible clients in a specific niche. First, with online counseling, our service area covers the whole state. Also, often claiming a niche, actually makes it easier for your ideal client to find you. You can also start with a more broad niche and narrow it as you go if you are particularly worried about this.
I’ll get bored- I often hear from therapists that they don’t want to see the same issue over and over again. They are worried that they will get bored. First, just because you advertise a niche does not mean that that is all will attract or all that you will see. My practice does not only have mothers in it, I have quite a few of other clients that I enjoy working with. My niche has not chased them away.
I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again- If this is a population that you particularly enjoy, I would guess it might not be as bad as you think. Also, you don’t have to niche down in a population; you can niche down in personality characteristics, which can make things more varied but still prevent burnout.
I’m going to leave people out if I niche down- As mentioned above, just because you claim a niche doesn’t mean that you only see those clients. There are therapists out there who do a better job with other types of clients. If a case seems interesting and something you can handle, then take it. But if it isn’t something you can do your best work with, pass the client on to someone who specializes in the issues so that they can get the best care possible.
If You Need Help Finding A Niche
The great thing about a niche is that it doesn’t have to stay the same. You can narrow it down, broaden it, or change it completely whenever you want. You aren’t stuck once you figure out what you want to do.
If I have convinced you to find a niche but you need help figuring out what yours is. I’d love to help you work through that. I’d also love to help you write the copy that attracts those ideal clients once you figure out who they are. Schedule a free discovery call today.