Hi, I’m Natalie (she/her), a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Financial Therapist, and Coach. I created Private Practice Money™ because I believe in financial freedom for all, regardless of identity, immigration status, body size, and ability.
Private Practice Money™ can help you demystify your finances and create a sustainable private practice through coaching, educational workshops, support groups, and more.
FREE YOUR MIND. MIND YOUR MONEY.
FREE YOUR MIND. MIND YOUR MONEY.
Especially for people who are marginalized, creating a sustainable, viable business can be an act of empowerment and rebellion against external and internalized oppression. You shouldn’t have to choose between that freedom and the ability to support yourself financially.
Even for those of us with professional training in the helping fields, we often leave those experiences feeling like anything related to our finances is a mystery.
That’s where Private Practice Money™ comes in – bridging the financial education gap for those of us in private practice.
I transformed my own inner dialogue about finances, late fees, policies, and more. By learning about financial and economic workings and putting those into practice, I changed my business and changed my life.
I’m here to help you do the same.
I’m passionate about financial health and self-care for professionals in private practice because of my own experience working for other mental health professionals — and working for myself.
I’ve been an admin at two different counseling centers.
After graduate school, I went straight into a private practice model internship.
I spent two years working for another agency, then a private practice.
Eventually, I took the jump into my own practice, and I have been fully licensed and working for myself for nine years.
While I have the experience to back up my expertise, the details of my journey are arguably more important. Because I’ve been where you are now — feeling confused, stuck, and ready to make financial changes.
My idea for Private Practice Money™ started long ago when I worked as an administrative assistant for two different counseling centers in the student worker program in my graduate school. As I supported both doctoral and master’s students in training, I couldn’t help but notice the anxiety, frustration, and struggle that surfaced in conversations around money in the clinical setting. Many people were distressed living the grad student life, and many struggled with the act of accepting fees directly from patients, only to turn around and put that fee directly into the center’s safe, which they would likely not see again in any form of financial compensation.
The same money conversations came up over and over again.
How to set fees with a sliding scale.
How to negotiate fees.
How to value your own labor when it costs money to afford the clinical opportunity to learn to practice.
Going into my own private practice internship, I often felt lost when it came to fee setting, holding business and cancellation policies, marketing, and tracking money. I had some helpful clinical supervision but little to no guidance on how to run a business nor how to think about business from a healthy financial mindset.
I remember being told to waive late cancellation fees to show clients that I don’t care about money or offer a freebie as to avoid possible conflict or upset feelings (although that was not always said out loud).
I remember being counseled to reduce my fee when asked or when clients appeared to be struggling to reduce their stress.
While it may have never been explicitly stated, I felt it was expected of me to offer my labor for very little or for free, since I was pre-licensed in traineeship and internship levels. In retrospect, I believe this is a hazing ritual that has no business being practiced in our field. Trainees, associates and anyone practicing at any stage of becoming licensed deserves (and needs) to be paid a living wage.
In my many years of pre-licensed supervision, I was never counseled to make sure I was paying my bills and taking care of myself financially. I was never once told to regularly raise my fee to support the health of my business, nor stay consistent in upholding my policies to as to not enact insecurities or unconscious money biases that might devalue my own labor.
I felt alone, isolated, and confused about how to really believe I could succeed financially and clinically at the same time. It didn’t feel possible to be truly aligned in my values, needs, and clinical approach all at once.
It wasn’t until I found a mentor, who was a newly licensed therapist and had done a business bootcamp and business coaching, that I discovered models for creating a financially sustainable business plan. I reworked all my policies, considered my fee deeply, and started to hold my cancellation policy consistently. I started to welcome dialogue about financial ability or offered referrals out instead of immediately lowering fees when someone asked or said that my stated fee or fee raise was out of their budget. I began a practice of raising my fee annually so that it aligned with my needs, goals and business expense reports instead of my past pattern of increasing the same small amount year over year.
I began to study money, the psychology of money, and biases in clinical work — and investigate social stigmas and oppression as a possible root cause for all these financial struggles.
I started to do work in my own therapy around my financial trauma, which started in childhood. I began to speak to colleagues about my policies and encouraged them to think about money in new ways. I looked for examples of thriving practices and financially successful clinicians.
In 2018, I first started offering workshops with another colleague of mine, who had a finance background.
I started to get excited about supporting a financially-liberated movement in our field.
Then COVID hit, and I began to focus on my clinical work. In the meantime, I took more financial therapy trainings and started marketing myself as a financial therapist in my private practice, The Conscious Partnership™.
Fast forward to today, where I’ve made this dream a reality, as we build a community of professionals in private practice rethinking what we’ve been told about money management and financial health.
I am excited to offer shared places for therapists, coaches, doctors, lawyers, and healing professionals to release self-limiting ways of relating to money – and support people in community to learn and shift this crucially important aspect of private practice.
Are you ready to join this movement?
FREE YOUR MIND. MIND YOUR MONEY.
FREE YOUR MIND. MIND YOUR MONEY.
Curious to learn a little more about my story?
Check out the Private Practice Money™ journey here!
1983
I was born!
1987
My parents divorced. I was raised by a single mom, who was a student, in financial hardship.
1995
I wanted to become a “businesswoman” in downtown San Francisco.
1998
I started working as an admin to a Physical Therapist in private practice.
2001
I started studying clinical psychology.
2009
I started graduate school - and imagining my own private practice.
2010
I worked as an admin for two different counseling centers.
2012
I started my own website, working in a private practice setting.
2015
I launched my own practice! I was fully licensed and found a mentor to help me begin.
2018
I co-led workshops about finances for other therapists in private practice and began focusing on money in my own therapy practice.
2022
I joined the Financial Therapy Association.
2023
I joined the Center for Financial Social Work.
2024
I launched Private Practice Money™!